Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Game
🕑 Added 2021-08-21 05:37:00 +0000 UTCTaylor Hebert jumped and nearly dropped the sheet of cookies she'd just finished taking out of the oven when the doorbell rang. She quickly set the tray on the top of the stove then turned the oven off and headed for the door, grabbing her father's baseball bat on the way on the off chance that it was Emma or one of her friends. 'If this is a prank, I'm going to beat the shit out of you.'
She took a quick peek through the spyhole at the delivery girl then a longer look when she realized the young woman dressed like a UPS driver carrying a microwave sized package had purple skin and glowing blue eyes. "Just a second," Taylor said as she opened the door as far as the chain would let her. "Do you have the right address?"
"I'm hoping, this is the last Hebert house on the list, please tell me there's a Taylor Herbert here?" she asked hopefully.
"I'm Taylor, what is it?" Taylor asked, wondering if her grandmother had forgotten to write the full address on the package as she wasn't expecting anything from anyone else.
The delivery girl relaxed. "Judging from the package and the fact that it's from Hades Incorporated, I'm guessing it's your new gaming system."
Taylor blinked then quickly opened the door for the delivery girl. "I've been waiting for this for months!" she squealed, her worries about Emma pranking her forgotten.
"You and everyone else," the delivery girl said with a smile as she handed Taylor the package. "I just need a signature."
"Sure, no problem," Taylor replied as she walked over and set the package on the coffee table then dashed back over to sign the woman's clipboard.
The delivery girl smiled as Taylor glanced at the glammered contract and signed it without reading it. "I've heard the game is pretty sick, real cutting edge virtual reality and everything."
"I'm just looking forward to playing with the real money auction house," Taylor admitted as she handed the clipboard back to the delivery girl, thinking about the various ads she'd seen for beta testers for the new virtual reality game.
"Best of luck," the delivery girl said as she turned and headed back down the stairs, making sure to avoid the broken step, 'you're going to need it Skitter.'
Taylor closed the door and quickly ran over to unwrap the package, ecstatic that she still had most of Christmas break to play with her new game. "This is going to be awesome!" she squealed excitedly as she unwrapped the package. "I just need to find some epic loot and I'll make enough to cover the books the trio ruined."
She pulled the expensive looking headset out of the box then picked up the World of Whorecraft memory stick from the foam container and slotted it into the headset, her gaze skipping past the actual words printed on the memory stick. "World of Warcraft, here we come!" she squealed as she put the headset on then flipped the button, figuring she'd set up her character while she worked on putting the cookies on the racks.
"What the hell?" she sputtered when she found herself floating in a black void, fairly sure the augmented reality device shouldn't be able to hijack her brain. Taylor blinked when she realized that she hadn't actually signed up to beta test anything. "Shit!" she cursed when she realized she'd obviously been mastered or maybe she was just having a really strange dream, except everything was a bit too clear.
"Greetings and welcome to the World of Whorecraft Beta test!" a female voice announced cheerfully.
"Where the hell am I?" Taylor demanded, hoping she'd heard the voice wrong.
"Thank you for signing up to beta test the game, Hades Industries appreciates your devotion to making the world a better place. Due to the nature of the beta testing process, various options will be randomly assigned and other options will be disabled," the voice explained.
"Great, it's a recording," Taylor muttered, wondering how hard it would be to track Uber and Leet down and break their kneecaps if this ended up being their fault. She stared at the floating windows that appeared showing various options for generating characters. 'Maybe I'm just going insane.'
"Normally, this would be nothing more than an electronic diversion but because of various deadlines, some of the design team were forced to sell their souls to finish the project on time," the voice said, sounding slightly apologetic but still far too cheerful.
Taylor snorted. "Sell their souls?"
"Don't worry, most of the lead designers were smart enough to have the interns sign the contract which means there will be plenty of people to work on the various expansions," the voice 'assured' her.
"Great," Taylor muttered as she glanced over the race options for the perverted game, fairly sure she might as well play along until she figured out how to escape as she was just floating in a void with the screens.
"Due to the nature of the world and the deal the designers made with the demon, Player characters are immortal which means you won't be able to escape by dying, at least not permanently. On the upside, you're an immortal with the blood of kings, okay not really on the blood of kings bit though I guess it's not out of the question depending on which options you select."
"That's not as reassuring as you think," Taylor muttered as she worked on comparing the various races, fairly sure the voice was messing with her but not sure what else to do. '2% improved stats for humans? I'm not sure that's worth it compared to an extra profession for dwarves.'
"Now I'm sure you're wondering how you avoid being trapped in a nightmare for eternity, I know I would be. The answer is simple and yet surprisingly complicated, you need to be one of the first one hundred people to beat the last boss. Future expansions will have additional chances to escape in much the same way. Once you escape, I'll remove any negative traits you don't want and allow you to keep your new abilities," the voice explained.
"Great," Taylor muttered, not sure how she was going to beat a bunch of actual gamers to the last boss so she could get home. "On the upside, powers. Okay, I just need to stack things in my favor or at least make something reasonable…" she trailed off as she glanced over to the window with her character sheet on it and saw the rather extensive list of allowed bondage items people could use on her if they managed to defeat her. "What the fuck?! I'm fifteen!"
"Normally, there would be all sorts of ethical issues with sending a teenage girl into a world filled with perverted monsters and asshole players but hey, that's what waivers are for," the voice said cheerfully.
"Waivers? I didn't sign shit! Let me go!" Taylor demanded, scowling when the voice didn't respond. 'It was worth a shot,' she thought as she glanced at her point total. 'Okay, I have a bunch of points, I just need to avoid dying which means being sneaky and finding people to help that aren't insane.'
Taylor took a breath then let it out as she tried to calm down. 'Okay, let's work through this logically, I'll probably need at least a couple of months to hit max level unless I can find a way to cheat. Okay, Alchemy doesn't look particularly impressive, just potions and elixirs, nothing I couldn't buy or at least it doesn't say only the alchemist can use it. Blacksmithing probably has something that only blacksmiths can use, same with Enchanting and Engineering is basically just for Engineers if I remember what Greg was saying about Warcraft, of course that's Warcraft, not whatever the hell this is.'
She looked through the rest of the professions, slightly annoyed that she could only pick one or two then smiled when she saw the Archeology entry. "Unearth ancient spellbooks, weapons or lost information or cursed items that I can probably break with enchanting. That seems useful, except for the fact that I'll need to run around ancient ruins."
Taylor glanced over the collection of perks, curious what else she could spend her points on. 'Yeah, that's what I'm talking about,' she mused when she saw the Master Artisan perk that would let her pick up another profession and mix it with the rest of her professions. Okay, that would give me three profession skills if I started as a dwarf. Archeology, Enchanting and something for armor, I should probably figure out what I want for a class.'
She was just about to look up at the class screen when she noticed the option to be a prestige class and mix two other classes. 'Okay, that should confuse people and if I'm looking up ancient spells with archeology, I'm probably not missing out on spells if I combine mage with something.'
Taylor's lips curled up in a slight grin when she noticed a 25% experience booster that she could take four times to double her experience gain. "Okay, that's a start. Now I just need to figure out which class I want and look through the rest of the perks and quirks if I need more points," she muttered as she selected the prestige class option and looked over the base classes she could combine into something interesting. 'Warrior? Yeah, hard pass, anyone that doesn't pick up magic when they have a chance is an idiot, same with rogue. Necromancer? The PRT would kill me and I doubt Dad would be happy.'
It didn't take her all that long to narrow things down to hunter and mage, mostly because she liked the idea of having pets and tossing magic around.
Taylor played around with her options for abilities until she got a collection of options that she could live with. 'Bows and swords, no traps or improved armor from the hunter side but I'll be able to learn magic and train creatures even if I won't get some of the nicer tricks a mage would have. Is that worth the points?'
Taylor considered the answer for half a minute, fairly sure she could duplicate the trap shit with spells or traps from an engineer. She didn't really care about the lack of armor, mostly because she was planning on enchanting the hell out of her clothes and staying behind a meat shield. She hit accept then went back to looking through the perk section, trying to figure out how to get the most out of her points.
0o0o0
Taylor was fairly sure she was making a mistake with her build but most of the options for more points were horrifying or at least creepy as hell. She was already stuck with obscene armor because of the beta test, she didn't need to be able to stick a bowling pin in various holes without issues or personality alterations or any of the rest of the really twisted flaws that she was trying not to think about. 'If I ever find the son of a bitch that tossed me into this nightmare, I'm going to shank him,' she complained to herself as she glanced over her alternate character/trusted friend's sheet one last time to make sure she hadn't missed anything.
'Experience, gold and drop boosters, three professions and a Death Warlock class that is disturbing, not to mention gear that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie, yeah, I'm as ready as I'm going to be.' Taylor hit the accept button before she could convince herself that she needed to change something.
"Congratulations on finishing your character, your player mansion has been randomly assigned to Darkshire, you may change the location later for a 'nominal' fee," the voice said as the map vanished, leaving Taylor in darkness.
Taylor blinked as she stumbled out of a weird portal in a stone tower filled with books. "Huh."
"First time through the portal?" the pink haired gnome asked as she studied the strange blue skinned girl wearing rags that clung to her large breasts.
"Yeah," Taylor replied as she looked down at her breasts, not particularly impressed by the lack of coverage the rough linen sack she was wearing as a dress provided, mostly because of the sheer number of holes in it. 'This would be less embarrassing if I was naked, probably.'
"Don't worry, you're not the first person to stumble out of the portal with no idea how you got here. Welcome to the Stormwind mage's tower, if you need to learn spells, I can help you out for a nominal fee. Of course, it looks like you might be short of funds, I suggest heading to the woods and killing some bandits, they normally have pocket change," the gnome explained as she gestured towards the ramp that went down to the street.
"Thanks, I'll come back when I have some gold," Taylor assured the mage then headed down the ramp, not sure how to feel about the fact that she could feet the carpet and her annoyingly itchy dress. 'Yeah, if I'm not in another world, I'm using the best VR gear I've never heard of.'
She wasn't sure she bought the voice's story about demons but something strange was certainly going on which meant that she might as well take things seriously. She blushed when she came around the curve and saw a naked blood elf girl kneeling in front of a purple skinned elf girl with glowing green eyes that was moaning softly because of her partner's tongue.
The purple elf turned and smiled at Taylor. "Don't mind us, Sarah's an exhabitionist."
"Any idea what's going on?" Taylor asked, trying not to stare at the naked girl that was being tongue fucked.
"Not a clue," the elf admitted. "I was just hoping for some fun in a virtual world, I wasn't expecting to get dropped into a knockoff version of Warcraft."
The void elf extracted her overly long tongue from her girlfriend and smiled at Taylor. "It makes me wish I'd grabbed the phone, I wasn't expecting to need it, you know?"
"I wanted to be able to tell people I hadn't been kidnapped," Taylor explained as she tried to figure out how to open her inventory where her purchased items should be. 'This should have come with an instruction book,' she grumbled mentally as she poked at the various mental switches she could 'feel' in her mind when she thought about her abilities.
"You get kidnapped by demons often?" Sarah asked as she stood up.
Taylor shook her head. "First time but I live in Brockton Bay, it's not the safest place in the world."
"I sort of blew the voice off as part of the game until I got here and realized that I knew how to cast spells and didn't have an interface," the elf admitted.
Taylor sighed in relief when she flipped one of the mental switches and an inventory window appeared in front of her. Her gaze jumped away from the smartphone in the first slot when the creepy alien creatures in the next couple slots started twisting and writhing in a way that looked far more disturbing than the pictures in the character generator had led her to believe. 'Great, that's creepy as hell.' She glanced at the black leather shoulder bag she was assuming was her bag of holding then looked back at the elves. "I'm not asking for secrets or anything but have you compared your flaws or defeated status timer?"
"Yeah, mine's an hour, Sarah's timer is thirty minutes," the elf replied with a shrug.
"We also started with different bondage items," Sarah added.
Taylor smiled when she read the note on the phone about it being soulbound so that it couldn't be stolen and would return to her inventory if she lost it. She pulled her phone out of her inventory. "I don't suppose you'd like to make a trade?"
"What type of trade?" Sarah asked.
"I'll let you use my phone to make a call, if you let me capture you," Taylor blurted out the last part, the tips of her ears going a darker blue from embarrassment.
Sarah snickered. "Let me guess, you grabbed the Whorelord perk?"
"And Bondage Mastery," Taylor admitted, seeing no reason to tell them about her perk that let her drain experience from defeated enemies as she doubted they had much and wasn't planning on using it. "I figured I could pay people with a low defeat timer to let me capture them before they go to sleep."
The void elf stared at Taylor for a couple of seconds then sighed. "I wish I'd thought of that. I skipped it because it doesn't work on NPCs and it felt creepy as hell."
"Sounds fun. Tell you what, I'll let you capture me and stick a bunch of bondage gear on me if you let Tiffany make a phone call and parade me around the town on a leash," Sarah offered.
"If everything goes well, I'll let you capture me later," Tiffany offered, not particularly worried about the blushing girl taking advantage of her.
"If everything goes well, I wouldn't mind making it a regular thing," Sarah said, figuring she could probably get paid for being naughty and having fun while making some useful contacts.
"Deal," Taylor handed the void elf her phone then focused on the weird toggle in her mind that she was reasonably sure connected to her ability to summon bondage gear. 'Okay, the easiest way to capture people is to hand them a leash.' She focused on what she wanted and flipped the switch. She stared at the hot pink plastic dog collar with a cheap looking plastic leash that appeared with a puff of purple smoke. "I'm going to have to work on that."
Sarah laughed as she grabbed the collar and quickly put it on. "That's perfect."
"You're insane," Tiffany muttered as she dialed her daughter's phone number, wanting to make sure no one declared her dead or missing.
Taylor grabbed the handle of the leash and nearly dropped it when she heard a trumpet play four notes in a row. She focused on her mental switches, flipped the switch that 'felt' like a character sheet then flipped the next one when the first one brought up her profession window. 'Oops, wrong one.' She mentally labeled the switches then looked at the level entry for her character sheet.
'Holy shit, level five from capturing one person? That probably beats messing with the starting zones,' she mused, thinking about what Greg had said about multiplayer games the last time she'd been stuck in a group with him. 'If I ever get back, I'm sending him a care package,' she frowned as she realized he'd probably take it the wrong way, 'anonymously.'
"How much experience did you get?" Sarah asked excitedly as she played with her collar.
"Enough to make it worth it," Taylor replied as she conjured a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. "Hands."
"No problem officer," Sarah teased as she held out her hands, a smirk on her face that made Taylor's blush worse.
Taylor put the cuffs on Sarah and grinned when she got most of a level. 'Yeah, so much for fighting monsters.' She concentrated and conjured a ball and chain that reminded her of old movies.
"I know it sounds insane," Tiffany offered, her voice loud enough that the other two could hear her despite the fact that she'd walked over to one of the benches in the park area to call her daughter.
"Butt plug or chastity belt?" Sarah asked with a grin after Taylor attached the shackle to her leg.
Taylor grinned when she heard another trumpet blast, letting her know that she'd managed to get another level, if only barely. "Might as well, I got less experience for the second item but it's probably still worth it."
Sarah raised her eyebrows when Taylor conjured a cheap looking butt plug. "Do you even know how to use that?"
"In theory," Taylor admitted.
"Yeah, let's cover the basics," Sarah said, figuring she might as well teach the girl before she hurt someone unintentionally.
0o0o0
"Don't stay up late, we have a charity event in the morning," Carol called out as she walked past Amy's door.
"Whatever," Amy muttered as she put her VR headset on, flopped down on her bed and flipped the switch, looking forward to a couple of hours of mindless porn. She blinked as she found herself stumbling out of the portal in the wizard tower. "What the fuck?" she sputtered when she realized she could feel the stone floor with her bare feet and she couldn't see her HUD or under the helmet's visor which meant something was seriously weird.
"Let me guess, you're new?" the pink haired gnome asked.
"Sure, let's go with that," Amy muttered as she ran her fingers over the rough cloth bag her character was using as a dress, more than a little disturbed by the fact that she could feel her dress.
"I'd tell you to buy some spells but you're not a mage," the gnome said as she gestured towards the ramp going down. "You just missed another demon girl, best of luck."
"Thanks," Amy muttered as she headed down the ramp, hoping that someone had a better idea what was going on than she did. She focused on the strange mental switches she could feel in the back of her head that weren't connected to her power. 'Great, I'm either losing my mind or someone swapped my headset.'
She mentally flipped one of the switches and stared at the character sheet that appeared in a floating window. "Yeah, back to level one and my stuff is gone," she muttered as she walked out of the ramp and saw a handcuffed mostly naked elf wearing a decent looking corset and a chastity belt talking with a young demon girl. "What's with the upgrade to the system?"
Taylor turned and looked at the busty demon girl with glowing blue eyes. "Hell if I know, I was expecting a simple augmented reality game, instead I find myself in a black void and a voice is telling me that I'm stuck in a perverted nightmare unless we're one of the first one hundred people to beat the last boss."
"Right and you expect me to believe that?" Amy asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Not particularly," Taylor admitted. "I figured Leet got creative or maybe a cape triggered with a shaker power or maybe I'm just going insane."
Amy shook her head. "I can't see Leet managing to pull this off, his devices are unstable and nothing has exploded."
"Fair point," Taylor admitted, thinking about some of Leet's more memorable videos. "Wait, you said upgrade, does that mean you've played before?"
"I've been playing for the last week or at least I've been playing a virtual game..." Amy trailed off when a naked elf walked over holding a smartphone. "Is that a phone?"
"It's Skitter's," Tiffany said as she handed it back to Taylor. "Thanks for letting me use it to call my daughter, I don't need her to organize a manhunt when I miss our weekly call."
"You can use it to make actual calls?" Amy asked in surprise.
"Yep," Tiffany said as she walked over and played with Sarah's ears, knowing that she liked showing off.
"Can I borrow it?" Amy asked hopefully, wanting to make sure Vicky didn't do anything drastic like put on her helmet or charge off to attack one of the gangs for stealing her sister.
"That depends, how long is your defeat timer?" Taylor asked.
"Why?" Amy asked as she flipped the mental switch and summoned her succubus.
Taylor blinked as she realized the blonde haired girl with glowing blue eyes and horns that the demonic girl had just summoned looked like Glory Girl. "One of my abilities lets me get experience from defeating people."
"And sticking bondage gear on them?" Amy asked with a grin as she checked over her sheet to make sure she hadn't lost any of her starting abilities.
"Yeah," Taylor agreed with a blush.
"Let me guess, this isn't your normal cup of tea?" Amy asked, noticing the girl staring at her succubus.
"Not really, I was expecting a virtual game of Warcraft. I just figured I'd take a chance and see if I can pay people with a short defeated timer once a day to let me stick some bondage gear on them so I can grab some easy levels," Taylor explained, not sure she should be explaining but figuring she was going to need friends.
Amy shook her head. "Sorry, my counter is a week and you can't level while you have the defeated status."
"Makes sense. Do you have any useful professions?" Taylor asked as she handed the phone to Amy.
"Alchemy and fishing which includes cooking," Amy offered.
"That reminds me, the mansion comes with an herb garden and fishing pond, can I talk you into harvesting everything and making potions and some food?" Taylor asked hopefully.
"Deal," Amy agreed as she started to dial Vicky's number, figuring she might as well take the chance to make a friend and work on leveling up her alchemy and fishing skills while she had the chance to pick up some rare ingredients for free.
"Cool," Taylor said, looking forward to having some help with the 'game'.
"How did you get this number?" Vicky asked, curious how someone she didn't recognize had gotten her personal number.
"It's me, I'm borrowing someone's phone," Amy replied. "Have you left for your date yet?"
"I was just about to, why?" Vicky asked as she headed towards Amy's room to check on her.
"Can you check my VR unit to make sure I'm not sprawled on my bed like an idiot?" Amy asked, curious what Vicky would find and half hoping that she was just unconscious.
Vicky opened the door and looked at the VR headset sitting on her sister's empty bed. "Funny, where are you?"
"Shit, I was sort of hoping I was just unconscious," Amy grumbled. "I might have gotten pulled into a twisted pocket dimension or something."
"Or something?" Vicky demanded, starting to freak out a bit as Amy's sense of humor tended towards the sarcastic rather than practical jokes. "Where are you?"
"A twisted version of Stormwind," Amy replied as she looked around the small park they were in. "I put my headset on and I ended up falling out of a portal, everything feels real."
"In other words, I just have to put the headset on and I'll be able to find you, right?" Vicky asked.
Amy shook her head. "Sure, if you want to get trapped."
"I'm not going to leave you in some twisted dimension without rescuing you," Vicky argued.
"At least tell Carol first," Amy said, fairly sure Carol would kill her if she caused Vicky to vanish.
"Fine, but you get to explain things to Mom," Vicky said as she headed back to the living room to tell her mother that Amy was missing.
"Thanks," Amy lied, not sure how she was supposed to explain getting lost and fairly sure Carol would blame her for getting kidnapped.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
No, Percy isn't going to make an appearance.
MND
So, Blizzard, the Builder's Black Magic, and how Hades? Is Percy Jackson going to show up? lol
Mist of Shadows
I can understand the frustration.
James Long
On the one hand, this is awesome and I want more. On the other, you have a bunch of other stories in progress that are also awesome that I want more of. I don't know what to encourage you to write more of. I guess I'll just say to continue with writing awesome things.
