Opelika the Player’s youngest sister edged into the room trying not to make a sound. In her arms she carried a big cardboard box that she carried with the child’s curiosity for any box that arrives by FedEx. Blinds drawn against the late morning sun she edged it in on the desk beside the printer with the care of a bomb expert. Opelika glanced at the prone form hidden under layers of thin blankets on the bed as if that alone were enough to wake the undead. She glanced back at the package studying the Storm Watch corporate logo and then the masking tape holding the box closed. She knew it wasn’t addressed to her, but maybe she could just peek.
“OPELIKA, what are you doing?!”, Her mother’s voice shouted up the stairs.
Opelika spun making for the door, she wasn’t even out of the room yet when she shouted back, “NOTHING MOM! Geeze.”. Curiosity thwarted she yanked the door closed behind her and proceeded to hop down the stairs with both feet singing, “boing-boing-boing.”, as she went.
The box contained another box wrapped in bubble wrap. The inner box was a stylized treasure chest with brass edges and gemstones printed onto the cardboard. In gothic brass script printed on the lid was the word “Fable”, and beneath it a circle of five gemstones around faux carved tree, Red-green-blue-white and black. All the Beta testers had gotten a free collector’s edition of the haptic headset. Inside the box was the collector’s edition stylized hard plastic knights helm with working visor, adult diapers not included.
The Knights helm and box were a promotional giveaway for the MMORPG game Fable, and it worked. The haptic goggles fed synaptic input in through the eyes giving the player a fully immersive experience without having to move around, that hadn’t been in the Beta. You could touch, feel, move all without moving yourself. The headset sent signals to the brain telling it that it smelled bacon or felt a touch. There were synaptic inhibiters that limited the degree of stimulation that could be felt. The company didn’t need players dying of shock from an in-game injury, but it would still be uncomfortable.
After putting on the helmet and lowering the visor the Player was floating before a medieval style heavy timber door set into carved blocks of rough stone. The login and password boxes floated on the surface of the door with another button for create account. Once that was done by torchlight flicking from a wall scone the door slowly creaked open on rusted hinges. The next room was the character creation room. A three-dimensional blank space with adjustable backgrounds and lighting, the word here was customization. The default avatar was a blank mannequin with a moderate Caucasian flesh tone. There were thirty default avatars, 10 of each male/female/other. Everything was customizable with sliders, check boxes, and color wheels. You could spend days in this one room creating the ideal persona. While hair styles ranged in the hundreds there were no options for tattoos or piercings, those had to be purchased in game within game currency like all equipment. The clothing was default newb gear and couldn’t be changed. Sandals, a smock like white shirt, and baggy rough spun shorts.
Evelina groaned under the blankets and turned around some more. Why did her little sis had to be that loud and why was she in her room anyway? The young blonde had vacations right now anyway, there was no reason to wake her up for breakfast or something. With that she suddenly sat upright in her bed though and rubbed her eyes while looking around. Someone had been at the door, likely a delivery and Evelina was waiting foe one and really, there was a box right there on her table. Suddenly the young woman was wide awake and out of her bed, the nightgown the only protection she had but she did not care. She checked the data on the package to make sure it really was what she had been waiting for since the end of the Beta of the Fable-MMORPG which was employing some ground breaking technology in AI or VI or whatever they were using. And sure enough, there was the big logo of "Storm Watch". Within seconds anyone watching would be hard pressed to guess who was the older sister, Evelina or Opelika, the body was giving it away but not the giggles and eagerness to unpack the package.
It only took around a minute to open the whole thing and sit down with the chest on her lap. Cardboard and bubblewrap was thrown all around the place, only the treasure chest was given proper care. The material might not be expensive but for Evelina this was still a real treasure. With shaking hands she slowly opened it, watching the shift in color as the faux gemstones and the printed title were changing the angle until finally the helmet was revealed. This was the big thank-you-gift she had been waiting for. Months of testing the game, handing in reports and waiting for the release of the game. Today was the day and she could celebrate it with an expensive piece of equipment to boot. While she was already earning her own money, it was not even enough for her own flat, not to speak about buying one of the haptic headsets. You could play the game in normal 2D on your computer and almost all testers had done so but the real deal was the ability to really be there in the world. The stylish helmet was only the cherry on the cake.
Evelina glanced at the clock and groaned. Her mother would bother her until she had lunch, that was for sure so she sat the helmet aside for the moment and dressed in something comfortable, after a nice shower. As she finally made her way down and into the kitchen, Opelika was almost done and her mother placing a new plate down, having heard her oldest daughter on the stairs. "Love you mom!" she was greeting her mother with a kiss on the older woman's cheek and sat down to quickly eat and get back into her room. Finally having time on her own she produced the manual from the chest and was going through it, connecting the helmet up to her computer and let everything check out and update. The client did need a bit of extra configuration to register the new hardware and work with it, followed by a little bit of calibration so it was sitting snug and the visor was right in front of her eyes.
Once everything was set up, Evelina laid down on her bed, resting the helmet on her head and activated the device. Almost immediately her body was going limb while she was experiencing the rush of being transported into a fully virtual world for the first time. Looking around was not much of an option as the large door constantly was coming back right in front of her so she did input her credentials. Only thinking she was typing them on a keyboard in front of her was making the characters appear in the boxes and once confirmed she saw the lighting up torches. It all reminded her much of the normal client she was using, only everything was looking quite real. In awe she stepped through the door, they must have worked a bit on the sound of the doors, they were a bit more 'rusty' and creaking, fitting their look. And there it was, the character creation. It started out bland and boring as she was used to, but this time she could walk around her avatar instead of dragging the mouse and turn it into all directions.
By now, after months, she had a rough idea how her character should look like but Storm Watch had promised to add some new options for the release and she really had to look at them. At first she was sliding through the options for the 30 base options. The males were flicked through rather quickly, she had no interest in them. The females were interesting though but what caught her eyes most wer the new 'other'-sets. Back in the Beta that option had not been available, these were new to her and the decision was made quickly, she would go with one of them. The game had always been rated 'Adults only' and Evelina had to proof she was of the correct age before the beta and back then the characters could have been fully customized but not everyone wanted all the details so more than enough players had Barbie&Ken-Avatars under their clothes. Evelina now though was checking the boxes and her options. One of the presets did look close to what she would like, lowering the amount of customization needed. The base seemed to be a female body, so it had breasts and a working virtual vagina with the added full package. After some rounds around the avatar Evelina decided to switch the option for testicles from 'Outside' to internal, giving the whole thing a much more smooth look with nothing in the way... in case she actually wanted to try that kind of stuff. Remodeling the characters always had been very expensive so better not be stuck with something like that and regret it.
Satisfied with this set of new options, the blondes attention turned towards sliders and options she knew much better. The skin-color was dialed a bit more into the dark, going a bit more into the direction of caramel. The eyes ended in a similar brownish tone while she gave the chest a bit of a bump. The mannequin was feminine to start with but she wanted more than a B-cup, dialing it up to what looked to be a D-cup in her estimation. There was no labeling or measures for it so she had to eyeball it. Slowly she put the adjustments together, upping and lowering different dials for all the different parts until she was finished. Her Avatar was in the end about a head higher than she was, so she was guessing that would maybe translate to somewhere around 6'4'' to 6'6'', if she was actually being at the same height as she would be in real live. It felt as if the floor was as far away as if she was really standing there. But anyway, it was time for the final touches, which meant, the hardest parts were to come. Up until now the avatar had been bald, the skin smooth and the later she kept that way, no hair below the eyebrows for her. For the hairstyles she was going through the options, one after another, showing how patient she could be. In the end she settled for something that were categorized in the middle, ranging around the length between ears and shoulder-blades. The categories really were rather rough but could be filtered some more and most importantly, while changes to the body were expensive, visiting a barber in the game was on the cheap end, most options being a gold coin only which was a lot in the beginning but by 5th level most people had some gold to spare. Her choice was a style which was shorter on the left side and going down to rest on her right shoulder. Not enough to make a nice braid as it was the shortest in the back, revealing her nape. Among the unending options for colors she picked the roots starting black and turning red at the tips.
The last points for her were decorations. Of course, most options were blocked until you paid for it but a little bit makeup was available. With the skin-color she tried to pick some makeup which would look a bit, what she was thinking of, as Egyptian inspired while the lips of her avatar received a slightly more golden tone, starting from the same values she had used for the eyes. At last she tested several example outfits to see how her character might look like later in the game, depending on which route she would be taking. There was no class system to pick from, the game was basing the starting stats on the configuration of the avatar. Characters with few to no muscle definition usually were smarter at the beginning, muscled characters strong. More stocky characters had often more hitpoints but in the end the style and actions you took were shaping the whole character. Evelina hoped her avatar was more in the middle of most things, likely somewhat more dexterous though. "And with that, I shall name you... Epadia!" Evelina announced as she finished the character creation, suddenly finding herself inside the avatar she had created even while speaking, the preview-clothes vanished to be replaced with the expected basic gear she hopefully could quickly replace with something better looking.
As Evelina hit accept on the Character creation menu, she became Epadia with a new semi-transparent menu hovering in the air before her. This was her first experience moving around the three-dimensional space as Epadia feeling the roll of wider hips and sway of bigger breasts with the new menu floating in the air always at arm’s length. The basic attributes menu was in some small part preset by the physics of the Avatar. All the attributes began with a starting value of five on a scale of one to ten with three bonus points to be awarded as she chose. The starting values could be adjusted up and down allowing players to stack some abilities, to the hinderance of others in a zero-sum game. While the physical attributes (strength, endurance, agility) were easy, (perception, intelligence, charisma, and luck) were more esoteric. Moving the slider down to the minimum value of one had an immediate effect, such as moving the slider down to one on agility caused Epadia to trip over her own feet. Moving the slider on intelligence down to one caused the words on the menu to jumble up into indecipherable hieroglyphics. These were her starting attributes:
Strength- 6 (+1 thickness)
Perception- 5
Endurance- 5
Charisma- 6 (+1 breast size)
Intelligence- 4 (-1 breast size)
Agility- 4 (-1 thickness)
Luck- 5
Unassigned points- 3
(-10% damage resistance- Brown skin tone)
While the luck stat was ambiguous it was assumed that it affected random chance and loot drops. The damage modifier associated to brown skin had been done intentionally to fire up Twitter Trolls, because life was more difficult for brown people. Throughout the development process advocate game journalists had lambasted every perceived slight and the developers it seemed were taking their own shots. There was the option to go back to the character creation menu to make changes or accept once all stats were set to the desired levels.
- View: https://youtu.be/BEm0AjTbsac
-
Hitting accept Epadia’s surroundings faded to black as intro music played.
“WAKE UP, we’re late. The instructor is already waiting for us on the training grounds!”, whined Kasumi the novice sparring partner. If there was any doubt her name floated in a bubble above her head with her green health bar beneath her name, another option that could be turned off. From the Beta Test this was recognizable as the start of the novice tutorial.
Epadia lay on a lumpy straw mattress already dressed in her novice clothing. The bed frame was rough varnished wood retaining the shape and stubs of branches. The was smooth flagstone with a warn hemp area rug between the two rows of similar beds lining the walls. On one end of the room was a balcony looking out over the lush grounds of the Hero’s Guild. On the other was the arched doorway leading in the confused layout of stairs and rooms of the Hero’s Guild itself. The Hero’s Guild, cradle of novice players, resembled a miniature Disney castle of rough stone blocks and blue shingled roofs.
Kasumi an orange tiger striped cat girl stood at the foot of the bed fretting that they were going to be late. The novice sparring partner wore the same brown shorts and sandals as Epadia, but she had a wrap around her small breasts like a sports bra of sort that exposed a phasic suggesting Kasumi was no stranger to CrossFit. Kasumi danced in place ears twitching until Epadia got up.
“Good, your up. Let’s race, I’ll give you a gold piece if you can beat me to the training ring.”, with that Kasumi took off in a headlong sprint through the halls and down a flight of circular stairs before pitching out across the campus. The only known way of beating Kasumi to the sparring circle was by jumping off the balcony onto a lower roof and then again onto the ground. If Epadia took the shortcut off the balcony Kasumi would pout complaining, “No fair, you cheated,”, before offering up the gold piece. Otherwise she would gloat, “Ha-Ha I always come in first.”. It was possible to just wander the halls until boredom took hold, in that case Kasumi would still be beside the drill instructor gloating.
“Late again, you should work on that.”, Croaked the dower veteran in matte grey armor.
“Here’s your sword, equip it in your inventory.”, The veteran hero laid out an open palm and (wooden sword) appeared in Epadia’s inventory. Equipped it appeared as a bandolier across her chest with the grip over her left shoulder.
“Why don’t you try it out on a practice dummy.”, The veteran grumbled. Kasumi was already whacking the stuffing out of one sandbag dummy with her wooden sword punctuating each whack with a grunt of Ah-ya. Each whack with the sword caused the stamina bar in her lower left peripheral to dip before slowly rising again as it refilled. The veteran did his best Lee Emery impression shouting that she could hit harder than that as spittle landed on her cheek.
When she had hit the dummy ten times the veteran grumbled, “Good, now why don’t you try hitting a real target. Try hitting Kasumi five times, she will block.”. Kasumi moved to the center of the sparring ring holding up her wooden sword in a defensive stance. Kasumi’s eyes were laughing as she stuck out the pink tip of her tongue at Epadia.
The combat system was based on Kendo (Japanese fencing) as a challenge for PvP arena leagues. It required actual skill and hours of practice. Most first-time players hacked and slashed at Kasumi’s defenses until their stamina bar was drained without result. The trick was in feinting in one direction and then landing a quick stab elsewhere. Each time Epadia scored a hit Kasumi would cry, “wait, how’d you do that?”
Epadia blinked a few times and stretched, looking around as well as up and down before she made a few steps. "Oooh... this feels... interesting. In all 3 places..." she giggled a bit, the feeling of this virtual body was rather interesting as her real self was not as well build, neither in the chest region nor her hips... and the mixed package further down was feeling very strange inside the shorts. Definitely she had to get used to. After getting to know her body a bit better she finally looked at the available menus and rolled her eyes. "Really? They stuck with the skin color-thing? And having bigger breasts does not mean you are less intelligent. 'Riri' is perfect proof of that, her marks in school always were above me and she had even bigger ones than Epadia." still she messed with all the sliders a bit before resetting, testing everything a bit before she decided on a starting setup.
"There you go, Storm Watch... if you say large breasts make you dumb, I'll play along, at least I can still read the texts." she said to herself, hoping that staying above a value of 1 was not making it to hard but up until now she always had characters with high intelligence, this might be really interesting. After checking the values 2 more times if they were to her liking, Epadia made a few more steps to get roughly acquainted with this virtual self and finally accepted everything.
As the music started to fade there was some annoying voice in the young woman's ear, it sounded almost like Opelika but it was different and Epadia was quickly aware of what and why. This was not her, well technically Evelina's, bedroom but the starting place of Fable and next to her must be the cute Kasumi. Epadia was not sure how often she had defeated the poor quirky catgirl during the beta with the many characters she had started for testing and experimenting. Just to watch the catgirl a little she staid in bed, the flicking ears were adorable, even more in a real perspective and not through the monitor and watching the character from behind and over the shoulder. Unlike new players, Epadia knew what was coming right after getting up and was not giving Kasumi any chance, she wanted that gold piece, that early it was a lot of money, and the first possible moment she sprinted to the side, taking the shortcut. According to her knowledge there was simply no chance to beat Kasumi fair and square, she was running faster than any player character could. After hitting the ground it was a short sprint towards the trainer, Kasumi already a few seconds behind her, and she had not taken the shortcut. "It is not cheating if you take a long way. You only specified to meet here, not the route." Epadia stuck out her tongue at the catgirl and pouched the goldcoin into her inventory.
Happy with the first money in her pocked she faced the trainer, equipping the sword into her right hand once she had received it, stepping towards the dummy. Feeling the actual weight in her hand was so different but with her strength it was nothing she could not do. Only getting used to actually swinging the weapon, albeit supported by the game, was something new. Before it was at the click of a mouse and it simply happened, not like this. 10 hits on the dummy felt just enough to get a rough idea how to use it and she turned towards Kasumi. In response to the cute pink tongue, she stuck out her tongue as well and was testing how attacking this way felt. The redhead was not surprised that Kasumi blocked each hit, she was impossible to hit right now but Epadia wanted to monitor her stamina. And then she suddenly stepped closer, something which was impossible to do in front of the monitor was her tactic. The normal feint would mean to quickstep to one side or the other and then attack, but Epadia instead preferred to scritch the others ear to distract her before landing a hit. If that unorthodox tactic should not work she would of course go back to the standard feint, sidestepping and hitting or stabbing. "Your defense is wide open, Kasumi, that is how!" she told her, knowing it was not true but she liked to play a bit along.
The sand circle rang with the sharp clack of wood on wood. Fine sand grit crunched and slid under their sandals with the short back and forth dance of sparring. A flat screen and mouse couldn’t transfer the shock of impact as the wooden swords clacked together. The match proceeded in short frantic bursts of action that left Epadia breathless as the yellow stamina bar dipped into the bottom 10%. Her Endurance selection gave a slight bonus to her recovery rate, but it was only about 1 point above average. With each flick of her practice sword across Kasumi’s pointed cat ear she let out a little squeal as her cheeks flushed pink. In the bubble just above her head a little pink bar appeared just below her green health bar, just a sliver of bright pink filled the bar with each touch to her ears.
When the Veteran was satisfied, he called a halt and said, “Now you must learn to block. I want you to try and block Kasumi’s attacks. Remember not all attacks can be blocked so try and roll out of the way. It’s also a good way to create separation to recover or drink a potion if you have one.”. He said it, but he didn’t explain how to roll. Normally you would just hit (R) and move the mouse in the direction of the roll. It was kind of an important point because big monsters delivered some big hits.
Back in the center of the circle Kasumi wasted no time in going after Epadia. At this level Kasumi could be a real challenge. She was fond of giving a tapping blow in one direction and then wailing an opponent out of the park with the looping back hand. Leaving an opening for the expected tapping blow often resulted in a crack upside the head or ribs as she danced back for another exchange. It was always possible to try and exchange blows with her in this round, but her health bar never budged even if she was knocked off her feet with a hard hit. At the end of each of the first two tutorial rounds (hitting & blocking) her health bar reset to full. The pink sliver also reset but that hadn’t been in the Beta and there was no explanation given as to the purpose. Hitting & Blocking concluded the mandatory tutorial, the rest was extra credit.
Once Epadia had demonstrated five blocks the Veteran stepped in again, “Well there’s not much more I can teach you. Now who’s up for a dual? I have a special reward for the winner.”. In the Beta defeating Kasumi in the offered duel granted the broad sword. There were also two other challenges, the archery demonstration shooting at targets for the short bow, and spell casting for the fireball spell. While the archery test was an easy pass with her agility score, the fireball spell was of dubious merit given her intelligence score only gave her enough mana to cast it once with a long recharge time. The two mini quests, shooting birds and collecting apples, each paid her another gold piece. Epadia could explore the grounds the grounds to her harts content (although it didn’t yield anything of real value) or head out down the path to the village of Stillden.
Epadia did have quite some fun playing with Kasumi in that way, it was so much more fun than hitting some keys on the keyboard and clicking around, she could improvise to some extend... and teasing the catgirl with her ears made it even more fun and she was guessing they had added a new mechanic... maybe she could arouse NPC's? But a training fight was not suited for experimentation, to much scripting involved, alone the trainer calling the round done was far before Epadia could really get into it. As their roles were reversed, blocking was not that hard... and for rolling out of the way with a little jump, she simply tried her best to actually jump away. This would need some time to get used to though. That comment about drinking a potion was funny, she had none right now so she would have to practice that at a later time as well, hopefully not in a fight for the first time.
Both mandatory tutorials finished, Epadia was more than willing to try the other 2, after all she had to know how all of it worked and she wanted to go a route of weapons suited for her high agility, which meant lots of weapons for distance. Knowing your way around close combat was essential though so having these tutorials as base was very good. As expected by her, archery was easy, it needed a bit of aiming the rest was done by the game and her character, making up for her lack of training in such things in real life. Hurling fire though... this was a bummer, it was the first time she played a character with such a low intelligence score, well, this one would not use much in terms of magic for the most time but a healing spell should do the trick in the future, something to save her shapely virtual behind. Having taken care of both, the redhead returned to the trainer and Kasumi. "Okay, now I am down for a duel... Kasumi, today I will finally defeat you!" she announced, roleplaying a bit for herself as she managed to defeat Kasumi every time once she had figured out the tactics needed in the beta... but here this would be a bit different, this time she was here and the perspective different but she would try all her tricks nevertheless... and if nothing else, going for Kasumi's ears with her hand for some gentle petting might do the trick as well.
Kasumi covered her smile with her hand as she gave a girlish giggle. "Okay, I'm ready when you are.", She said ears twitching as she moved to the far side of the practice circle.
When Epadia had taken her place Kasumi skipped to the center wooden sword held before her. "This time I won't go easy on you.", She said in challenge.
Their met with a quick double clack of wood on wood as Kasumi punched the extended blade of her sword against Epadia's in a quick double pump that flexed the whipcord muscles of her bare arms. On the second punch she rolled the the tip of her blade over their locked hilts. Epadia was greater with the blurring tip of Kasumi's sword darting towards her face.
Kasumi skipped back a pace and lunged with the over hand right that should cut across Epadia from left shoulder to right hip. This was the expected setup of her two hit combo. Epadia's block would cause Kasumi to ricochet back in a roundhouse blow in the reverse direction, from right hip up to left shoulder.
Epadia was not suspecting anything else from Kasumi, and it felt good to quip back "And I will not let you win!" as part of the challenge while she took her own position. While she did not know the full script for this battle, she knew the opener and all the moves Kasumi was allowed to make, the difficulty was to translate everything into virtual 3D and react. She knew already she would likely take a few hits but if it was not the hard hitting ones she would be fine.
Blocking the initial punches was easy, even the second punch, maybe the game itself was supporting her as the player behind Epadia could always only observe on the screen but she could lift her own sword up, letting Kasumi's sword slide over her head. Her skipping back was happening in maybe 9 out of 10 fights right after this opener and she could bring her sword into a good blocking position, knowing what happened now. Kasumi's sword was bouncing away and that catgirl was taking the swing to put it into the turn. If this one was hitting, it would take, at least in the beta, around a fourth of her hitpoints and the only sensible thing to do was rolling back or to the left. Since Epadia wanted to hit her, rolling back was not an option so she jumped to her left, hoping she was quick enough to follow it up with a forward roll without being hit and the moment she came up, giving Kasumi a blow into her back. On the screen this had always worked and she hoped the game would give her the needed support and speed her mind and real body was lacking.
As Epadia performed the tuck and roll Kasumi’s sword clove the air as she swung for the fences. The system guided by Epadia’s agility score smoothed out Evelina’s personal lack of experience and ability as if she had spent years performing for the Cirque Du Soleil. She came out of the somersault and regained her feet in one effortless motion just in time to catch Kasumi at the end of her titanic sweeping strike.
The cat girl NPC had begun her attack with determination and focus as she shout of, “ERRR-YA!”. That was quickly followed up by an eye bulging squeal as Epadia’s wood blade cracked across her back. The blow landed with a slap clap and rip of fabric as the defenseless Kasumi stumbled forward. She tucked performing her own roll out of reach coming up to face Epadia across the sparring circle. On the sand between the two women lay the wrap of cloth that Kasumi had used as a sort of sports bra.
She stood for a moment fists clenched tight at her sides her face red with anger beneath her orange mane of hair. “You did that on purpose.”, she spat. Without the benefit of the strip of cloth her apple sized breasts stood out on her narrow chest, the little pink cones of her nipples exposed to the open air.
The moment of peek passed; she came back across the ring in short hopping steps with her sword in the guard position. As soon as Epadia was in reach Kasumi let loose a blur of stabbing attacks, striking high and low as she sought to skewer her in a dozen places and keep Epadia on the defensive. As it stood Katsumi was missing a good quarter of her health bar, below that a red bar had a decent sized chunk on it. Like the pink bar the red bar had no explanation. If green was health and blue was mana, that meant pink was flirty and red was, what?
Epadia watched herself in almost an out-of-body experience, not that she ever left her virtual body but her memories from playing on the screen overlapped with what happened. Right after she felt her wooden blade connect she jumped away to avoid a potential backlash from Kasumi. A bit stunned she watched the fabric falling to the floor and at first wondered what that might be, until she saw the now partially naked Kasumi and felt a sudden warmth in her face. Was this game even emulating this now? That she turned a darker shade from embarrassment?
"I.. that.. no... believe me! That was... how..."
she almost stared at the now openly displayed breasts and how the stiffening nipples moved as Kasumi started her next attack. Losing track of them was the only reason why Epadia even noticed the attack and started to defend herself against the quick assault. There was no way she could keep this up since the blocks still used up her stamina and she surely was not able to block each hit. At least her hit had been a hard blow considering the health-bar, the red one was a mystery though. By now she had still to guess but by the reactions pink simply had to be some kind of arousal or something and how Kasumi was reacting red must be maybe anger or something and she was guessing, if that one was full the catgirl would either receive a boost to her stats or could start a special attack. Whatever it was, it was new in the release version.
Going into a physical offense was out of the question right now, dodging was possible but Kasumi was using quick attacks, easy to block but she could with ease react to a changed position. Knowing this would hurt her own health-bar and she had only one shot at it for the moment, Epadia decided to go the way of magic, hurling a fireball at Kasumi, followed with strikes of her own. At least she hoped this would work, distracting the physical NPC with a magic hit often put them into a short stun you could use to withdraw or attack on your own but it really was only viable if you still had enough hitpoints to take a few weak hits.
Kasumi’s quick stabbing thrusts with her wooden practice sword left Epadia batting at the darting point of her opponents’ sword. Bat left step right and reverse the motion as Kasumi redirected the next snaking stab of her blade. Even with all the dancing and parrying Kasumi was viper quick and Epadia’s novice smock started to look tattered with holes and little loose flaps of material that showed bare skin beneath. More than one strike found the mark poking Epadia right in her massive swinging jugs. Simulated cold sweat trickled down the center of Epadia’s back as Kasumi ran out of stamina. Flushed with her exertion Kasumi skipped back out of reach. Brow furrowed in concentration Kasumi looked shiny with sweat as her small firm breasts heaved beneath the noon day sun.
Epadia started the wrist loosening gesture to summon the Fireball as the instructor had showed her. The snowball sized swirling ball of flame appeared in her palm warm to her touch. No sooner had she summoned the ball of flame than Kasumi was right their darting in. The first blow hit Epadia with a crack that numbed the left side of her skull and stung her ear. She never felt the second as she was treated to a view of the cloudless sky and the weightless freedom of flight. Epadia hit the fine sand on the far side of the ring with a boneless bounce. Kasumi had fully a third of her health bar left and now Epadia’s was in the bottom ten percent.
Little confetti tatters of smock and shorts lay scattered in a six-foot path back to where Kasumi now stood. Kasumi half turned covering her smile and chin with one hand. “Oops, I didn’t mean to do that.”, she snarked with, did I do that, girly innocence.
Epadia was panting and a bit flushed. This might be just a game but she could feel the air on her more and more exposed skin and the jiggle of her shapely chest with each hit she took. She knew she was taking a risk with her tactic but it was a bigger than she had anticipated and pain shot through her skull, the spell lost as she flew through the sky with maybe the best view of the clouds one could get, if there would have been any, that is. There was a grunt coming from her as she hit the ground, her HUD flaring up with red, the healthbar blinking in warning.
Almost feeling the ache of the pain, Epadia got up, marveling at the detail with how her clothes had decorated the ground, not that she liked the humiliating feeling of the increasing nakedness. Time to go to the offense, a few more hits even the weak ones would take herself out of the fight and she really wanted to get Kasumi down instead. Ready to block incoming weak attacks she herself tried to go forward with a few quick hits, planning to throw in a strong one once Kasumi gets her own defense up to break through it. Maybe the AI of her fighting partner was thinking, she was winning now and would go a little bit more easy on Epadia, so the hope of the young woman.
Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)
