Trapped in a Game Pt. 01

"It takes us thirty minutes to sweep this place making sure no-one's hiding in ambush," Karn muttered, in the aftermath of our onslaught, "you cut that down to zero. Color me impressed."

"So are we in?" I asked, and he nodded with a smile:

"Consider yourselves part of the gang! Just- uh," he pulled me aside and spoke in a whisper, "keep that chick of yours in check."

He shot me a quick wink, before heading over to Pete to inspect the spoils of our run.

Split five ways, our loot didn't amount to much, but it was a relief to have some coin again since I'd spent my entire starting stipend paying for the class switch.

Even at the beginning, such a thing was expensive and it only got worse as you progressed along.

We made plans to meet up the next day, before heading off our separate ways.

"Soo- since when are you such a badass with a bow?" I prodded Kelly with a wry smile.

"I practiced a lot- in the beta test. Like, even when I didn't need to."

"No kidding."

"Yeah- I was kinda hoping you'd be impressed."

"Come clean- You're not D-rank, are you," I asked knowingly, and she blushed.

"B. Sorry."

I jumped on her and hugged her tight, and she squealed in response.

"You're awesome, sis."

"Really? You're not mad?"

"Hell no. I'm glad! My little sister can take care of herself. I'm living the dream!" I teased.

Truthfully it unsettled me just a little.

I used to be her hero, and part of me always wanted to be the big brother she looked up to:

"You know- just because I can take care of myself doesn't mean that I don't need you..." she added, almost as if she'd read my mind.

She blushed a little, before walking ahead, then stopped to look back at me with a shy little smile.

With the wind blowing through her character's silvery, wispy hair, and the setting sun just shining through the wavering strands, for just a second, her character faded and I saw her; Kelly, my wonderful, amazing little sister, and I remembered just how precious she was.

"I love you, you know," I muttered the words so softly, I wasn't sure she'd heard, but she walked up to me and lifted my face to bring my eyes to her own.

They were soft, and wavering in that way they did when she wanted to express something that words never could.

"I love you too, Josh."

As we set up for camp that night her mood was buoyant.

She made fun of me, and giggled playfully at my jokes while teasing and taunting me.

I was positively beaming.

"You were amazing today," I reiterated.

"Really, now? Because you only told me, like what, five times already?"

"Fine, I'll stop."

"I didn't say stop," she added playfully, and I aimed a lunge at her ribs.

"Your Avatar has tickles?" I exclaimed, as she cackled gleefully in my grasp.

"Yes, yes, oh my god stop!" she wriggled about, trying to escape my grasp, before she tripped over one of the tent poles and tumbled, taking me with her to the floor.

She ended up pinned under me, looking up at me and panting as she tried to catch her breath, which drew my attention for just a moment to the way her avatar's huge breasts heaved with each gasp.

It was just a glance, but she didn't miss it, and a huge teasing smile appeared on her face.

"What was that?!"

"Nothing-"

"You just checked me out!"

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did! You checked me out!"

I climbed off of her, then dusted myself off awkwardly as I sat on the bare earth, but she crawled over to me and wrapped her arms about me.

"What's the matter, Josh? Does your cute little sister get you all hot and bothered?" her voice was teasing and playful, and I must have been blushing like mad.

"Ugh- my cute little sister does not have breasts like those."

"So, I am cute?!" she exclaimed, pinching my cheeks and poking me all over.

By the time we settled down into our cozy little tent and got ready to sleep, I was happier than I ever thought I could be under such dire circumstances.

Actually... now that I thought about it.

I was happier than I'd been ever since-

*Beep!

I jumped a little as the notification that a call was coming in pinged off, and Kelly glanced at me knowingly.

"What is it?" she asked, just as I saw the message "Receiving call from 'dumb bitch'" appear in my interface.

"It's just a call, I'll be right back," I mumbled as I answered the call while slipping out of the tent.

"Heyy," I answered nervously, trying to block out the worried look on Kelly's face as she disappeared with the closing of the tent's flap.

"Uh- hey. Soo... I got notified about the game thing?"

"Oh, you did?"

It suddenly occurred to me that she was still listed as my emergency contact in my medical records.

Shit.

"So... are you, like- in there now?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Really- cuz... you could never talk to me while you were playing games before. Or was that always just an excuse?"

"This isn't that kind of game, Trace."

"Sure," she muttered sarcastically, before continuing: "you know- I always knew those dumb games would kill you some day."

"Seriously?"

"You probably should have listened to me when I told you to stop playing so much."

"I didn't play a game for, what- like, five years? -before you left."

"Yeah, sure- yet here you are trapped in one now," she added, bitterly.

"What is this, Trace? Did you call just to tell me 'I told you so' or something?"

"So what? You can call me whenever the fuck you feel like it to ask how I'm doing but I can't do the same, or..?"

"You hung up when I called, remember? I'm still on the phone with you! Even though I'm still stuck in this messed up crazy-"

"Josh? I-is everything okay?"

I glanced back at the tent, to see Kelly watching me worriedly.

"Who is that?"

"Kelly."

"As in your sister, Kelly? Or did you just finally just find some bitch with her name?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh nothing- I guess you expect me to still believe that playing video games is all you two did growing up."

"What the hell-?"

"I'm sure the little whore has been all too eager to take care of you with me gone."

I laughed, bitterly and exhaustedly.

"This is funny to you?"

"It is- because, apparently you're the one who can't live with the fact that you ran off with-"

*click!

A little message saying 'call ended' briefly appeared in my character interface, before I swiped it bitterly away.

"Jeez," I muttered, running my hands through my hair.

"Why'd you even answer?"

I looked back again to see Kelly looking at me, sadly, a little look of disappointment in her eyes, and I averted my gaze, feeling to ashamed to even face her.

I felt a strong impulse to apologize, but I wasn't even sure why.

Did I really need to explain why I felt the urge to answer her call?

Logic said no, but the feeling that I needed to apologize remained nonetheless.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, and to my surprise a pair of arms wrapped themselves about me, pulling me into her warm body in a comforting embrace.

There were tears in my eyes, but I wouldn't let them fall.

"You don't need to apologize to me Josh... I just- I don't like seeing her hurt you. That's all."

She pulled me back into our tent, and curled up into my arms as soon as I lay down.

"Do you want to be alone?" she asked.

Her voice was timid and soft.

"No," I muttered as I wrapped my arms about her and gave her a gentle squeeze.

Being alone was terrible.

Being with the wrong person was even worse.

But being with my little sister fell nowhere near that category.

I'd never given much thought to the whole thing, but sharing the tent every night since we'd been in the game was both convenient and comforting.

As I cuddled with her, enjoying the feeling of her warmth and the comfort of her presence, I found myself drifting off to a peaceful slumber without even needing to activate my character's sleep function.

When I woke up the next morning, a quick check on my interface told me it was just before six.

By sleeping without the sleep function I thought I'd have ended up oversleeping, but I guess my chronic insomnia won out instead.

Kelly was still asleep on my chest, and as I gathered my senses it suddenly occurred to me that she was breathing.

Did that mean that she had gone to bed without the sleep function as well?

I wasn't sure.

I mean technically there was no need for our avatars to even breathe in this virtual space, so I started wondering if our virtual bodies were programmed to breathe, or if this was merely our brains being tricked into compensating for it out of habit.

As I pondered the matter, Kelly shifted a bit in my arms and I brushed a few strands of her silvery white hair out of her face.

Her avatar was quite attractive, but I found myself missing my little sister's real appearance.

Sometimes it was strange; holding this beautiful stranger in the manner I reserved only for her.

She was so precious and dear to me, I leaned down to plant a little kiss on her forehead, and all of a sudden she jolted awake.

"J-j-just now- what was that!" she had jumped a few feet away from me, and was holding her hands protectively about herself, and I was just staring in shock.

"I- uh, just kissed your forehead. I didn't know it would, uh-" I rubbed the back of my head, my face reddening with embarrassment as I tried to apologize.

This game and its stupid glitches!

The last thing I needed was my baby sister thinking I was some kind of pervert.

God, what if I was? What if this wasn't a glitch?

Hadn't Tracey implied something along the same lines when she called?

As Kelly got things ready for our morning meal I found myself avoiding her gaze whenever I could, and keeping to myself as much as possible.

It had made things awkward to say the least, and I felt quite disappointed in myself. As if I'd ruined something sacred that was being shared with me.

I'd barely touched my share of the bread and was still ruminating over the matter when Kelly bridged the silence between us by wrapping herself around me, and embracing me from behind.

"You're dumb."

"Wha-?"

She kissed me on the cheek, and a little jolt went up my spine, just like earlier.

"See? Either this game is broken or we both are."

I glanced over my shoulder and she rubbed her nose affectionately against my neck.

"You just scared me- I mean, caught me off guard. I love you Josh, and you can kiss me wherever you want while I sleep. Okay?"

She gave me a little playful, teasing wink as she stood up, and I sighed contentedly.

"You know, you should really be more careful about what you promise. When you're sleeping, that busty elvish lass you're walking around as hardly looks a thing like my little sister. I might be tempted to do more than just kiss!" I reached around her and gave her sizeable breasts a squeeze as I said this, and she yelped in surprise.

My intention was just to tease her, but she became really flustered and tripped over herself as walked over to the camp fire.

She was blushing madly, and every time I looked over at her the redness in her cheeks seemed to re-emerge.

Maybe you shouldn't tease me if you can't handle being teased, I thought to myself with a chuckle, as I once again caught my sister's eyes lingering on me distractedly.

Despite blundering around for a bit, we managed to get through our morning preparations before heading off to meet up with our new party-mates as we'd agreed.

Today we had planned to start doing some serious adventuring.

Our first mission wasn't really anything outlandish.

Through our scouting, Kelly and I were able to map out all of the inhabited zones around the necromancer's ruins, a group of decrepit stone structures that were scattered around a valley less than half a day away from our starting town.

Very few adventurer's had ventured here because of the rumors that a necromancer still inhabited a lair somewhere around.

Rumors were thus far one of the primary functions of the regular NPCs that could be found around town, which was a pretty typical use for such characters in role-playing games. Unlike typical games, however, these NPCs could actively interact with you, rather than simply repeat single lines over and over.

It made them seem eerily lifelike, however their seemingly intelligent design did have its limits; several NPCs seemed to speak in a fairly similar fashion, and conversation with them always seemed to be cut short since they were 'on their way to do something' whenever interrupted by a player character.

Despite the rumors however, Kelly and I were able to determine through our scouting that the necromancer was not in fact around, but though this fact was in itself useful to an adventuring group, it was not the most useful piece of info that we'd managed to obtain.

"How far is it?"

"To the lair? Maybe, two miles? The problem is the goblins camped out around the ruins."

The really useful discovery Kelly and I had made was that of the necromancer's lair.

Almost definitely stuffed with treasure, we were able to get a scan off close enough for me to find out that the necromancer wasn't there, but there were three formidable looking goblins scattered inside, with several camps of smaller goblins, like the ones we'd killed the day before scattered around.

They were close enough that we couldn't start the fight without attracting the attention of all of the groups at one, which could become troublesome, and quick, if they closed the gap on us before we could take enough of them out.

When we first started out Kelly could only shoot about ten arrows or so, before she'd start getting fatigued, affecting the rate at which, and distance that she could shoot. That number had since increased to about twenty.

The same thing applied to my radar spell.

After casting it once I would feel physically weaker, and be unable to use it again without resting.

But now I was able to cast it at least three times before suffering the really stressful effects of using it.

Our plan was to take out some of the encampments scattered around the valley on the first day, then camp for the night before tackling the lair in one go.

Everything went well.

We took out three camps in one go with the aid of my radar spell, then rested a few more times as we hit a couple more.

There were a few more to hit tomorrow morning, and we'd have a short rest around noon before taking on the lair after lunch.

When we set up camp, Ren offered to share a tent with Kelly, and to my surprise she refused.

"Girl or not, I don't trust anyone," she muttered to me as I studied her curiously.

Pete and Ren both shot us a few weird glances as we got into our tent though, making me feel a little bit uncomfortable. But when I tried to bring this up with Kelly, she only seemed annoyed by it.

"So what? You have a problem sleeping with me? We've done it since we were kids- even recently. What's the deal?"

I couldn't really argue with her points, so I relented and we went to bed as usual.

The next morning, everything went according to plan again as we tackled the smaller camps and pretty soon it was time for the final show.

The plan was to get past the outer camps and make our way to the ruins, which was cleverly hidden under a pretty large hill that stood out amongst the ruins. Inside the mound were rooms and corridors which appeared to have been buried under a great mound of earth.

While Karn, Pete and Ren would make their way to the entrance, Kelly and I would go to the top of the hill, and if the outer camps were alerted at any point to the presence of intruders, we would try to take them out before they could make their way into the lair.

"Okay, is everyone in place?" Karn spoke to us through the communication function that was available through our interface.

I had to admit, as a gamer who had been out of the loop for a while, the efficiency with which teams could communicate was a much welcome improvement.

"Yup- scanning now. Okay, first one is two rooms down on the left from the first corridor. The other two are in opposite rooms on the other side."

"Gotcha. Going in- keep us up to date."

Kelly notched an arrow in her bow, and not a moment too soon as a shrill cry tore through the silence, echoing across the valley.

"Maybe I should invest in a bow," I muttered, as Kelly began firing arrows, taking down the goblins one by one, as they rushed to the ruins.

Her first seven or eight hits were all kills, but firing repeatedly like that quickly sapped away her stamina, and it soon took her two sometimes three hits to take down a goblin.

"Hits are slowing them down," I noted, and Kelly immediately adjusted, alternating her hits to the goblins who were closest to the ruins.

"Watch my Five 'o' clock. Then two coming up the ramp to the left."

My radar had thankfully picked most of the goblins up, affording me a mostly three sixty degree view of the oncoming horde.

"One big guy down," Karn muttered, "where are-?"

"Shit, one is almost on you- it's coming down the corridor now. The other might be coming outside, I'm not sure. Kelly-"

They were getting closer and we needed kills.

Instead of calling the shots, I started marking the targets who were immediate threats, and tapping her shoulder, and she took them each out in one hit.

"Filthy humans! Yarhhhh!"

The terrifying voice came from somewhere behind us, and I stared at the imposing figure, clad in some heavy but battered armor, clambering towards us with an axe.

"Shit," I drew my dagger as he charged, marking one more target before dashing to the far end of the crag on which we stood.

"Josh?"

She never stopped firing, and I needed her to keep it up.

"I've got it, just keep going! Over here, you green sack of sh-"

"Yarrrrgghhhhhh!" he yelled as he charged, his axe ready and swinging.

It was probably stupid to try such an obvious trick, but I tried to leap out of the way as the ogre sized beast came within striking reach, and he grabbed me by the ankle as he teetered to the edge of the crag.

"Josh, we got the second one! Jus' hold on, we're-"

"Uh- ahh!" I cried out despite myself as I fell from atop the steep drop alongside the green armor clad brute.

This must be it, I thought, as everything seemed to slow to an almost still.

I heard Kelly scream out my name over panicked shouts from the rest of my team that came through my interface. I felt the wind blowing past my face, and the grip of the larger goblin still clinging to my feet.

But as I fell seemingly in slow motion, past a ledge that extended from the ruins, I noticed to my surprise a strange hooded figure whose hands were glowing green, and mouthing words that I could not make out.

When I landed with a thud, it took me several moments to understand that the impact had not, as I had expected, damaged me, despite killing the larger goblin who had fallen with me.

I had little time to marvel the miracle, however, as two goblins were on me in a heartbeat.

I quickly marked the first, and sank my dagger into his neck, and as the second lifted his sword to swing it down at my wide open body, an arrow struck him in the chest, and I used the opportunity to quickly stab him.

I looked back at a panic stricken Kelly, and gave her a little thankful nod as she resumed her work in cleaning up the rest of the goblins.

Karn and Pete were out in a moment, and with their aid we dispatched the rest of the force while Ren joined Kelly in her ranged onslaught.

When the last goblin finally fell, everyone erupted into a victorious cheer.