Play The Game Ch 01

I haven't written anything in ages, and I hope you enjoy this! The basic setting is a recurring fantasy of mine: I think I like it more than straight-up fantasy.

*****

An interdimensional RPG game had seemed like such a cool idea. You stepped through a doorway and found yourself in another world where the rules of this one didn't apply – it had been specially constructed to function just like a silly fantasy adventure game. You could carry up to 100 pounds in your pack, only really feeling one in ten. You could control your own appearance at the beginning. Participants fought monsters and performed actual magic. Pain only smarted, and if you died you ended up resurrected at the nearest temple.

It was the last bit that had made Katrina sign the long waiver agreeing that everything that went on was part of the game, not a criminal act, and nothing to do with the gamerunners – because nobody could kill or really hurt her, and nothing she owned in the game was real, so why should she hold them liable? But that had been very short-sighted.

She realized this several days into the game. The first day she'd joined a group of other newbs, bought the cheapest gear, and got a quest in a tavern. The second day they all started traveling through the woods. The third day they ran across a field of Clinging Vines that just shouldn't have been placed so near to a path for a starter quest, in all fairness, and Katrina, hoping to just get one of the little ones on the edge for some XP, ended up hanging in midair by one wrist. Very quickly, she was pulled deeper into the patch, her other wrist grabbed and held up, and more tendrils starting to wrap around her ankles.

"Let me go!" she shouted. "Guys, cut me out of this!" To her surprise, they stood there, expressions ranging from shocked to bored.

"Hang on," said one in the middle, "if we go after you, they're just going to get all of us. What's the point in that?"

"We can't just let her wait here until she dies ..." said another. "Right?"

"The rulebook says if you're Entangled for more than six hours, you automatically die," said Mel, who had inserted herself into a leadership role and was now one of the bored ones. "Tanya's right, there's no point. Katrina doesn't have anything necessary in her pack that we can't replace at the next town." She turned, and the rest followed her.

"You can't just leave me here!" Katrina insisted.

Mel looked back over her shoulder. "Sorry. Don't make such a stupid move next time." They'd vanished from sight within thirty seconds.

The Clinging Vines weren't exactly sentient. They weren't trying to do anything, they just moved around semi-randomly as far as she could tell. The ones on her arms moved her slowly up and down, while the vines on her ankles were more independent, swirling her legs in tight circles and figure eights. It wasn't

personal

, she told herself, when a couple more started to move over her torso, pressing against her breasts and reminding her of how she'd saved her money by not buying underwear. (The rulebook said most gamers didn't bother!) They bumped around, running over her shirt ... and then one accidentally slid into the armhole. Not only was its roughness brushing over her bare skin really, y'know, but as a couple more followed it and none of them seemed to change the way they moved much now that they were inside, they started to pull on the seams as they tried to move down her body. Meanwhile, more were sliding up her legs – although her skirt was loose enough that it at least wasn't in danger. Just as two of the lower vines reached the top of her legs, her shirt tore down the sides and hung off her shoulders. Another vine managed to slide up and out of the neckline, then moved swiftly down, pulling the cloth against the back of her neck before the shoulder seams gave out.

As the scraps of fabric fluttered slowly down to the ground, one of the vines slithering around the tops of her thighs meandered inward. The end just brushed her pussy lips, making her tense a moment, but then it curved down ... only for the part of the vine that formed the curve to move up again, pressing insistently against her. Rather than trying to go in, it just rubbed back and forth with alternating jerky and smooth movements. Another, thicker vine suddenly wrapped around her neck, one loop coming up and getting caught in her mouth, tightening and settling between her teeth like a bit. One of the vines exploring her chest was slowly encircling her right breast, squeezing it softly while another slid over its now more sensitive flesh.

Voices. Footsteps. Voices! People were coming! Katrina let out a garbled yell around the vine in her mouth as the gamers came into view, before remembering that she was half-naked. But it would be worth a little embarrassment to get free, right?

Three disparate figures came into view: a well-formed, if stereotypical party. There was a hulking orc warrior, a lithe rogue, and a female elf sorcerer, and standing there and staring at her. She shifted in the vines, wishing she could cover herself, but pulling at her wrists did nothing but cause some jiggling.

"Just a noob," said the orc. "Let's go." Katrina tried to argue behind her gag, but of course none of her words made it out intelligibly.

The elf was assessing her body critically, but didn't say anything. Somehow it was more embarrassing to be seen like this, being molested accidentally by a plant and desperately needing rescue from these high-level players, than to be fully naked and running around on the ground.

"We could use her," she finally said. "Like a canary in a mine – send her ahead of us to test for traps, carry extra items, that kind of thing."

"Dude, what is wrong with you?" the rogue burst out. "I mean, sure, have her carry stuff, but there are some

way

more interesting things we could do to use her."

That was the moment it occurred to Katrina that maybe the waiver was some real serious business. Nothing was a crime in Terra Incognita. Nothing at all. She struggled harder, but it still didn't do anything.

"Nice," commented the orc. "Yeah, okay. I'm for it. I picked up some cuffs in the last dungeon run, it'd be cool to try them out. Kelevana?"

The elf frowned in assessment, then tilted her head. "If you guys want to quit this quest and just sandbox this time, it could be fun."

Once the decision was made, the orc started hacking away at the vines. Katrina wasn't experienced enough yet to tell what level he was, but as it took him less than a minute to defeat the whole patch, she knew he was much, much higher than her, and so were the others, probably. As the vines went limp and she dropped to the ground, landing flat on the tatters of her shirt, the rogue clapped a cuff on each of her wrists and pulled them around behind her, where they somehow fastened together; when he put another pair on her ankles, they were left unfastened.

"Hang on, I forgot, I have the

best

thing." Kelevana pulled off her pack and dug in it for a moment, then held out a worn leather collar triumphantly. "Jack, put this on her." The rogue obeyed, buckling it on at the base of her neck, below the vines, and Kelevana put a small copper ring on her own finger. "Stand up."

Somehow, Katrina was forced to get to her feet – though it was tough with her hands trapped behind her.

"Does she have to do everything you say?"

"No, it's really specific – it's a Collar of Directional Instruction. I got it from this twelfth-level wizard who was trying to make the person in the collar mimic the movements of the person with the ring."

"Why?" the orc asked. Kelevana shrugged.

"Hell if I know. He's one of those guys that spends months at a time here. Since it didn't do what he wanted, he gave it to me for a hundred gold. A steal, really." A hundred! Katrina'd started out the game with six.

This was ridiculous. She tried to explain that she wasn't worth their time, but the vine stopping her voice had been wrapped enough times around her neck and head that when it was severed, it had stuck, so the words just came out as a long, mumbled, "Aaaaah," with different inflections.

"Harkash, put your extra armor in her pack," Jack suggested. "She's a level one, she probably has nothing in there." They were just going to ignore her attempted verbal defenses and use her like a ... a donkey! The orc's armor was heavy, taking her inventory up a weight class so that she felt a slight strain in her shoulders.

Kelevana snapped her fingers. "Walk towards us," she commanded, and as the group set off again, she had no choice but to keep pace with all three adventurers, who immediately began talking about their lives outside of the game, ignoring her.