(Jaxson)

Sunlight filtered through my curtains, waking me from sleep. Birds chirped, the wind ruffled the trees, and Rossini’s William Tell overture played in the background. Cue the scratching record. Sorry folks, no one has that nice a morning. But I was having a truly exceptional morning. Why? Because I spent half the night having wild and mind-blowing sex with a gorgeous redhead. I’m not one to wax poetic, but damn, she is fine. Strike that she better than fine, fine is the poor cousin. As I said, I’m not poetic, so whatever is better than fine, that’s what she is and then some.

I hopped out of bed and entered my bathroom with a spring in my step. I couldn’t keep the grin from my face as I showered. The last month had been the best I could remember. Three days a week, Stella and I spend at either her place or my place screwing our respective brains out. How did I get so lucky? I’ll tell you. Give me a minute to don my mental smoking jacket and light my nonexisting pipe. Ahem. Well, to start with my dear Stella had a Class change a month ago. She was now a Carnal Enchanter. She was now a practitioner of the Race restrictive Sexcraft. I must admit, it’s a very particular bit of magic.

Let me elaborate. Magic in BO was in 4 categories. Elemental, Spatial, Summoning, and Unique. Elemental, as the name suggests, are all spells defensive or offensive that use the six elements: wind, water, earth, fire, light, and dark. Holy and Demonic magic fall into the lights and dark description but they’re slightly different.

Spatial magic is the manipulation of space. Using Spatial magic, you can open portals, generate weapons or materials out of thin air, and use offensive spells that cause damage by canceling matter. Simply put, the spells if they hit you make pieces of you disappear. Very nasty. Imagine those cartoons where a whole gets cut out of but much gorier. The stuff of nightmares, folks.

Summoning magic is much cooler. Summoners can conjure animal, spirit, angelic or demonic familiars that will fight for them. Summoners Classes are very popular. Three in five choose to summon magic.

Unique magic is very obscure. It was a little-known fact that if you knew how to program and could write a very convincing letter, you could make a whole new Magic category in-game. Sexcraft, for instance, was a player-made Magic category. Technically, there are at least ten magic categories in BO, but the game recognizes them as Unique magic so they’re not in the systems default options. Aside from Sexcraft I know or only two others, Technomancy, and Vehicular Summoning. Vehicular summoning is so cool, guys, the summoner can summon carriages, airships, and other Dev-approved vehicles at will. So badass people, I mean it.

As you can imagine, the Uniqueness of Sexcraft was a bit of a learning curve for Stella and I. Example, any physical activity that has sexual intent gains experience towards levels. Using the Unique spells helps them level faster and increases the player’s level. We discovered on our own that different positions in different locations increased her levels much quicker. The downside was the more often you used a certain position with the same lover, the less you level. Eventually, if she really wanted to get up to 90 again, she’d have to sleep with others. The same positions with another person would get more levels.

I can’t say the thought appealed to me in the slightest. However, I would not dwell on it. I’d worry about crossing that bridge when I came to it. Three days a week, we spent playing where's the cannoli. The other four days we spent completing the quest together. We were quite the duo. Sexcraft had upped her DPS, and she had the armor rating to be a tank if she wanted.

Sexcraft was very OP, but it balanced out by the requirements to level. A person had to be a total slut to fully level the Class and all the associated skills. While plenty of people could be promiscuous, today most preferred to be with one partner at a time.

After my shower, I dressed and donned my armor. Today I and my lady friend were going to be hunting Chimera. It wasn’t a quest, but the components would sell at a great price and the pelt and hide would make Harlow thrilled. He could make some good armor with it. Speaking of Harlow, his mentorship was incredible. Yesterday he told the secret to visit other servers. Sorry, context time. Citizens can’t change servers. BO was an open-world game so big it was essentially a planet all its own. There are parts of BO that were still unexplored. There were other servers, each unique, but citizens couldn’t visit them. Regular Players can and do. When Harlow had told me about his visit to the French and China servers, I was first skeptical and then green with envy. Till he explained you had to register with a guild as a player and not a citizen. Doing this tricked the Compu Guard monitoring server traffic.

Why aren’t Citizens allowed to cross servers? One-word Bureaucrats. The one thing that never changes, no matter the time, is the stupidity of politicians. The governments of the world have no authority over the Citizens in BO or any of the other servers. Of course, that burned their asses good. To placate them, the Devs made travel between servers restricted to Players only. Why? Because the idiots in suits couldn’t dictate what you do, what you say, and what you think, then they’d at least dictate where we could and couldn’t go.

The joke was on them. The policy wasn’t strictly enforced. The Devs knew about the loophole, and they didn’t care. If you knew how to beat the system, no one stopped you. You could even buy Universal translator spells from novelty shops so you could check out servers in other countries and not have to learn the language.

I was so going to the French server with Stella. I’d find some way to trick her into a date with me in Neo Paris. Get this: they have three Eiffel Towers. They arranged each so that you could trace a perfect triangle. In the air suspended by cables, was a restaurant accessible by long rope bridges. Twinkling lights ran along the bridges, making the whole thing look magical. Of course, IRL would be an impossibility, but in VR it was a different matter.

Oh yeah, I was defiantly taking her there. My life has recently turned into a walking cliché. I was a major player getting tail left and right. The third best on the server has plenty of money. And now I’m a whipped puppy pretending I’m not because my commitment-phobic girlfriend wasn’t ready to admit to herself. We were a couple. But I loved her. Yup, L-O-V-E, the magical four-letter word. How do I know? I tried to get back with that sexy little milk maid. The sex was wonderful, but it did nothing for me now. I kept wishing it was Stella. I explained my feeling to the poor girl, expecting her to get mad and hurt me. She was happy for me and wished me the best of luck. I’d monitor her. If she needed anything, I’d help her for free.

I know I have a heart of gold. It’s so hard being me. The walk to Stella’s house was uneventful. I stopped to admire her house. It was very cozy, and I loved that she was a LOTR fan. Such a great classic. Totally low rez but hey retro was still in.

I knocked on her door and waited. She didn’t keep me waiting long. She was dressed in a blue high-slit dress with a sapphire necklace. Her hair was in a long red braid. She looked sexy and ready for a fight. I eyed her up and down and gave her an appreciative whistle.

“You are looking fine today.”

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She rolled her eyes at me. “You say that every day.”

“I have yet to see you looking anything but fine. If you want tomorrow, you can try dressing in sackcloth and wear ash on your head.”

She looked at me in horror. “Ew, no, I’m sorry, but that will not happen.”

I shrugged. “You’re the one complaining.”

“I was not complaining. But as compliments go you could try being more creative.”

I smirked. “Okay, how about this? Oh, baby, you look even better than a pornstar, in fact, let's go inside and fuck till the cows come home.”

She gave me a scathing look. “You’re such a pig.”

I snickered. “Okay, I’m sorry. Come on we have a Chimera to hunt.”

She grunted and fell into step with me. “I called Harlow. He’ll meet us at the gate.”

I raised a brow at her. “What, you think we need help?”

“Duh, Chimera’s are Boss-level monsters. You're good and I’m good, but we need help. Harlow has experience hunting Chimeras, and he has tools that can help.”

I shrugged. “Okay. I don’t mind hunting with him.”

She smirked. “Good.”

We chatted about the new massage parlor that opened in town. They were good, and we were swapping reviews. That’s what we talked about most days. Swapping experiences. We liked most of the same things.

I couldn’t be sure since I don’t pretend to understand women. But I think she enjoyed spending time with me. I loved spending time with her. Turned out we both loved strategy-based games. If we weren’t too tired after sex, we’d make ourselves comfortable and play a game of chess. Currently, we were getting used to the game GO. It was challenging in a new way. Since neither of us played it before, we were evenly matched.

Stella was wrapping up a story about some ass hat who put the moves on her a few years ago when she was in a party with her when I saw Harlow waiting for us up ahead. I waved, and he waved back.

He chose steampunk armor for the occasion. The body armor was bronze, it covered his torso, his forearms, and his legs. On his back was a rectangular box. On the box were many dials, levers, and gauges. His headgear fascinated me. It wasn’t quite a headband, but it had a pair of bifocals.

He had the same rifle he had the last time we had been hunting. The scope was a long tube of bronze with crystal lenses. He looked cool. Something told me this was going to be a fun hunt. I bumped fists with him.

“You ready to kill a Chimera old man?”

He snorted. “Just as long as you don’t get in my way, kid.”

“Enough boys. Keep your head in the game.” Stella chided us.

We split the toll three ways and stepped through the portal. We exited in the giant wood. The trees were huge. There were sequoias, of course, but all the other trees were just as big. Oak, fir, pine, and willows.

Chimeras weren’t on my list of monsters to hunt regularly. But Harlow seemed to know where to go. Stella and I followed him without a word. The monsters in these woods were levels forty to fifty except for the Boss. The Chimera would be level 80. Since Harlow and I were level 90, the monsters wouldn’t bother us. Stella was level 20 but since she was with us, they’d leave her alone too.

Harlow stopped walking in a large clearing. He set the box down and fiddled with the gauges. Two long arms detached themselves from the box and buried themselves in the ground. Harlow stood then and faced us.

“Here’s the plan. Jaxson, as soon as the Chimera arrives, you draw Agro and keep him distracted. Stella, as soon he draws Agro silence the goat’s head. I’ll kill the serpent's tail. Now, remember you two, we must do this in order. First the serpent tails, it’s quick and poisonous, then the goat's head spits fire and other elemental magic. Then all we must do is fight the lion and whittle down its HP.”

For a moment, all I could do was stand there, my mouth agape. Harlow reminded me of a Guild Leader. He spoke clearly and with authority. He exuded power and confidence. I shook my head and almost saluted him. I stopped myself and instead gave him a “Yes sir” instead.

I equipped my paladin’s armor and tower shield. Stella went to stand near Harlow, her staff at the ready. I pushed down, the feeling of jealousy got my head on straight. This was no time to let my emotions run wild. I nodded at Harlow, signaling my readiness.

He nodded back, placed a wooden whistle to his lips, and blew. No sound came out, but I had a feeling it was like a dog whistle. I’d seen something similar once before players called them monster lures. They summoned specific monsters to you if there were any in the area.

A thunderous roar echoed through the trees. The sound sent a shiver up my spine. Never dying in-game meant I never had to fear permanent death. But all citizens and Players fear death. Why? Because dying hurt. Getting mauled, burned, or having your head ripped off hurt like hell. Unless you’re a masochist, no one wanted to go through that kind of pain.

Back to the matter at hand. The nicest thing I could say about Chimeras is that they at least aren’t very graceful. I heard the beast long before I saw him. I didn’t have to guess where he was going to emerge and had taken the defensive stance. The Chimera had the head and body of a twenty-foot lion. On its back was a large goat's head that bleated and spat fire. Its tail was the head and body of a snake. The snake’s scales were blood red, and I could see a pair of massive fangs protruding from the top of its open mouth, looking for someone to impale.

I took in a deep breath and bashed my shield with the hilt of my sword. The move automatically taunts foes. All six of the Chimeras eyes focused on me. I had a moment of panic. Wouldn’t you? But I held my ground. The lion head roared and swiped a claw that I deflected with my shield. The snakehead loomed high, hissing and bobbing, getting ready to strike. The snakehead exploded in a shower of blood, followed by the report of a rifle. The goat's head that had been bleating loudly suddenly went silent.

In the next moment, a pair of cables embedded themselves in the Chimera's hips. The Chimera turned to swipe at the cables, but they held strong. I took that moment to move in for a strike. My blade struck true leaving a deep gash in its fur before I dashed out of its reach. I kept the lion's head focused on me giving Harlow the chance to put a couple of bullets into the goat's head's skull.

Noticed Stella move into position out of the corner of my eye. The Chimera noticed too. In a flash of movement, it turned and pounced on Stella. It knocked her to the ground the winded. The lion's head opened his maw and descended upon her.

Not on my watch. I moved the moment it noticed her. I shield bashed the head away from her and swung my blade, gouging out one of its eyes. I didn’t relent. I was pissed. I unleashed a series of combos on it. Shield bash, slash, dodge, shield bash, stab, slash, slash, slash. The lion’s head was a bloody, unrecognizable mess. It tried to run away, but the cables prevented that.

Harlow chose that moment to drop out of the sky plunging his spear deep into the Chimeras skull. The Chimera let out a loud high-pitched cry before the body collapsed dead. I ran to Stella and gathered her in my arms. She was shivering in a way I’d never seen her do before. BO players may lower their pain levels, making death an inconvenience. Citizens can’t do that. Death is painful and often traumatizing. Being eaten alive was some of the worst ways to die for citizens.

I pressed my lips to her forehead. Her arms came around me. I held her while Harlow’s box grew wiry legs and multiple arms. The box then skinned and butcher the Chimera before storing everything. Nifty little contraption.

When the box machine finished its work, Harlow came over to us. “You two should head home. Come over tomorrow to get your share of the loot.”

I nodded, and Stella mumbled something. I helped her to her feet and used my call home spell. From there, I walked her to her house. She was quiet the entire time. Stella wasn’t chatty, but she was too silent. But from what I earned about her over the past month, she rarely fought monsters she couldn’t handle.

When we came to her door, I rubbed her arms. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I turned to leave but was stopped when she slid her hand into mine. I stopped to look at her. She was blushing and not looking at me, but I heard her murmur. “Stay.”

She pulled me into her home, and I went willingly. I let her lead me into her bedroom, where our lips melded. Things were different. The heat and rush we usually enjoyed were gone. In its place was a low simmer that grew. It was unrushed, not hurried. For the first time, we made love rather than fuck in a passionate haze.

Our bodies moved together in slow unison. When she reached her climax, I followed her over that edge into sweet bliss. When I moved to get leave, which was customary, she stopped me and pulled me into her arms.

“Stay,” she murmured into my ear.

I didn’t argue. I wrapped my arms around her and held her to me. She fell asleep in my arms and I followed her, lulled by her soft breathing. For the first time, we slept together in the same bed. I couldn’t have been happier.