Run Up to Game Day

Elyse had to run before Mel did, realising she needed to head back to her place with Tori before she could go to work, and once the co-ed was gone, Mel and I awkwardly sidestepped talking about everything that had come up. We probably both needed a bit of space to think about it.

Because it was awkward, sure. And a little uncomfortable. And funny.

But it was also a change.

One of the biggest rules of The Game had always been that the sex was part of The Game, not just us fucking each other. We didn’t hook up outside of the game. That was the rule that I was sure had kept our group together for so long without imploding, especially as the couples solidified. Jealousy wasn’t a factor at (or in the general vicinity of) the game table. Boundaries had been set and followed naturally - even when the couples started for more kids after weddings had circled through the group. Condoms were used if one of the ladies was off birth control, no complaints. No one wanted to cause drama.

And the stuff with the girls of the new game had at least been on game night. It hadn’t always been part of the game, but it was associated.

Elyse and I having sex - wonderful, energetic, youthful sex that left me feeling a decade younger but also worried about the implications - outside of even the boundaries of Game Night was different. It didn’t follow the rules and boundaries of The Game. And Mel and I both knew it, even if she focused her teasing on what was in front of us.

Once we’d chatted about the Theatre Troupe gossip and gone over the options for that fall’s production since she was on deck to direct again, she had the final say over the Script options, and we pivoted to some general D&D talk. Her character Meliana didn’t have as strong a connection to the ongoing campaign story this time, having been set up as more of a mercenary, and the entire group knew they were coming up on a big climactic battle with the Dark Lord soon, so she was feeling a little unfulfilled. We talked about some options, going over her backstory a bit as she pointed out some suggestions for things I could hook into if there was time. In return, I offered a couple of suggestions - the party was at level seventeen, so even if they levelled one more time before they fought the Dark Lord they still had progression they could accomplish… if they survived.

We called it after we both finished our second cups of coffee because I really did need to get to work, even if that work was in my home office, and she gave me a kiss on the side of the head as she hugged me before leaving.

Unfortunately, my day slowly soured even with the great morning I’d had and the ongoing flirty texting from all of the girls.

A couple of clients were dragging their feet on paying me for my work. Another one came back around wanting dramatic changes to the project I’d been working on way too late in the process to be making those sorts of changes - I’d have to scrap at least half of what I’d done for them and had approved so far, and that meant upping the quote and making sure they signed off on that.

Tori texted around lunch time that she felt grossed out by one of the older men at her work making her feel uncomfortable. He hadn’t crossed a line yet that would make anything reportable, but she was feeling discouraged as hell - and I couldn’t do anything about it to help her. I also had the echoing in my mind of ‘older guy’ bouncing around in my skull a bit - I was an older guy. The situations were different, but the age gap was still there, and the line between creepy and attractive was thin and severe. It wouldn’t have taken much for me to be more on the Creep side of it if I’d instigated things more myself, and I still had that feeling that I was doing something kind of wrong.

The fact that Elyse, Rhia and even Tori all sent me pictures of them flashing their tits at exactly 1 PM - giving away that they’d planned it - didn’t help my worries. Or pick up my mood for longer than about ten minutes since I got a frustrating call from the client who wanted the rework.

By the time it was ‘quitting time’ for most of the business world, I really hadn’t gotten enough done to warrant my own quitting time - especially considering I’d be taking time off the next day for the girls’ Game. So I kept working, muttering to myself since I couldn’t even think of what I was going to make for dinner once I finally got something done.

‘I think you might be in trouble,’ Mel texted. I didn’t see it for about five minutes; the ping my phone made when I got a text was drowned out by my music.

I sent her several question marks in reply, wondering what could possibly be added to my stress levels now.

She started typing almost immediately, so she must have been looking at her phone. ‘Rhia was on the phone upstairs and started yelling a bit. I think she found out about Elyse staying over.’

I frowned, shaking my head a little, and started typing a response, but Mel sent another message.

‘Oof, Shane. Big Oof.’

I grimaced and erased what I was going to say, setting my phone to the side. That was the sort of thing she’d said since college to signify that someone had made a big mistake, but I wasn’t a fucking kid, I wasn’t interested in playing games of communication tag or any games in general, and I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.

I also didn’t have the fucking mental energy to try and parse what she meant by that. If the girls had something going on that I needed to know about, they could tell me themselves. And if they didn’t and got even more upset for some reason, then it would be on them and they weren’t ready for an adult relationship like we were engaging in.

It was almost 10 PM when I got a FaceTime call, breaking me out of the zone I had finally managed to fall into, and my stomach growled in protest as I flipped my phone over and saw that I had half a dozen message notifications along with the incoming call. It was the girls, so I blew out a breath and wiped my face before answering.

“Hey, ladies,” I said.

“Oh good, you’re not dead!” Rhia said. It looked like she was walking through her house, heading from the basement to the upper floor.

“Is everything OK?” Tori asked. “You usually respond to texts pretty quickly and we hadn’t heard from you for like hours.” She was at her desk in her bedroom at the apartment she shared with Elyse - and knowing I recognized the inside of her bedroom from the pictures she sent me was kind of weird considering I’d never seen it in person.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, girls,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of work I’ve been grinding away at, and I got zoned in on a project. Headphones didn’t help.”

“I figured it was something like that,” Elyse said. She was lying on a couch with AirPods in her ears, looking up at her phone in a way that reminded me of her looking up at me in bed last night while I was-

I cleared my throat. “Was this just an emergency check that I didn’t fall in the toilet and get stuck, or did you ladies need me for something?” I asked.

The lame joke got eyerolls out of all three of them.

“We actually had a question about tomorrow,” Rhia said, still walking and entering her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. “We were wondering- Hold on.” The view from the phone went blurry for a moment then came to a rest facing up at her ceiling, and there was some rustling before she climbed onto the bed over her phone, flashing us all her dangling tits for a moment as she’d taken off her shirt. Then she picked the phone back up and got oriented as she was lying back against the pillows at the head of her bed, her big, bare breasts mostly in frame. “There we go,” she sighed. “So we were wondering-”

“Really?” Tori didn’t let her continue. “I mean, really?”

“What?” Rhia asked, clearly knowing exactly what but being obstinate. “We hang out naked all the time at Shane's. What's the big deal about some titties?”

“You’re not naked-naked, are you?” Elyse asked. “Because if we’re turning this into phone sex then I want to know up front.”

“No, I’m not naked,” Rhia said. “And I’m not touching myself. Unless you guys do want to have phone sex?”

“You guys were wondering what exactly?’ I interrupted.

“We realised we’ve all been asking questions about defences and resources and making plans and stuff,” Tori said. “But we kind of glossed over the fact that the Duke’s bedroom is magically protected for some reason. Since we’re helping organise the defenses of the castle, can anyone tell us what’s being protected or if it could help us with the battle?”

“Oh, and I also realised we didn’t ask about any, like, heroic dead ancestors of the family who might have been buried with, I don’t know, magic weapons or armour?” Rhia added. “Like a +1 Longsword of Werewolf Slaying or something?”

I grinned and chuckled softly, finally feeling like I was getting some footing in this conversation even with the distraction of Rhia’s beautiful, heavy tits bouncing in and out of the edge of the frame of her camera. “Alright, let’s see. The old Chamberlain and Lady Aileen don’t know what magic is protecting the Duke’s chambers, or what it’s protecting - but the rumours of thieves disappearing is almost entirely true. A couple didn’t disappear; they were found the morning after their break-ins, one half hanging out of the outer tower window, having tried to scale the tower and slip in that way, and one lying dead just inside the open door. They had no marks on their bodies to give any hints to how they died, but the Chamberlain does mention the Duke saying something about the defenses being ‘Silent as a Nightmare.’ As for historical heroes associated with the family, it is a common tradition for warriors to be buried with their arms and armour. Most of the family history is fairly steady for the past couple hundred years, but there was a younger brother of the current Duke Unger’s great-Grandfather who was said to have travelled to the great plains of the South and worked as a mercenary captain for a time before returning with wild tales, a personal fortune, and exotic weapons and armour - he also, unfortunately, was short one foot, one hand, one eye and one ear and so no heroics were witnessed by anyone in this region. He had a mausoleum erected somewhere to the west in the forest - they can find a local hunter who might know where it is if you think it’s important.”

“What about allies?” Elyse asked. “Like any old pacts with, say, an army of ghosts trapped under a mountain? Or a regiment of Elves coming to fulfill ancient oaths?”

That got Tori and Rhia snorting softly. “This isn’t Lord of the Rings,” Rhia said.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask,” Elyse grinned wryly.

“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “Unfortunately, all those sorts of promises would have been paid back years ago due to the War against the Dark Lord. And as far as anyone in the castle is aware, there is no fallen civilization hidden in the hills nearby whose unquiet dead are awaiting the return of a bloodline they swore their aid to.” Out of view of the call, I scribbled a note to myself. Just because no one in the castle was aware of it didn’t mean that there hadn’t been someone living in the region before the Dragonstorm.

“OK, so we need to decide if we want to try and figure out if there’s anything useful in the Duke’s bedroom - and it might be some sort of Nightmare monster or something. And we need to check out that mausoleum,” Rhia said. “A rich, retired mercenary could have all sorts of magic weapons and stuff.”

“Do we have the time, though?” Elyse asked. “How long do we have before we expect an attack, Shane?”

“You’re not sure,” I said. “It took one long night of terror and running through the forest to reach the Castle. Moving a small army takes longer, and the different bandit groups weren’t all on the same page yet when you left.”

“But they know we got away, and they know we know their plan because Renee got it straight from the werewolf’s mouth,” Tori said. “So they might try and speed up their timeline.”

“That’s true,” I nodded.

“Shit,” Rhia sighed. “We should try to do at least one of them. What do you guys think?”

“Ladies,” I cut in before they could get into a discussion. “I’d love to stick around, but I do need to get back to work. I also haven’t eaten dinner yet. So if you do decide to chase one of those leads, let me know, and remember to get me your lists for how each of you is helping prepare the defences of the keep.”

All three of them started berating me for not eating dinner at a reasonable time and rushed me off the call so that they could talk strategy. Once I was gone, having gotten air kisses blown at me by all three of them, I sighed and shook my head. Mel had clearly been wrong about what she’d heard or was blowing it out of proportion.

I checked my texts and saw that I had a couple of messages from each of them. Mostly the same as before - a sneaky topless picture from Rhia as she was riding a stationary bike in her parents basement, a cute picture of Tori in her bathroom as she was about to take a shower after work, covering her breasts teasingly with an arm, and an extra dirty picture from Elyse of her perfect, bouncy ass as she gripped one cheek and pulled it slightly open, giving a hint of a look at her butthole and pussy lips. That last one came with a tag about the handprint from me spanking her having disappeared. I’d gone a little overboard that morning with her to leave a print that lasted longer than a moment, but she’d loved it.

The next texts were all three of them asking if I was OK about an hour after they’d sent their various pictures.

“See?” I murmured, getting up from my desk chair and starting to head down to my kitchen. “No problems at all.”

Now all I needed to do was start prepping a magical trap encounter or a short tomb dungeon delve. Because I totally had the time to do that after I made shit up off the top of my head and still had a stack of work waiting for my attention, plus whatever the girls came up with to mess with my battle plan.

“I should really get paid for this shit,” I sighed to my cat Jasper as I found him lounging in one of his preferred places in the house during summer - the lingering warmth where the sun beat down through my back window onto a ledge. He looked at me with his big yellow eyes and yawned, not giving a fuck.

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