First fight

Before you were even able to see again, you heard birdsong, and the rustle of wind in the leaves. In a way that was becoming oddly familiar, the white light that had consumed the world receded in a silent swirl, unveiling clear blue before you. For a moment, you thought some of the white clouds that had obscured your vision were stuck, but then you realized that they were real clouds, hanging in a blue sky. You had come to laying in a field, there was ground under your back and grass beneath your fingers.

Sitting up, you realized that you were in a clearing in a forest. Trees stretched up to the sky a few feet away, leaves fluttering, looking both realistic and unfamiliar. Their bark was still brown, their leaves were still green, but they weren't quite what you were used to. They were a videogame's approximation of an average tree, looking like no earth species in particular. So you were definitely still in Drotatha, although you hadn't really expected anything different. If you'd been waking from a dream, you would have been in your bed or in the basement, not in a forest.

{if game:Class = Ranger}

If you looked at a tree for long enough, you could tell what it was called, what it's wood might be used for, what herbal or medicinal properties it's leaves had, as if recalling the information like a half forgotten memory.

{endif}

Sitting up further, you turned your head around to inspect your surroundings, raising one hand to shield your eyes as you looked in the direction of the sun. It was sat upon the horizon of the trees, like a cherry on green icing. From it's height, you could tell it was either midmorning or mid-afternoon, you wouldn't know which until you saw it move. It was still reassuringly yellow, but now you weren't even sure if it would set in the east or west.

"Urgh, I'm sick of that," you heard a male voice groan. Whipping your head in it's direction, you saw Tom, sitting up in the shade of a tree at the edge of the clearing, rubbing his eyes like a drunk waking up after a long night. He was still the same brutish barbarian that he had been in the testing area, a body of muscles in just a loincloth and a couple of pauldrons.

Behind him, darkened by the trees, you could see Sarah's hourglass shaped silhouette, already on her feet and stretching lithely like the transportation you had experienced was just a cat nap. Her red hair caught the light filtering through the trees, like a mane of fire flowing from her head. With her and Tom accounted for, that just left Miranda.

{if game: Class = Ranger}

Holding your cloak with one hand, you pushed yourself to your feet, looking around for you missing crush.

{elseif game: Class = Wizard}

Grabbing your robe around you, you climbed awkwardly to your feet, casting your eyes around for your absent crush.

{elseif game: Class = Knight}

Chainmail clinking around you, you got to your feet unsteadily, glancing around the clearing for a sign of your missing crush.

{elseif game: Class = Paladin}

With your plate armour restricting your mobility, you awkwardly brought yourself first to your knees, and then to your feet. Already cursing the lack of dexterity your armour brought to you, you cast your eyes around in search of your crush.

{endif}

She had to be around here somewhere. This was the starting spawn, she couldn't be very far. "Ahh," you heard a girls voice moan from behind a rock, almost like a yawn. Desperate to check Miranda was okay, you surged the ten feet between you and the conspicuous boulder in the clearings centre, slamming both hands on it's top and leaning over it. On the other side, in a ring of clean green grass, Miranda rolled her neck left and then right.

She was still clad in her very revealing priestess garb, her DD breasts barely concealed beneath the strips of fabric she wore. From above her, her clothing looked even more pathetic, her big boobs were practically begging to be exposed, and the thread of fabric between her thighs looked even tinier. Chiding yourself for leering over her like that, you fell back, and called out; "Miranda, are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she replied, as you poked out from around the rock, acting as if you hadn't been staring at her body moments before. "I just wish I could have gotten some proper clothes," she added, holding down her breast strips like holding a pair of suspenders as she got to her feet. Before you could offer her any encouraging words, Tom stole your attention.

"Yoo, check this out," he announced. Turning your head, you saw him swinging an axe in front of himself, the silver-grey blade leaving streaks of lightning through the air. From what you could gleam as he swung it, it was a single headed axe, long enough of heft that he could swing it with two hands, but light enough to require only one. You were still wondering where on earth he had found such a weapon, when you saw one of your own.

{if game: Class = Ranger}

There on the grass, beside the indentation where your body had been, was a bow and a quiver of at least 20 arrows. Scooping up the quiver to rest on your back, you next seized up the bow, marvelling at how natural it felt in your hands.

{elseif game: Class = Wizard}

There on the grass, beside the indentation where your body had been, was a staff of gnarled wood. In an instant, you snatched it up, only to nearly drop it again. The wood seemed to thrum and vibrate in your hand, a barely contained energy residing within it.

{elseif game: Class = Paladin}

There on the grass, beside the indentation where your body had been, was a sword and a shield, the former laid over the latter. Taking them up in one hand each, you felt a surge of righteous determination. So long as one of these implements was in your hands, you would allow no harm to befall an innocent. Furrowing your brow, you wondered where such a strong thought had come from, only to be quickly distracted.

{elseif game: Class = Knight}

There on the grass, beside the indentation where your body had been, was a zweihander sword. Grasping it with two hands, as the blades design clearly intended, you whirled the weapon in two cycles around your head, marvelling at both the weapons balance, and your ability to wield it.

{endif}

You turned back towards Miranda to brag about your newfound weapon, only to notice something unsettling beyond her. Wordlessly, you passed her by. She might have said something, or maybe it was Tom or Sarah, but you didn't notice. Your attention was completely stolen by what you'd seen.

Beyond the clearing, only a few meters distant through the trees, you had seen carved wood and a smouldering fire. As you stumbled closer, you saw the remains of a caravan, ambushed or waylaid by some hostile force. Wagons lay along the road and on the wayside, crooked on their axles. The horses that had dragged those carved vestibules were long gone, slain or stolen, you could not know.

The rest of your grouping followed as you drew closer to the wreckage of that shattered procession, their comments on their new gear falling away to silence. Arrows jutted from the wreckage, shouting loudly exactly what sort of fate had befallen this unfortunate procession. Atop one wagon was the carcass of a man, his eyes glassed over and his head laid pointed to the sky, even as the reins of an absent horse wrapped impotently around his wrists.

The unfamiliar and unpleasant smell of death hit your nostrils, combining with the swirling smoke to be almost enough to drive you back. Instead, you steeled yourself, and marched on to the caravan drivers cadaver. A single hand on his flax-weave shirt covered chest confirmed he was dead, but the gentle remainder of his warmth suggested that this was a new development.

A handful of other corpses littered the ground just beyond the wagon. Some were pierced with arrows, others bore short slashing wounds, some had no obvious signs of injury at all. They were all dead, just the same.

"John," Sarah muttered your name weakly. "I think I've- we've done a really good job keeping calm through this, all things considered, but I have to know. . . did you know this would happen?"

Turning back towards her, Tom and Sarah, you saw three pairs of unequally accusatory eyes.

"Do you mean, did I know we'd be sucked into this game? No. I thought this would just be something fun I'd do with Matt, Nicole and Miranda. I didn't- I couldn't have known something like this would happen. I didn't even know you and Tom were coming," you explained. Your answer was enough to mollify Sarah and Miranda, the fire visibly receding in their eyes. Tom, didn't particularly seem to care either way, striding past you to kick a corpse of his own.

"What do you think killed these guys?" He asked, carelessly rolling a body over with his toe.

"I don't know," you replied, "I just hope they're not-" Your words were cut off by an ominous rustling from the trees on the far side of the pathway.

{if game: Class = Ranger}

The footsteps of dozens of creatures rang in your ears, too many to divine their exact direction, other than the fact that they were headed in your direction

{else}

Leaves crunched under the foot of something, drawing closer to you.

{endif}

Tom slammed his axe down in one hand, advancing in the direction of the sound. "Come on you bitches," he yelled, in a way that you would have considered unwise.

Whatever was the source of the noise, it sounded like there was a lot of them. Turning your back on the approach for a moment, you reached out a hand for Miranda. "Get up here, quick," you told your crush, her soft hand slipping into yours as you helped her up on to the wreck of the caravan. Hopefully, that position would provide her with some protection from whatever was coming.

You turned to offer the same aid to Sarah, only to be stopped short. She was already on top of the covered caravan, standing tall and proud, legs spread wider than her shoulders. "Come on boys, show me what you can do!" She shouted, unfurling a whip and cracking it twice in the air before her. Before you could ponder where she had produced such a weapon from, the source of the advancing noise revealed itself.

Poking it's nose out from the undergrowth, on the far side of a ditch beside the road, was a little, green creature.

{if game: Class = Ranger}

It was an average forest goblin. With a big nose and ears, swollen eyes, and a commensurate lack of intellect. Around it's waist, it wore a simple grass skirt, and no other clothing anywhere on it's body.

{else}

It looked like a stereotypical videogame goblin, with the big eyes nose and ears to match. The thing was naked save for a primitive grass skirt.

{endif}

Grasped in it's hand was a crude club, more like a stick than a weapon. It was kind of cute. For a second, it locked eyes with you. You felt like you should have offered it a dog biscuit, or maybe just a scrap of meat. Before you could, however, the beast tilted it's head back and issued a guttural cry. A multitude of the same cry answered it from behind, and that one goblin was suddenly joined by a dozen more. They were not so cute once in a hostile pack.

The new goblins had their own motley array of weapons, clubs, spears, axes, and short bows, but you didn't get a chance to fully assess their equipment. In a continuous, rolling tide, they dropped down into the ditch before them, disappearing from view. Even without the weapons in their hands, it would have been obvious that they were getting ready to attack.

{if game: Class = Ranger}

You knocked an arrow, drew it back, and then loosed it at the first shade of green to emerge from the ditch. You barely even saw the goblin before he fell back with a splatter of blood. The next few that showed themselves met a similar fate, before their numbers allowed them to escaped the ditch en-masse.

{elseif game: Class = Wizard}

The goblins began to pop up from the ditch, one after the other. You had no idea what to do, but you still levelled your staff at them all the same. As if it was obvious to you, you thought of a raging fire, and a ball of the stuff issued forth from the gnarled wood in your hands. Half a dozen goblins were consumed in flame in an instant, but many more were still coming.

{elseif game: Class = Paladin}

Lowering your shield, you raced to the near edge of the ditch, arriving just in time to shove a goblin back down in to it with your shield. Drawing your sword, you slashed at least three goblins across the chest, their bodies tumbling backwards. Around you, however, yet more goblins poured forth.

{elseif game: Class = Knight}

Two handed sword in hand, you pressed towards the advancing goblins, wielding your blade like a weedwhacker and taking off at least four goblin heads as they sprouted up from the ditch. The backswing of your sword slew another two, yet more poured forth from the woods.

{endif}

Tom leapt upon the green tide with excessive vigour. A single swing of his huge axe bisected 5 of the beasts, and then another six as he swung in the other direction. The huge weapon he wielded crushed the goblins almost faster than they could approach.

Far to the right, another war cry went up, and at least a dozen more goblins spilled forth, beyond your reach to stop them. In an instant, your thoughts turned to protecting the wagon that Miranda took shelter upon, but you were pre-empted before you could even move.

"Hey boys!" Sarah whistled, "get a load of these!" Without ceremony or shame, Sarah grabbed the interior edges of her one piece and yanked them open. Soft, bouncy, heavenly breasts were exposed to the baying crowd, bringing them (and you) to a screeching halt. Her tits were perfectly proportioned to her body, maybe even bigger than you might have expected, two big, soft, and captivating melons. The sweet pink nipples that topped her snowy breasts were hard and inviting, two cherries on her muffins.

{if game:Class = Ranger}

You felt your already tight leggings get a little tighter in the crotch.

{elseif game: Class = Wizard}

You were glad your robes were so loose, or else you'd have been making bump in them.

{elseif game: Class = Knight}

The only thing holding your boner down was the heavy chainmail that hung over your groin.

{elseif game: Class = Paladin}

You could practically hear your cock go ding against the inside of your armour.

{endif}

The squawking crowd seemed to like them too. A dozen goblins, all transfixed by Sarah's perky boobs. Perfectly positioned for a swing of Tom's axe. Half a dozen goblin heads went flying, their jaws still wide in surprise. The survivors were so shocked that they only turned their heads towards Tom, leaving them open for his backswing. Three more heads whirled into the air, like caps thrown at graduation.

With half of the remainder beheaded, the other three made to retreat, turning around and jumping back into the ditch, chittering and squealing all the while. Tom bellowed a laugh and jumped after them, his arrogance making him cocky just like usual. You saw a pair of goblins that had been on the road turn back to follow him. They were probably about to drop on him from behind whilst he was overconfidently pursuing the goblins already routing.

You were probably close enough to stop that from happening, if you wanted to. As far as you were concerned, Tom deserved a couple of hits with a club, or pokes with a wooden spear. Those goblin weapons didn't look too dangerous anyway, he'd probably only lose a little hp.