Kyle was relaxing in his room after everyone left, feeling drained. Playing Kylie wasn’t so bad anymore, since he’d figured out how to get a few skills. He had earned his quarterstaff and tailoring skill, and had even leveled up with the naming ceremony being completed – entirely by accident! The extra level and fighting ability made killing the vines go a little faster, and he was actually starting to string his hair through the leaves now and was wearing a few around his neck like a soldier’s dog tags. Progress in game was still going slow, but he could handle it, and, in his own way, had come to enjoy the slow paced atmosphere of the forest and wilderness.
What had exhausted Kyle was simply nothing more than Heather. Or more specifically, trying to pretend to be Seraphine in game, with Heather! Three sixteen hour days in the game, holding up the deceit and subterfuge, was wearing him down. While thinking that he’d need to talk to Sera about the whole twisted situation, she came bouncing into his room giggling slightly to herself.
Seeing Kyle already stretched out on his bed, Sera flopped down in the chair in front of his desk and took time to yank her boots off. Standing up and stretching, she yanked the thick woolen sweater up over her head – she was wearing a thin, pink, sleeveless cotton shirt underneath -- and tossed it on the desk.
“Which drawer has your sweats in it?” She asked, while bouncing over and pulling open his dresser drawers without even giving him time to answer. “Nevermind,” she told him a moment later, followed by a quick, “Don’t look!” Glancing over to see what he was supposed to be not looking at, Kyle watched Sera as she turned her back and then took off her long, thick dress and laid it on his desk near her sweater.
Kyle took a moment to stare freely at the back of her bare legs, and pale blue panties, until she slipped into a pair of his black sweatpants before exclaiming, “You can look now!”
Turning back around, Sera half ran across the room and flopped down on the bed beside Kyle. “So how was it?” She asked, enthusiastically.
“How was what?” Kyle asked, turning to face her on his side, propping his head up with his arms.
“This weekend! Playing at my house! Everything!” Sera said, all in a rush. “It was the first time I’ve ever had so many people over in my home at once. Did the guys find it weird? I don’t think any guy’s ever been in my room before. Except you, of course. But I’m used to you, so that doesn’t count..
“Woah!” Kyle learned and put one hand over her mouth. “Take a breath in there somewhere before you pass out!” He took a deep breath himself to illustrate how it was done for her. “The guys all had a good weekend. No one thinks your home is weird. Well, maybe your parents, but they’ve always been weird.”
“Not weird,” she corrected, “just eccentric!”
“You know eccentric is just a fancy word for weird-with-money, right?” Kyle asked while smirking. Sera stuck her tongue out at him and just giggled.
“Anyway,” Kyle continued, “I think all the guys had a fun time. How about you and Heather? Enjoy yourselves?”
“Well yeah! We always have fun together,” Sera replied. “But I do want to know,” she said, sounding a little more serious. “What exactly are you not supposed to tell me about? Heather sent me several private chats reminding me to keep my mouth shut and not tell a word to ME about something? What the heck was that all about?”
“Umm… Well…” Kyle found himself half sputtering. He’d wanted to talk to her about Heather, but not about what he’d seen!
Sera giggled, turned over, and poked him in the ribs lightly. “Best tell me buster, or else I’ll have to tickle you into submission!”
Sighing, Kyle finally just shrugged his shoulders and turned to lay on his back with his arms folder under his head. “Honestly, I don’t know if I should say anything or not. It’s really not my business. Or my place. I don’t think. Hell, I don’t know!”
Sera just giggled and stole his pillow since he wasn’t using it. “Are you and her dating in secret or something?”
“Hell no!” Kyle burst out. Sera giggled at his sudden vehement denial. “Then what is it? It sounds kind of serious. Should I be worried about you?”
“Not me,” Kyle told her. “Maybe worried about yourself a little more.”
“Myself?” She asked, puzzled.
Sighing and taking a deep breath, Kyle finally told her, “Saturday morning, I came over to your room early. Mom had..” He paused for a moment and decided not to mention the chocolate gravy. He regretted not eating any, and he knew she would too – it wasn’t a treat they had often. “… patched up my eye, and I wanted to let you know I was fine. You didn’t need to worry or anything.”
“When I got there, I didn’t know you Heather was there. I walked in and she was in the room with you.” Kyle paused and tried not to blush. “Umm, in the bed with you.” His cheeks were definitely starting to get hot and turn red!
“I caught her doing slightly naughty things to you while you were sleeping,” he finally finished in a rush!
The room was bathed in silence for several moments, until Sera finally burst out laughing. “So that’s what all the big fuss was about? Heather got caught!”
“Wait!” Kyle exclaimed suddenly. “You knew?”
“Well yeah.” Sera shrugged her shoulders lightly. “Heather’s always been a little strange. She always sleeps in my room whenever she stays over, and she likes to ‘cuddle’. I guess you found out she likes girls, and she didn’t want you to tell anyone?”
“Not quite! I found her up under your shirt, kissing up and down your stomach, like a creepy molester pervert!”
Sera laughed freely and hid her head in the pillow. “No wonder she’s so embarrassed! You caught her with her hands in the cookie jar!”
“And you’re not upset over it?” Kyle was really puzzled now. If that was one of his friends, like Darryl, there’d be all sorts of bloodshed from the fight that ensued.
“Not the most,” Sera shrugged. “I’ve always known Heather was a little odd. She always wants to take a shower with me, or wash my back, or cuddle whenever she spends the night. She’s one of those girls, who’s into other girls.”
“Are you?” Kyle asked, feeling his interest rise. The things his mind was starting to imagine was enough to make other things rise as well, so he rolled over onto his stomach, and propped his head up in his hands to hide his growing interest.
“Not really. I mean, I’ve been curious a few times,” Sera admitted, “but I don’t swing that way. Heather knows that, but we’re still friends. She might cop a feel in the shower, or steal a squeeze or something while we’re cuddling, but she knows I’m not really into that sort of thing.” She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “At least, not with her,” she clarified.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I guess her being such a close friend and all, and since I was curious and kissed her back a few times and all, she doesn’t think little things like that’s such a big deal.” Sera shrugged, and then asked, “Do you mean to tell me you’ve never been the least bit curious about what it’d be like? With another guy, I mean.”
“Oh! Hell no!” Kyle shivered at the thought. “If that was me with Darryl or one of them, I’d break their nose for starters and end up neutering them after! Then I’d never have to worry about such a thing happening ever again!”
Sera just giggled. “And I thought you were supposed to be a healer. I guess you guys are just a lot more violent than us girls!”
“Maybe,” Kyle admitted, “but you girls are completely insane! How many times did you die this weekend anyway? A thousand?”
“Over ten thousand,” Sera bragged shamelessly.
“Ten thousand! Why the hell would you do that?” Kyle was thinking that women really were crazy!
Sera smirked, placed her fingers to her lips, and made a hushing sound. “It’s a secret,” she winked.
“Well you’d best tell me at least,” Kyle demanded. “Especially since I had to tell you all about Lady Pervert!”
“Oh fine!” Sera said. “It’s my master plan for helping me in the end game.”
“End game?”
“Well yeah. All games have some sort of max level for players, or toughest boss, or such. Dying at that level usually has massive penalties from what I’ve been told. The higher you go, the more you lose when you die. Right?”
“Well, usually,” Kyle admitted.
“When I first logged in,” Sera told him, “I got killed by one of those rocks. It sent me to the graveyard almost instantly. They aren’t that dangerous if they hit you in the legs or torso, but it’s almost an instant kill if they hit you in the face. Or roll down a hill and build up speed. Their main attack seems to be knockback, more than damage. You won’t believe how many times they’ve broke my neck when hitting me in the face! Hit your back hard enough to push you forward a few feet, and you might just fall on your face. Hit your face hard enough to knock it back a few feet, and it’s game over!”
“But why?” Kyle asked.
“Because when I was trying to get back to my character’s wolf pelt, I died again.” Sera continued. “And that made me mad, and it was kind of funny too, so I just charged them a few more times, enjoying the game. After 10 quick deaths, I got an achievement and a title – Unrelenting. Due to my unrelenting spirit in battle, all penalties from death would be reduced by 50%.”
She was quiet for a moment, allowing Kyle a second for what she was saying to sink in. “I thought that was awesome,” she continued, “so I went out and just self-suicided oodles of times to see if I could get an improvement with it. After numerous tests, I found out that only deaths so close to each other in a period of time stack. Only deaths where you TRY to defeat an opponent count too. When I just went out and stood there, those didn’t count. I had to at least attempt to kill my enemy. And it’s not a half-asses try to kill them either. Hit a rock once, then give up and let it kill you, and the game won’t count it.
“Trying to actually kill those rocks however, every so often, one of those deaths would count as I figured out what it needed to satisfy the game rules. Then I figured out how to lure those rocks slowly back and closer to the graveyard with each death, so I could speed up the process. And, then with enough practice I figured out how to fight the best to qualify for the achievement count.
“At one hundred deaths, the penalty for dying was reduced by seventy-five percent. At one thousand deaths, the penalty was reduced by ninety percent. At ten thousand deaths, my penalty for dying is reduced by ninety-five percent!”
“Holy shit!” Kyle exclaimed. “That’s awesome! No wonder you went bat shit crazy! When most people die and lose a ton of experience at level one hundred, you’ll barely even notice the hit! I can see why you went on a suicide spree now!”
“Maybe I should do something like that,” Kyle mused. After a few moments, he finally shook his head from side to side. “Nah. I don’t think I’ll chance it. For starters, I don’t have a clue where the nearest graveyard to me might be. Who knows where I’d end up at! And then I’ve got a quest that specifically tells me NOT to die. I imagine it’d be bad with it.
“Not to mention that there doesn’t seem to be anything that can kill me easily where I’m at. The squirrels toss nuts one at a time for just a single point of damage, and the vines wrap around and burn you for just a few points at a time. If I fight the squirrels seriously, they run after a certain point, and the vines simply hurt too much to deal with. I think I’ll pass, even though it sounds like an awesome advantage!”
“I might be a little bit jealous,” Kyle admitted.
“You won’t be a little jealous. You’ll die from jealously,” Sera taunted. “When I finally killed one of those rocks, it dropped me a purple named weapon. ‘Stonebreaker Great Maul’ It’s a scalable weapon, and I don’t know squat about it, except it’s considered to be a Mythic quality item. The other three rocks I killed simply dropped a ‘strange shimmering ore’ that seems to be used in crafting for something.
“But, I’ve got a mystic weapon,” Sera taunted. “Na Na Ah Nana!”
“Only until it breaks with all those deaths,” Kyle snorted.
“Not a worry,” Sera teased. “I keep it and those ores hidden in one of the crypts when I’m fighting. Since I’m always respawning back where they’re at, I can keep them safe from anyone else who might show up – even though almost nobody ever does where I’m at. When I get ready to sleep or log out, then I pick them up and keep them safe with me. It’s my treasure!”
“Only until I catch up to wherever you’re at and steal it from you,” Kyle warned.
“You wish!” Sera hopped up out of the bed, grabbed the pillow, and beat him with it relentlessly.
“Hey now!” Laughing, Kyle grabbed for the pillow and Sera squealed and ran out of the room when he snatched it from her. A moment later, she ran back in and thwapped him with one of the pillows from the other room.
Things broke down into a viciously loud pillow fight, followed by an intense tickle session until Sera cried for mercy and yelled “Uncle” a dozen times. After finally flopping back on the bed to catch their breaths, Sera and Kyle spent the next several hours chatting and comparing notes about the weekend and everyone’s actions and reactions, both in game and out of game, before exhaustion finally set in and they finally drifted off to sleep.