Critical Tits

Chapter Seven

“–daughter of State Senator Mike Tewning, the most outspoken advocate for House Bill 241 which would expand funding for social services and educational opportunities for inmates and ex-felons. She was last seen on the fifteenth of this month wearing the outfit depicted in the image here. If you have any information regarding her whereabouts you should contact the police immediately. The family is offering a reward for any information that leads to the recovery of their daughter.”

“Terrible shame, Leslie.”

“Senator Tewning, as we’ve discussed in recent segments, is

“That it is. Our hearts go out to the family of Senator Tewning in what has to be a trying moment.”

“Next up, man versus… squirrel? Channel 8 has recovered video of local resident Marshall Babich in the fight of his life over… well, you’ll see, coming up after the break.”

Cindy didn’t bother looking to where the girl knelt worshipfully fellating her host. She’d have to crane her neck to look under the table, and that meant she wouldn’t be looking at her dice. Nothing was going to stop her from looking at her dice. Bobby had offered to host a bonus session. A solo  bonus session.

She’d come home from work, dripping in spit and cum despite it being a slow night. Bobby had greeted her with the offer at the door while Cindy finished discarding the uniform she’d been shedding even as she shuffled down the hallway outside. Neighbors? She didn’t care what they saw. Maybe she could fuck them, if they complained, to keep them from hassling Bobby over it. Maybe fucking them would make her an even more talented fuck toy for boys. Her boys. She’d earn her space at the table. There was no longer a recollection of a time when that hadn’t been the goal. For some reason, access to the dice depended on it. Had Bobby said that, or had she figured it out herself? Or was she guessing? No Bobby definitely never told her she had to. Pleasing the boys might be beside the point. If there was a point, besides the dice.

He hadn’t even made her rinse off first. That was sweet. She supposed that as haggard as she felt, she probably didn’t look it . Cindy had gotten so used to making herself over between fucks and sucks that sometimes she even forgot she had a dick in her mouth when she habitually slathered on a fresh coat of bright pink lipstick. The men never complained. Or maybe they did. Who cared . Work was harder and harder to tolerate, going all that distance from her dice day after day, stretching the emptiness inside them across all that distance. Would she even risk taking them with her if she could? They were so small, after all, easy to lose. Oh, who was she kidding. If she were allowed, she’d never let them away from her person.

More and more, she wished she could fill that emptiness in her somehow. Impossible, of course. The dark within was infinite, and she was practically nothing. You couldn’t fill infinity with nothing. She was pretty sure her and Bobby’s math teacher had said as much. Or maybe it had been trig. But that was obviously what she should  have been teaching them. Cindy hoped she died.

“Cindy…? You wanna roll me that d8?”

“Oh! Yes! Yes yes. Yes, please. Thank you. God, fuck me. Please? Thank you,” she murmured as she hastily clutched and dropped the speckled octahedron. “Two again,” she announced.

“Right. So it lands… here.” He set the die – just some die to serve as a marker, nothing special – on the grid. It was nice, leaving behind the VTT technology and getting back to basics. A tabletop game was best played on a tabletop, after all. Cindy studied the layout of the tokens, trying to discern some pattern in them, but there was no more a pattern  than there was to the lights behind the dice. Chaos. Senseless. Cindy envied Sintheigha, standing there in the heart of Koltron’s lair, watching… what had he called it?

“What you have long known as ‘reality’ is only a sad, paltry lie pulled over your eyes. There are places however, where we, the initiated, can peel back that veneer and penetrate the darkness behind it,” Bobby said, adopting a deep British accent as he almost always did for humanoid boss villains.

Sintheigha folded her hands meekly before her. Resistance had not served her well when his men came for her. So long as she exhibited deference, he had been gentle.

“Of course, there is no truth in this either. What you’re seeing now is no more real than what you saw before. Only now, the lie of it is exposed. A thing cannot be itself and also be… this, can it?” Cindy’s d4 in hand, Bobby acted out Koltron dragging his fingers through the darkness seeping into the chamber around her. She could picture it in her head perfectly, that statue that was everyone and no one looming over her, the glyphs carved into the rock under her feet. “You begin to see the world for what it can be. Fragmented lies, unknowable secrets, nonsense and chaos and madness. Ripe to be reclaimed from those irksomely noble forces fighting to urge it in the other direction.”

Bobby dropped the accent, returning to GM narration. “He drags a fingernail – the one I said was painted black, like your dice – across the air. Like before, the gesture doesn’t cut a hole where he pointed, but nearby. Wanna roll me a d4 for distance, and a d8 for direction?”

Simply picturing it, that darkness blossoming into existence all around her, was overwhelming. Her cheek planted on the table, Cindy snatched the d4 from Bobby’s hand in a flash and gave it a roll. It bounced and landed so close she could feel it against her eyelashes. “A two,” she announced as it pulled her in, through it, draining what little there was left of her. Without thinking, she slid her foot between Evelyn’s legs and toyed with her pussy using a toe, the nail painted cheerful pink with the bitch’s own polish. Not elegant, but having someone play with her pussy always made her pleasure Bobby harder, and if there was one thing Cindy still believed in, it was Bobby getting what he wanted.

The bitch was wet. She was always wet. The two of them both were; their leaky cunts had practically dyed the carpet in here. Fuck, Evelyn was pathetic. On her knees under a table, blowing a guy she was way too fucking hot for. A guy she’d ignored for the wallflower he was all through high school. Now he was GMing for Cindy like her mouth didn’t even exist. It did, of course. Bobby wasn’t shy or uncharitable about coming when they brought him to it. And for what? A bunch of cheap plastic rings and the flimsiest promise she’d ever heard of from that same inadequate boy. Were they really going to get married? It wouldn’t stop Cindy from fucking him if they did, not if she was Evelyn’s own maid of honor.

Cindy gave her a little kick in the ass, then resumed pleasuring her. It was a little harder than the one Evelyn had given her the night before while she’d been dancing for Bobby in the corner while the pretend goth nestled in beside him to watch another shitty rom-com and play another tedious drinking game. Humiliating, yes. But not as humiliating as what Evelyn was reduced to now.

Were they talking about her on TV? Cindy went back to pleasuring the bitch with her foot, a little extra salt in the wound of being another generically hot clickbait sob story. Would Bobby ever make Evelyn go back home? Cindy used to hope for it, beg for it, but as it became clearer that Bobby had uses for her, she’d given up on that. So be it. Suck that sparkplug of a cock like the pathetic toy you are , Cindy thought at her. Not that she was going to crane her neck to look down and gloat. She’d be looking under the table, and not at her dice.

Something made her think of her high school math teacher. She couldn’t remember her name, but she remembered her hair lip, and wished her dead. For some reason.

“Cindy…? You wanna roll me that d8?”

Oh god, she wished he would brand her, tattoo his symbol on her forehead so everyone would know she could never belong to another. That would be too obvious, though. Bobby – Koltron – had said that there was power in secrets. Cindy didn’t know anything about being powerful, but obeying meant a chance to roll a die. God, please fuck me , she thought. Or if she’d said it aloud again, her mumbles never reached her ears, not until they had a die result to pronounce. “Two again.”

It was so unfair she couldn’t fuck Bobby and play at the same time. He deserved it. After all–

“Cindy, I need you to stay with me, OK?” Bobby waved his hand at her, flashed a bemused smile. “I’m glad you’re excited to get your d20, but not until the end of the session, huh?”

Her body spasmed at the reminder of the prize awaiting her, on the brink of an orgasm he’d been edging her toward for hours now. She wished her pussy would quit doing that. Bobby wanted her to focus. Bobby wanted . “Right. Sorry. More stuff oozing in. Can… can  I touch it?”

Bobby nodded. “As Sintheigha picks herself up off her knees, Koltron doesn’t seem to object. Somehow, he doesn’t seem especially intimidated by her.”

Cindy giggled. How could he? She’d offered to blow him before he even had a chance to introduce himself. She still hadn’t asked if his people had needed to kill Skuf, Jerom and the NPCs to get to her. She’d only now thought of it.

Her six dice rolled around in her hand as she waved her hand through the air demonstratively. Only rarely did she let herself handle all six at once. It was too much. It took her out of the world in a way that was a little too real. Unreal? What was real?

“How does it feel?” she asked as Sintheigha, a strange chill running up her arm. Probably just malnutrition. She’d had some curly fries at the start of her shift while Charlie was warming her up, but after that, nothing but cum. It wasn’t filling, obviously, and the nutritional content was suspect at best. She’d had a lot of days like that lately, but it had helped trim up her waistline. Evelyn would never get the satisfaction of hearing her say it, but maybe she’d been onto something with that eating disorder bullshit.

“Make a…” Suddenly Bobby’s neck tensed, his face went a little redder, his doughy cheeks trembled. He was coming. Cindy knew the sight well. Evelyn moaned – not that guzzling the guy’s jizz was anything special, but she liked to show off – and Cindy made herself not kick her. Bobby didn’t like it when they disrupted each other at moments like that. Cindy simply played with her big tits and tried to coax a few more drops out of him. The boy had always loved her tits.

“Make a Fort save,” he tried again. Fortitude – whatever this stuff was she was going to have to try to save against, it was going to start by wrecking her body. Just as well. Sintheigha’s mind had never been much to begin with.

Cindy set her six precious dice down with a sigh. Probably just as well. Rubbing that many into her boobs at once was a bit too intense. She’d fallen asleep face-down with the d6 digging a cube into her right one the night (day? how long had it been since she’d slept?) before; she’d woken up humping Evelyn’s leg, and the sofa sort of, too. The little whory details of the dreams she couldn’t even remember any more, but that night there were no interruptions, nothing but the darkness. Even waking to Evelyn’s condescending smirk hadn’t stopped her.

She rolled the d20. The same stupid plastic shitty thing she’d been rolling for years now. The garbage disposal would get a mouthful with the fucking thing when she finally got her d20. When she saw the result, her head cocked to the side in surprise. Not even knowing how hard it was, she had expected she would fail. If this stuff in the air was anything like the stuff in her dice, how could she succeed? Yet there it was on the plastic. “A… a twenty. I save .”

Bobby’s head snapped back. “Really?”

She slid it across the table toward him, careful to show she wasn’t adjusting it. He squinted, then gave a nod. “Wow. Did not see that coming. So… hmm.” He stroked his chin. Evelyn crawled out from under the table to the sofa,

“What? Fort partial, still does  something if I save?” She braced herself. Whatever this stuff was, it was something primal. Cosmic.

“Hmm? No, no, it’s save   negates . DC 30, though. I just… huh. Well, fair enough.”

It was like the critical save cleared her head, a measure of old feistiness bubbling up from the depths. “30? Fuck, Bobby, I’m level 2! Good thing a natural 20 always saves; otherwise I’d need to roll a 26 – on a d20! –  to get there. This stuff’s friggin’ evil, all right. So what happens?”

“Your hand passes through it. It’s a little cold, but… Yeah. Nothing, um, happens. Shit.” He considers. “You know what? I'll tell you what. You’ve been a real trooper, letting me work in a bit of side material like this. I’m really grateful, Cindy. So if you want, you can go ahead and use my d20. I’ve strung you along for long enough, right? I mean, re-roll it obviously, but you may as well start using it. Heck, I probably should’ve let you weeks ago.”

Her jaw hung open, little noises coming out, but nothing close to words. Evelyn heard nothing anyway, already kneading her those pitiful little titties of hers, those obnoxiously perfect teardrops, kneading her six rings into her flesh. “B-but… I’ll fail,” she whispered. The moment the words formed, she hated herself for saying them. Here he was, giving her the one thing she’d wanted her entire life – the part that counted anyway – and she balked because it would take her worthless, pathetic character and make her more worthless and more pathetic?

“All right then. Koltron frowns; obviously he expected something, but–”

“Wait wait WAIT!” she interjected. “No, it’s fine, I just… I wasn’t thinking. I’m grateful! I’m so grateful. Please – let me roll it. Please?”

“It’s fine, Cindy, really.” Bobby smiled indulgently. “Anyway, Koltron shakes his head and says–”

“Bobby please! ” Cynthia (who the fuck was Cynthia?) launched herself at him, throwing herself at his feet. His pants were still around his ankles from the blowjob; she really didn’t know why he bothered putting them on, often as he indulged the girls. She kissed feverishly up and down his bare thigh, opening her eyes only once to peek at whether it was having an effect. Little by little, she was getting a rise out of him. She sprinkled Please’s between the kisses. It rose a little faster.

“All right, all right, all right!” he protested at last, laughing. “Go get my d20, Cin.” He pinched her butt as she darted back to where the tin rested. It took a couple slaps on the back of the container to get it loose from its spot in the foam container, but suddenly there it was, in her hand. She’d never before dared to touch it. It would take a sensitive scale to detect the difference, but Cindy swore she could feel the added weight in her palm compared to its smaller counterparts. The die rolled side to side, every little fleck inside catching the light just so.

“Bobby? C-can I…?”

He nodded. “Go ahead and roll, Cin.”

“No. I mean… can I…” She looked up at him, pushing all that endless, bottomless gratitude into her eyes. “Can I ride you, while I roll it for the first time? Please? It would mean a lot more if you let me, you know, thank you.”

Bobby shook his head with a grin like he was humoring a little kid asking for an extra thirty minutes past bedtime. “Fine, fine.” His chair slid  back, making room for her.

She stowed the die in her mouth as she crawled under the table to him. (Wasn’t this supposed to be a table top  game?) At his feet, she slithered up his body, dragging weighty breasts across his knees, his thighs, the thin cotton shirt that said The only thing we have to CHEER is CHEER itself!  in front of their high school mascot. She didn’t need help settling onto his dick. That was a reflex by now. The effort came when, after a few entreating bounces, she threw one long, tan leg over his head and pivoted to face the table. How did she even know how to do that? Her usually stoic GM humored her with a little moan at the new angle.

Arby’s! That’s where she’d been practicing that. It was weird to have fancy hooker skills and not remember where you learned them.

Bobby squeezed one fat tit in each hand as she wriggled her hips around his lap. That was good. He neglected them oftentimes. All those years of trying to get a look down the neckline of whatever black shit she’d been wearing, and now he’d gotten so much of her boobs in his face that he barely even played with them. A momentous occasion like this should come with her pussy wrapped around her GM, her perfect generous GM, her titties in his hands, his dice in hers.

Cindy craned her neck forward and let the d20 tumble down the length of her tongue onto the table. It rolled right over to the grid where Bobby had arranged his tokens and set pieces to make Koltron’s harem, right where all that nothing was leaking into the world.

Right where that little pinhead Sintheigha was about to suffer whatever came of rolling a 5.

“Do you know how energy drain works, Cindy?” Bobby whispered in her ear when she reported the result. Why was he whispering all creepy-sexy like that? Bobby never broke character, and he always spoke to make sure the whole table could hear him. It was jarring.

She fucked a little harder.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s... mm, fuck, right there… it’s…”

Bobby let work at humping out her distracted little orgasm while he went on. “So Sintheigha puts her hand into the void energies. Nothing actually happens… for a moment.” He kissed her ear as he murmured into it. She cringed a little. Why was he kissing her? Sucking on her nipples, sure. Hell, he’d never eaten her pussy before either but it was the sort of slutty thing she was always letting him do to her these days. It wouldn’t be weird. But kissing her ear? That was…

Yet he’d had his dramatic moment, and now he was moving on. “Then suddenly it sinks into you. All of it. The hole tears wider and wider. Part of you knows it only takes a few seconds, but it feels like it drags on for a thousand years, stretching your life out over eternity until it’s so thin that there’s nothing left of you, two-dimensionality that’s all the easier to fill because there’s nothing left inside you and then it is  the nothing inside.”

Bobby rubbed her clit. Or tried. He’d never been very good at it. To help him along, Cindy stretched out her arm until the tip of her finger touched the d20.

She came. She came so loud, so long, even Evelyn was startled, and she’d felt Cindy come when they were sixty-nining the other day for Frank’s amusement, come like a tidal wave crashing on the shore, killing a thousand hapless beach tourists.

“Anyway,” Bobby was saying to the blonde body still spasming on his dick, face and sweaty tits draped over the table. (Oh, was that  why they called it a table top  game? Was she  a tabletop game? She giggled.) “The stuff drains your life force, sucks out a little of who you are. Mechanically, it’s a ‘negative level,’ basically like losing a level. -1 to pretty much every d20 roll – skills, attacks, saves – and a little blow to your HP. As long as you don’t take negative levels equal to or greater than your actual levels, you’re more or less fine.”

Cindy nodded, her cheek sticking to the pages of Bobby’s Core Rulebook. “OK. So -1 to everything. No problem.” Like she didn’t know what a negative level was. Duh. She knew these rules by heart, though if it made Bobby happy to explain it, she owed him her feigned ignorance. And so much more. Thankfully, she was level two, only a couple levels behind the boys, so–

“And with a failed save, you take four of them.”

Game day. Real  game day, the whole group. Cindy glowed with anticipation. It felt like ages since the last time she’d gotten to play. Hell, in person, it had been. They’d lost the last summer to covid, and with Brent and Andy off to college, it had been the one before that, after graduation, when they’d last gotten to sit down and roll dice together.

It was easy to hold a grudge about the way things had been the past couple months since Bobby had gotten the group back together. The boys hadn’t made it easy on her. Teasing her, demeaning her character, threatening to quit, threatening to kick her out… it had been rough, sometimes, and the mess she’d made of her personal life didn’t help. Disowned for being a vindictive brat, moving into her gamer buddy’s cramped, dirty apartment, earning her keep with her tits and holes. And of course all the drama at her former job (make that former jobs ), but finally…

Finally, it was time for everyone to come together. Cindy watched for them from the vantage point of the third-story apartment’s kitchen window overlooking the parking lot. Cindy practically skipped to the door when Andy’s car rolled up. Bobby was still getting ready, so she buzzed Andy and Brent up when they arrived.

“Hey, guys!” she gushed, throwing her arms around the two of them. They both stiffened a moment, probably some low-key homophobia about being in a hug with another dude, or perhaps surprised at the uncharacteristic affection from the ex-goth turned blonde beauty queen, but she didn’t care. Even though she’d been seeing their faces in miniature on Bobby’s TV screen every week, it felt weird seeing the new them. Brent had a much more stylish haircut, had ditched his dorky old specs for a chique new pair; Andy had lost serious weight since she’d last seen him, and traded in his douchey fedora for a plastic visor. It looked even more douchey somehow, but the greek letters on the rim obviously redeemed it for him.

She ended it with a big wet kiss on the cheek for each, then stood aside to let them get to the table. They shared awkward – but not displeased – glances, but then went to their usual spots. It was like old times, the boys on one side of the table, Cindy on the other, with Bobby’s place at the head. (They’d learned a long time ago that having someone at the foot just meant that player  couldn’t reach the combat portion of the map.) Cindy bounced happily into her seat.

“It’s so great to see you guys. I can hardly believe how long it’s been – two years, right?”

“About that, yeah, August before last.” Brent replied.

“Good to see you, too, Cynthia,” Andy answered. Cindy concealed a twitch at his misspeak. “Little less of you than we’re used to seeing I guess , huh?”

Brent swatted his arm. “Dude!”

“What? Elephant in the room, right? No sense pretending we haven’t seen what we’ve seen. Seriously, I had no idea you had all that in you. Gotta say, Bobby’s a lucky freaking guy.”

“I don’t know about luck, but I’ll grant he’s made some good investments.” Her smile was the definition of coy.

“Who knew the way to a girl’s heart was through the dice, huh?” Brent shook his head. “I have to say, when he showed us what he’d gotten for you, I said… well , I was skeptical.”

“You said he was fucking nuts is what you said.”

“I mean, come on! He tells us he’s got these special freaking dice, and we’re supposed to believe you’re going to react like he gave you a fistful of diamonds? I never knew you were into… you know. Material stuff, like that. Cool to see you got over that whole goth phase or whatever, though, caught up with the world.”

“I’m still getting used to the way I look in the mirror, but it’s growing on me.”

“Making something grow on me, too, girl.” Andy smirked, Brent rolled his eyes, and Cindy laughed. Fucking pig. But he wanted to fuck her, so she could stay at the table. Good enough.

“You don’t even know. It’s so weird seeing tan skin on my tatas. Not sure I’ll ever get used to it.”

“Can I see them at least? The dice, I mean,” Brent corrected quickly when even Andy’s eyes widened at his misapprehension.

“Yeah, your webcam was always pointed too high to see ‘em – not that I’m complaining. Speaking of, gotta say I’m sorry to see you went retro on the fashion.” He held out a sad hand in the direction of her plain white t-shirt. It was tight, and she was even wearing a bra. The time that had passed since she’d last bothered with underwear felt even longer than since she’d last sat down with the boys.

“Yeah, I know it’s not exactly bondage gear,” she said with a mix of a smile and a grimace, “but I figured for today, this might be a little more appropriate. I didn’t wanna freak you out or anything. Sorry, guys.”

“Hey, don’t apologize. You still look great,” Andy insisted.

Brent nodded his agreement, though had the class not to say it to her chest. “And hey, while we’re clearing the air and all, I just wanna say…” He cleared his throat, even gave an actual tug at his collar. Fuck, these boys were pathetic. It was even more embarrassing to have been bullied by a pussy like this. “Sorry if we were a little rough on you for a while there. No, not if. Shit. We were. Um, I don’t know if he told you, but someone…” He rolled his eyes at the pointlessness of being circumspect. “Bobby, he um, he gave us the impression that he’d like us to sort of, you know, haze you a little.”

“That’s not what hazing is, dude. When I was pledging, they made me pick up a cherry stem with my butt cheeks and–”

“If you tell that gross fucking story again, I swear to god!” Andy laughed guilelessly as Brent shook off the image and went on. “We figured you guys had had a fight, and I guess we sorta bro-coded our way into siding with him, even though… But yeah, we figured you’d quit and stay quit, or that he’d just call it.” He took a deep breath. “But then when you… you know. When we saw how you reacted, we thought maybe… I dunno. I guess I didn’t know what to think, and… I can’t speak for both of us, but I know I sort of fed off of…” He glanced at Andy, who at least had the decency to look abashed for his own abuses. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m glad it all worked out, but I’m gladder  it’s over and we can go back to the way things were.”

“I wouldn’t mind keeping a few of the new vibes in play,” Andy chimed in, waggling his eyebrows in reference to her skanky displays of the recent online sessions. Cindy played at being offended, covering her chest with an arm for a moment, then laughed it off. Ha ha, you want me to dress like a whore. Ha ha. She did laugh, though. Being treated like a whore the past month at work had made it easy to ignore. She’d miss that job.

Like that, the apology came to an end, Brent taking her playfulness to be an acceptance. “I’m just glad we’re all still cool. I don’t think I’m alone in pointing out this whole campaign has been by far the weirdest one we’ve ever done, right?”

Cindy nudged aside the bin they’d always used to hold random excess dice they’d accumulated over the years and squeezed Brent’s hand. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, it all worked out, right, ‘cause here we all are! I’m just so glad that, after everything I did, you guys are still letting me hang. I know I didn’t make it easy sometimes.”

Brent nearly flinched; he wasn’t used to having his hand squeezed by a hot, busty blonde, much less one who’d been a hot, busty goth the last time he’d seen her. Or maybe he was that taken aback by her expression of contrition. “Yeah. Cool. So you’re really not mad?”

His hand still in hers, she tilted her head to the side, a broad, pink-rimmed smile painting the stranger’s face he knew so well. “Do I look mad?”

Brent offered a smile. Andy was still ogling, though trying to look like he wasn’t.

“Hey, speaking of madness, where is the madman himself?” He glanced around the dingy studio apartment. “Don’t tell me he’s hiding in the fridge or something.”

“Oh, no, he’s in the bathroom. We figured you guys liked that bondage slave outfit so much, I talked him into wearing it,” Cindy joked . But as if on cue, the bathroom door swung open, and out stepped Bobby himself. The guys each stood to do that bro hug thing where a guy claps the other guy on the shoulder and keeps a fist between their chests when they bump for minimal gayness. Their GM fetched a ceramic dish of his mom’s famous taco dip from the oven; Cindy brought in the bowl of tortilla chips.

“I thought I smelled it, but I have this stupid stuffed up nose – it’s not covid, don’t glare – but fuck yeah, man!”

“Mom sends her regards,” Bobby said warmly as they dug in. Did he still have a mom? Cindy wondered. For a little while, it was just catching up in a way their online arrangement hadn’t properly allowed. How school was going, final exams, what college was like pre- and mid-pandemic. Neither of them asked about Bobby or Cindy’s jobs, but what would there have been to tell? Andy told them about the passing of his aunt, whom they’d all met and had mostly liked. Brent’s parents had moved the cat’s litter box to his bedroom during his absence, which was causing some domestic strife. They complimented Bobby on the apartment, which they’d gotten a video tour of when he moved in during their freshman year, but had never been able to visit. Cindy opened up only a little, explaining how she’d gotten in a fight with her parents and Bobby had been there for her, and how amazing things had been since moving in here. Nobody brought up the slutty outfits and sluttier behavior, taking the crimson in the couple’s cheeks as a sign of their guilty bliss. She laughed it off and assured them that if they’d seen half the stuff she’d done in this apartment, she’d have to charge them a subscription fee.

Finally, two hours and one pot of taco dip later, it was time to play. At last, as Brent and Andy retrieved freshly produced paper character sheets and other supplies of their own, Cindy retrieved her dice tin from the coffee table. The fervor to see them had by then subsided.

“Neat,” said Brent. Andy made a face that basically said yeah, sure, why not.

With that, Bobby ran the recap and set the stage for the day’s game.

“Wait, Sintheigha’s gone again ?!”

“Didn’t we even get Perception checks to notice?”

Bobby regarded them with commiseration. “I rolled them for you, but she disappeared during the night. Sleeping is a -10, and neither of you even has the skill trained.”

They grumbled a little, but either they’d had their fill of bullying her, or were too big of cowards to do it to her face. “Okey doke, so let’s add ‘find Sintheigha’ to our quest roster. Again,” grumbled Andy sourly. “But I mean, we have no leads, no note to say if she left on purpose, no clues if she got tooken–”

“I’m sorry, ‘got tooken?’”

“It’s a thing, dude.”

“It makes you sound like an idiot.”

“Your saying that makes you  sound uncultured.”

Bobby let it go on a minute before cutting in, “So you guys have had two whole weeks to think about what to do about Lord Koltron and the cult of Nyarlathotep. What’d you guys come up with?”

Brent held his hands up calling for a pause. “What about Sintheigha?”

“What about her, dude? I say again, we have no leads except the obvious. Either she tried to solo this Koltron thing and got nabbed, ‘cause she’s level 2 and built like a belly dancer, or else he thought his harem was one hottie shy of his dreams and came after her. Either way, this isn’t that complex. We’re fourth level, which means I’m just shy of my first dragon disciple level. Let the XP flow, yo.”

“What about Bregan? She said, I dunno , like maybe our attacking  would only play into Koltron’s hands.”

Andy snorted, his visor jerking down his forehead for a moment before he could fix it. “Bregan can spout off her hippie peacenik bullshit all she wants, but we know exactly what we’re gonna get storming Koltron’s compound. Beat down his goons, kill the lord himself. Then we’ll have all that evidence Sintheigha already found in there before, so we don’t even have to worry about legal repercussions for killing a nobleman from the local muckity  mucks.”

Brent stroked his chin. “It feels too… obvious. There’s no why , you know? Like yes, this guy doesn’t seem to have a great attitude toward women, but – no offense to the woke among us – that’s pretty small potatoes for our usual villain. There  feels like there’s so much hidden here that I don’t understand.”

“What, we have to find a portal to hell in a guy’s basement before we off him? What’s wrong with wasting a guy just for having a bunch of sex slaves? Shit, or being a cultist, take your pick.”

Brent turned to Cindy. “What do you think? I know your character’s not there, but you’re still part of the party.”

She glanced to Bobby . “I’m… I’m not supposed to say. But I have full faith and confidence in both of you.”

“Who is this CR 14 temptress and what did she do with Cindy?” Brent quipped. Bobby and Andy laughed. Cindy smiled and gave his calf a brief rub with her foot.

“So guys. You still have Bregan, and I’ll say this: Sintheigha’s still out there somewhere, or else I’d have let Cindy roll up a new character. Moment of decision – whatcha gonna do?”

Security was elevated on Lord Koltron’s estate. His men ringed the place, and once they fought through that, more hobgoblins waited inside along with a few minion beasties to spice things up. With only three party members, it was a fairly brutal onslaught. (Not that Sintheigha would have been able to help much, she pointed out apologetically.) Bregan expended all of her healing bursts and all of her spells except a couple level 1’s keeping Skuf and Jerom fighting.

Andy fiddled with his dice, rolling them at random. Cindy had forgotten about that annoying old habit of his. “So yeah, Jerom’s checking out that big door you described. I know Koltron’s rooms upstairs had the intel, but the security was way thicker down here. You said there’s nobody in the harem?”

“Just a big empty room full of cushions, translucent curtains, and a little pool with a fountain. There’s no clothes, no footprints, not the scent of incense. By all appearances, nobody’s ever used the place. It’s not what Eisheth described, certainly. The only thing to show anyone’s even  been in there any time recently is one of Sintheigha’s daggers in the middle of the floor.”

“Fuck, I knew we shouldn’t have let Eisheth run off. Well, whatever. Something’s still messed up here. So you said there’s this dark, sparkly energy on the door – hey, kinda like your dice, eh Cin?” Her fist clenched around them possessively, but Andy only laughed it off. “So yeah, can I make any kind of check to get rid of it?”

A Religion check was adjudicated; Bobby gave them the results. They weren’t thrilled. It was a magical ward, and without any way to dispel it – which they didn’t have, and wouldn’t for several levels yet – the only way was to have someone set it off. They had no summons to use for fodder, and in their usual style, had taken no prisoners. It was down to the three of them or it was nothing.

“We’re sure she’s worth it?” Andy asked. It wasn’t clear if it was a habitual dig at Cindy’s worth or a tiresome reminder of Sintheigha’s habit of being taken captive. She fought to keep her free hand on the table. She couldn’t get at her pussy through these jeans anyway.

“We’re going,” Brent declared. “It’s only a game. Worst case scenario, party wipe. Been a while, but no biggie. Right?”

“Should I take that to mean Skuf volunteers to trigger the trap?” asked Bobby.

Andy snickered. “Dude, we have Bregan. She’s depleted anyway – let her do it.”

“If you think it is the only way,” answered Bregan’s voice.

Andy watched Brent for his sentiments; he was always less willing to treat NPCs like expendable resources, but in this case, he conceded that Andy’s analysis was astute, and if she agreed… “I know you always say there’s a piece of you in all your NPCs, man. God knows this chipper little peacemonger is more you than most.”

“Eh, Bregan’s more high school Bobby. Modern softspoken sex fiend Bobby is all Koltron.” Andy laughed. Bobby gave him a considering  look, then nodded.

“Anyway, yeah, Andy’s right. We can fight and she can’t be much more help , so… I think your girl here is taking one for the team.”

“I abide by the will of the group,” was the response, the accent so thin that it might not have been Bregan at all. What followed was just Bobby. “At your urging, she steps forward, a look of firm resolve in her eyes. She pauses to look back to the two of you–”

“Oh man, this bitch is so  dead,” Andy mumbled giddily.

“–and reaches through the black stuff to grasp at the handle of the door. For a moment nothing happens, and then all of the dark energy is sucked inside her, like she’s a sponge. She stumbles back for a moment, and you can see the darkness running through her veins. She shakes her head like she’s trying to loose  something in her ears, but finally turns back to you. ‘It’s open.’”

“Oh man, she lived? Boo.”

“Are you OK, Bregan?” Brent pressed.

“Let us proceed below. Koltron awaits.” Bobby didn’t need to point out that there was a darkness in her voice now that hadn’t been there before.

“Hells yeah! Recasting my Shield spell,” Andy declared.

As Skuf, Brent narrowed his eyes at the GM. “I thought you didn’t like getting your hands dirty, Bregan.”

In that half-hearted Irish brogue, Bobby answered, “I don’t. Lucky for me, I found some friends only too happy to do it for me, eh?” The narrator voice  resumed. “The door is open now, and you can head down. It’s not lit, but Skuf’s Light spell still works. It’s dimmer though, like something is squeezing down on it. That’s 50% radius for the main light and the dim.”

“Gotcha.”

“The steps spiral downwards, a broad stone staircase. The walls are slick with grime, and the floor is gritty underfoot, faint stains just visible. And a smell, too.”

“Like Bobby’s apartment - HEYO!” Brent hushed his companion acidically, though his eyes darted around Bobby’s grungy dwelling suspiciously.

“The stairwell ends at another set of double doors, though unlike the last set, these stand open. Because of the angles, you can’t see more than a few feet into the room until you’re inside.”

Cindy whispered, “Go inside.”

The boys shared an uncomfortable look. “So… we go inside?” Brent asked anxiously.

Andy nodded. “We go inside.”

“I really have to go?” Cindy whined. Whining was her default tone, any more. On the most important day of her life, she ought not to feel that way, but she did. “I’ll miss half the session!”

“Don’t be like that. You’ve done really good so far, Cindy! You kept your job, kept making it work. Like I asked. Just one more shift, all right? I bet they’ll even let you off early.”

“You think they will?”

“I think you’re persuasive, and beautiful, and brave, and I don’t think any manager would be able to say no to you. In fact, I believe so hard that I’ll be waiting for you, right here, in time to pick you up for the session. Time enough even to take a shower first, even. You know you’ll need it.” Her nametag  was in the center cup holder. He picked it up and pinned it to the shirt of her Arby’s uniform. Cindy didn’t even register that the pin had stabbed into her breast. It didn’t bleed, though. “Go on. Work hard, try to have fun, and remember: the dice are yours now. Yours to roll whenever you want. OK?”

As if she could forget. Bobby had assured her over and over since their solo session that they were hers now, but she still didn’t feel like she had earned  them. The tin in her pocket felt like it weighed a hundred thousand pounds, yet carrying it made her feel lighter than air. It made no sense, but she was more comfortable that way. The things that made sense were hurtful. Terrifying.

She kissed Bobby goodbye and made her way into work. It was an opening shift, but on Saturdays the stores would no doubt be slammed as usual. Inside, she made her way to the back and clocked in. Patrick and Paulie were on this morning, and Charlie would be in once the doors opened since Mr. Oleander, the owner, still hadn’t approved hiring a new assistant manager to replace him. Paulie sneaked a feel of Cindy’s ass as she sauntered by, but she reminded him that opening was a three-person job, so he’d have to wait for his break for a turn.

The smells of grease warming in the fryers, seasoning salt on the opening batch of curly fries, beef juice trickling down the blades of the meat slicer… It all reminded her of something. Somewhen. She hadn’t done openings for weeks now; Charlie got better money out of her pussy evenings and closing. She’d made a special request for opening today. Game day. Brent and Andy would be coming over in only a few hours. It was hard to imagine Charlie letting her go early, but whatever. She had her dice. Game day would be fun, but it wasn’t what mattered.  Ultimately Cindy didn’t care where she was, what she was doing, if her dice were with her. Although Bobby had said they were hers now, it wasn’t like he couldn’t take them back whenever he wanted. She still hadn’t earned them yet, not really. She’d only had to let Charlie fuck her ass in the breakroom to earn being reassigned to the early shift. Stupid on Charlie’s part, really – she’d let him do that and more for less than nothing in weeks past, as a favor to her even, but pretending she might withhold it had somehow motivated him. It made no sense, but that was to be expected.

Old routines saw her through her brief time doing her normal old job. More than casually brushing her butt, her boobs, against Paulie and Patrick. Lifting her work shirt to flash her tits in the doorway of the manager's office every few times she passed it on her way to the drive-thru window. Bend at the waist, lift with the tits – which was to say ask one of the boys to do it, then paw at their crotches needily while they did her work for her.

Around 10:45 she got her first special order. “Cindy, got a request for a number 22 with extra special sauce,” Charlie’s voice announced into her headset. The boys grinned at her, though then Patrick did a double take at the line forming and grumbled something about being under-staffed. Cindy licked his neck and made her way downstairs to the break room.

Was it still the break room? It once had been. When Cindy was working, employees didn’t take breaks in here except for the once-per-shift ride. It didn’t look very relaxing, most of its perimeter rimmed by stacks of boxes filled with grease and food packaging and soda machine refills. The old meat slicer sat in one corner, sidelined but not discarded when it grew too loose, the blade oscillating too freely to safely cut the meats . Some kind of brackish ooze had leaked onto the floor in one corner that filled the whole place with an invitingly sordid stink.

The customer was already waiting for her, standing nervously in front of the long plastic table for employees to take their meal at. It was the same make of table Bobby used for their game, coincidentally, though his  had a white top and this one was mottled tan. Might’ve used to be white, she supposed, before years of Arby’s had seeped into it. Either way, Cindy’s top came off, and once the strange man paused for air amid sucking awkwardly at her bare tits, she got her sturdy black work jeans off and bent over the tabletop. The other dice, the d4, d6, d8, the two d10’s and the d12, all remained in her jeans pocket. The d20, though, she kept in hand. No way she was about to leave that lying around this filthy fucking sty.

“Are you gonna give it to me, mister?” she asked needily. Was it sincere? She didn’t really know; that was just what she said sometimes, the same rote utterance she’d used a couple minutes earlier to ask if some lady at the drive-thru wanted to try their new spicy prime rib cheesesteak.

He gave it to her. She whimpered and moaned as she came. That happened for her far more easily than it did for the customers, and with the dice in her pocket by her right ankle, every orgasm was the burning freezing ecstasy of drifting through outer space in the full blast of the sun’s rays.

Experimentally, she gave the d20 a roll.

5.

Was 5 significant somehow? It felt like it had to be, but she didn’t know what it could mean. Five inches? Could be true. Five dollars Charlie charged him? Sounded way low, she was pretty sure, but maybe he got off on that. Cheap whores seemed to appeal to guys more than expensive ones, she’d learned, getting what one pays for be damned.

Cindy was dressed and halfway up the stairs to resume her shitty boring orgasmless job when another special customer was shown in. Some guy her dad’s age with skinny legs and a fat gut who wanted to fuck her tits. She lubed up with the bottle of hand lotion she used to use for… what was it? Oh, right, lotioning her hands. The guy was too tall for her to do it kneeling, too fat do it with her sitting in a chair, too heavy to mount her on the flimsy table, so she used her clothes as a pillow and lay there on the orange-tiled floor, moaning encouragingly as he pumped his cum across her tits.

His roll came up 11. Eleven minutes? Could be. She had amazing tits. Customers told her that all the time. “Those titties are worth every penny and then some, darlin’,” said the man. Case in point. A southern accent? 11 states away?

Charlie took his turn. 7. That one she thought she knew. 7 weeks her senior at the restaurant. He used to rib her about her inexperience, long after the gap had become meaningless. He was quick, a hasty pump and dump, and told her to just hang out down here even if there was a pause. There was already a line forming. For a moment he studied her nametag  still clinging to her right tit, but shook it off and retreated upstairs to usher in the next customer.

Another stranger, this one actually pretty hot. That was fun. She didn’t get to fuck hot guys very often. 10. She laughed, but when he asked why, she had nothing. He wasn’t that  hot. “It just feels so fucking good,” she moaned, mostly honestly, and stepped up her pace. It was over too soon, but the guy felt bold enough to give her his number. Cindy thanked him, then wadded  it up and threw it haphazardly. The little scrap landed in that puddle of gunk, where it belonged.

Oleander, the store’s owner, came by then. Earlier than usual. Did he check her hours before stopping by? 16. Did he own 15 other Arby’s? Did she remind him of his sixteen-year-old daughter? Was this the sixteenth time he’d come by to fuck his “slut of the month” as he liked to call her? He told her he’d only come in on business, but had been pleased to find her; he’d hang out in the office today, give her a little personal supervision. Cindy thanked him, sucked his dick clean, and waited for him to get bored of leering and go.

Next, the fifth grade teacher that had taught across the hall from hers in elementary school. 4. That… that wasn’t right. Not that the dice were ever wrong! She took a quick break from her blowjob to grab the d6 and add it to the pile. (When had she seized the others?) The d6 said 5. Better. Her dizziness clear  up in time to take an audible blast of cum on her tits. “Thank you, come again.” He laughed. Right. That would have been a good joke.

Some total stranger. 11 again. “Are you… Jesus, I… oh my god…” He turned and ran. It had been a few shifts since one of those, where they heard somebody else order the 22 special and parroted it out of curiosity. What did they expect? Drugs? Maybe drugs. Dealing drugs out of a back room at Arby’s probably made more sense than finding some hot blonde whore letting her manager pimp out her pussy. Which only showed how little sense anything made. Cindy empathized. There was a brief lull after the man left, so she got dressed, let the cum that hadn’t dried already soak into her shirt, into the crotch of her black work jeans as it oozed out of her cunt. Meanwhile she stared at the dice. That filled the time so much better than her phone used to during her breaks.

Paulie got his break, and off went the clothes at a snap of his fingers. Paulie liked to play the field a bit; the man had fifteen minutes and liked to squeeze the most out of them. She started bent over the table, sucking his dick while he admired the variant view of her ass. Then he humped her face a bit, pulled her lips – the face lips, not the normal ones – and rubbed his cock against her teeth. That was a new one, but kinda hot. A footjob to finish, which probably owed an assist to that oozy gunk on the floor for how smoothly it went. She told him it was lotion so he didn’t get pissy.

Only once he left did she remember to roll. 12. One higher than last time. Of course.

The next guy she only somewhat recognized, though he was apparently a repeat customer because she heard Charlie lecturing him not to go so hard on her ass this time. Had he really reamed her hard enough that Charlie… No, wait. This was the guy who’d spanked her so brutally it had left a welt. Bobby had made Evelyn kiss and make better, though of course having that goth gutterslut’s lips on her helped not at all. 3. He’d already counted nine, so that wasn’t it. He got to thirty, her ass beet red, before Charlie stepped in to break it up. Charlie, 7, spanker 3… Three times seven was… No. Hmm. Whatever. Math wasn’t going to give her any answers, because it had rules so it was only another lie.

Quinn, some deadbeat junky who’d been a couple years ahead of her in high school. A friend of a former friend. 19. Almost.

Charlie again, the greedy pig, though he thanked her for doing such good work on Mr. Oleander. “Asshole’s camping out in my office for you,” he griped. She apologized and gave another roll from one hand into the other palm. 6 this time. Sixty-thousand dollar salary? 7 before, 6 now. A countdown, maybe. Finally someone who just wanted her to fuck them. He sat down on a crappy metal chair at the table and let her ride him. Face to face, today. He liked to kiss her, the perv. It couldn’t be considered romantic considering he shoved a thumb up her ass and motorboated her right after, laughing. Someone had taught her that humor was simply the contradiction between expectation and reality. Cindy cackled.

A woman. Was this her first woman? It seemed pointless. She’d never needed to please a woman for dice, for a place at the table. Andy and Brent were boys. Bobby was a boy. Cindy told her to get the fuck out. The woman recoiled like she’d been struck and ran out crying. 17. Madness.

She danced for some twenty-something dude she didn’t know. Just danced like a slut, shaking her T&A by turns. He didn’t even want a lap dance, just sat in a puddle of hers and Charlie’s cum in that same chair and watched her, jacking off. 13. Unlucky. She nearly pulled a muscle trying that one move, so maybe, yeah.

Charlie came in to give her shit about turning away that lady before. “Oh, I didn’t know I have  to do chicks, too. My bad.” He looked like he wanted to give her more of a lecture, but her ass was still red from the guy he’d let beat on it, so he left it at that. He’d probably be a cool manager if she still had a normal job here.

What time was it? Was Bobby waiting?

18, rolled before the two boys even came in. She knelt on a chair – a different one, without cum on it – and one fucked her face while the other fucked her pussy. Then they swapped. Kinda gross. Were they eighteen? She guessed they had to be. Charlie wasn’t that  fucking brave about renting her pussy out. The second round, they both pulled out and had her get on her knees and jerk them both off, one fist each, pumping them onto… well, mostly the floor, but some spritzed on her thighs and even a bit on her titties. That  was pretty  hot that they wanted to try that hard. Cindy rubbed the d12 around her clit and got off two more times thinking about it before the next guy came in.

She recognized him. Definitely a regular. Nobody with a name or a story, though. Just some guy. He stroked her hair a bit. Whatever. Then it was bending over the table once again getting railed from behind. Did he care that there was already those boys’ cum in there? And Charlie’s, and… Shit, she forgot who else had fucked her pussy that day. Not even the faces stuck in her memory. Whatever. It made a boy happy. Two boys if you counted Charlie. She rolled the d20 carefully towards her body so it didn’t fall off the edge, landing right in the wedge between where her tits were squashed down on the cold plastic table.

20.

Critical.

Cindy came like  a head-on collision between a pair of freight trains. Charlie rushed halfway down the basement stairs at all the screaming, but seeing that she was apparently enjoying herself, he locked the door and turned up the muzak over the intercom. The break room had decent sound insulation, but she remembered a couple years ago when Fat Rog – this skinny kid who was obsessed with performing spontaneous pullups – tore down a ventilation duct. Sound-proof, it was not.

Still tingling – no not tingling, still fucking coming , fucking coming like she’d just critted Koltron with her dagger right in his evil black heart – she bucked the guy off. Before he could regain his balance she was on him, mouth pressed hungrily to his, pursuing him until their bodies thudded against a stack of boxes. Some of them fell noisily. Some of the soda bags must have gotten punctured somehow, because suddenly she could feel the sticky black syrup pooling around her toes. His shirt came off easily, like any man flattered at being summarily stripped by some hot horny Arby’s whore. Arby Barbie, Evelyn called her, the  bitch. The man was a fuzzy mother fucker all right. Her arms around the man’s neck, she leapt on him, thighs locking on his hips, lowering herself back onto his shaft.

A fucking 20. FUCK!

She was screaming the whole time, one endless, effortlessly elicited orgasm flowing endlessly through nerve endings frayed from far too much pleasure. Charlie didn’t intervene this time. The guy sputtered nervously even as he tried to pretend he was some badass who fucked like this all the time. He finally tried to silence her with his mouth over hers.

Moron. A handful of his chest hair caught in her talons. She ripped back, and as he gasped in shock and pain, she spat her beloved d4 – Sintheigha’s dagger – right down his throat.

Cindy held on as long as she could with him thrashing around trying to unseat her from her mount. The d20 fell from her hand in the midst of it all, but she didn’t even need to look. 16. Good luck knocking her loose with that Ride check, dipshit. His face was turning purple as he fought in vain for air, fought in vain against the shrieking banshee bearing him down to the ground. If only Andy and Brent could see her now. Drenched in sweat and cum and syrup and at least a few less definable things, they would beg her to join their party. Maybe even promote her up from party  pack mule.

Finally, a new crest of orgasms dropped her from her steed as it fell to its knees. She felt empty. That made her smile. Her pussy, emptiness itself but everywhere flecks of white. The man lumbered to his feet, chest heaving, and lunged at the table belly first, not even seeming to care that his cock – not unimpressive, especially considering his circumstances – was mashed between. The d4 remained lodged in his throat like a caltrop in a horse’s hoof.

Her d20 was nearby, she noticed. Cindy launched it by pressing down on it with a toe. She screamed again in sheer ecstasy as it stopped early, trapped in the pool of syrup that had spread across half the room now. Diet Coke by the smell. Another 16, she knew. The man backed up, prepared a second self-Heimlich. At the appropriate moment, Cindy gave him a hard shove. Off-balance and dizzy from lack of oxygen, he lurched wide around the table and slammed face first into the thick cold steel of the old meat slicer.

Even with that to brace him against, it wasn’t easy for a girl of Cindy’s modest musculature, holding this weak , terrified body upright.

Cindy kept screaming as she went through the familiar motions. She really was too nice to boys these days. Her old goth self would never have volunteered to do the suffocating man’s screaming for him.

Andy and Brent looked back and forth between them, then back to the layout of the chamber beneath the harem, a simple round room with a weird glyph scrawled on the center in dry  erase marker. Per tradition, they used dice from the bucket to represent actors. A big red boss d6 for Koltron; a pink one, from the set Bobby’s parents had gotten for her when they’d furnished the group’s first supplies years and years ago, for Sintheigha; a yellow d12, a familiar stand-in for mini-bosses, to represent Eisheth beside her; and a series of mundane black and white ones for all the void rifts opened during Cindy’s solo session. His hand-painted Diablo statuette sat in the back to represent the enormous, many-tentacled statue that loomed across the room, poised as if in the midst of reaching to grasp all of the room's occupants. Brent and Andy had chosen dice for their own PCs, followed closely by a green d8 standing in for Bregan.

Brent couldn’t help glancing at Cindy, at where her nipples heralded her arousal through the two layers of fabric covering them. “They’re… naked?”

“Oh don’t go reaching for that scented hanky just yet, Mildred,” Andy grumbled, elbowing him. “Nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“Koltron’s not naked,” Cindy reassured them. Brent could phone in comfort with male sexuality if he needed to, but Andy was the original no-homo dude-bro.

Bobby took charge of the room again. “Let’s get back in character, guys. The women are each lying on their backs, facing the ceiling of the room, lost in the haze of darkness as if transfixed by something within it. Something red, so dark it’s almost black, is splashed across both bodies, though neither appears injured. Whether it’s blood, or some paint for whatever ritual is taking place, you can’t say. The statue is some sort of dark stone with points of luster inside it, and every time you glance away and look back, it’s like it’s moved subtly, though you can’t pinpoint how.”

“Solid ambiance, GM meum.”

Brent added, “The shifting makes sense, too – from what I read online, Nyarlathotep was a shapeshifter, took many forms, sometimes simultaneously, though some speculated he could also inhabit the bodies of his faithful. Wouldn’t surprise me if we found out he’d been acting as more than one NPC along the way. Eisheth, obviously, at the minimum.”

“Thanks,” Bobby replied to Andy. He had no words for Brent. “So Koltron is there, wearing what you’d expect someone of his station to be wearing. He watches the three of you approaching calmly, obviously not surprised after all the ruckus of your approach. ‘Greetings, friends. I began to think I’d overestimated your willingness to play my little game.’”

Brent sneered. “Some game. We just overwhelmed dozens of your minions, cultist . I doubt any of them had much fun being on the losing side.”

“Yeah, maybe next time I’ll try playing something a little bit more dangerous, like challenging my six-year-old-niece to a hand of Uno.”

The taunt earned an approving smile from both Bobby and Brent. “Brave words, from brave adventurers. Truly, my compliments. I thought I might lose you any number of times along the way, but the two of you soldiered on with admirable sticktoitiveness.”

“That is so not a word.”

Bobby ignored him. “And now, here you are, yet I wonder… do you even have the least idea what you’re doing here?”

“Stopping your ass, you slaving, murdering scumbag,” Skuf retorted.

“Fair, fair. It’s not inaccurate to assess that I may have… taken a few liberties with the ladies along the way. Not that I recall them complaining, mm?” Cindy sucked in her lower lip bashfully. “Although, if what I hear from your companions is any gauge, it seems the two of you might not exactly be up to the chivalric standard yourselves.”

Even Andy looked a little stung by the meta accuracy of that critique. Cindy wished she could blow them, jiggle her titties for them, to remind them they hadn’t done anything wrong. Everything they’d done had brought them to this point, after all.

“Still doesn’t mean you can kidnap her in the middle of the night. You let her go–”

Andy cut in urgently. “ And  give us her stuff back.”

“Seriously?”

“What? She was carrying almost all of our loot!”

“Anyway, let her go – with her slash our stuff – and we’ll consider taking you alive.”

Koltron – Bobby – stroked villainous moustaches. “An intriguing opening offer. So we are negotiating, then?”

“No. Give her back. No other options on the table.”

“Very well. Sintheigha… go.”  He waved towards the apartment’s door.

Cindy’s head snapped to Bobby, staring pleadingly. “No! What? You can’t make me go now! Please! I wanna play! Please let me stay! Please!”

Bobby shrugged. “There you have it. It seems your companion rather likes  it here. Perhaps that ambiance you so admired?”

The boys glared at her by turns . “Compulsion, eh? A cheap trick, Koltron. Release her from it. Now!” demanded Brent.

“Is it compulsion to offer someone what they want? Surely you have the means to detect if I have used magic on her. By all means. Inspect.”

Andy shook his head. “Fine. I’ll cast Detect Magic.” He moved his token into range, then adjusted so he could catch Eisheth in the area, too, just in case. It put him right on the edge of the strange symbol drawn across the center of the chamber floor, but not quite on it.

“Okey doke. You can sense magic from all the void rifts, obviously – a mix of transmutation and necromancy – but on the women, nothing. Koltron has less than you probably expected, just a powerful aura of illusion.” Cindy didn’t point out that Bregan was lurking conspicuously out of the area of effect. Dumbasses.

Andy conveyed the findings in character, then Koltron went on. “So perhaps I could make a counter-offer. This girl, Sintheigha. You find her desirable, yes? Who could blame you . Perhaps  she even means something to you beyond the merely carnal.” He glanced to Andy  directly. “Perhaps not. In any event, there  is my offer. You desire her. I give  her to you.”

The moan of anticipation that leaked out of Cindy’s throat was accidental, but impossible to miss nonetheless.

“Right. You’re going to ‘give us’ our own party member. You can’t counter-offer with the exact thing we demanded, asshole.”

“Let me be clear. She belongs to me now. But you have endeared yourselves to me, these past weeks, and so out of that sentiment, I offer you the use of what’s left of her. No questions asked, no limitations. That body could be yours, at last.”

Cindy found herself nodding, silently pleading with them to agree.

“We’re not… I mean, obviously we can’t just… you know… uh, rape our own party member.” Yes, he was sitting across the table from the body in question, but Brent’s reluctance was pathetic even so.

“I consent! I consent!” she cried.

Koltron smiled unctuously. “You see? Believe me, she’s wanted this for longer than you know. I can’t tell you how much Sintheigha longs to be with you. Goes on and on about it, she does .”

Andy shook off the obvious temptation. “We’re not morons. Yeah, shurkadurr , let’s all just take off our armor and let this prick shank us while we’re helpless, a’hyuck !”

“Your ‘armor’ is spells, dragon disciple, and the skald’s a mere chain shirt – and I with no weapon, at that! But have it your way. I shall withdraw, give you your privacy. There’s nothing left for you to disrupt here, so have free reign of my lair as well, friends.”

Andy, at least, caught Cindy mouthing please  at him. The boy looked more bewildered by the moment. “Pff - and let you escape?”

“Supposing I meant to escape, fleeing would still result in the forfeiture of my estates, my meager fortunes, to say nothing of becoming a wanted fugitive when you at last tire of your sport and get around to showing the world what you have learned. And in exchange… this young woman will give you everything you could ever want.”

“But…”

Koltron nodded sympathetically. “Supposing she is inadequate to satisfy you both, I’ll throw Eisheth into the pot as well. Poor dear has had an eventful day – ‘twould be a charity to give her an opportunity to unwind a bit.”

Brent looked to Andy for support, but saw his friend was already leaning the other way. “Dude, no!”

“C’mon, live a little! Cindy’s into it. Eisheth’s got  a hot token, kind of a dark, trashy hot. Tits aren’t great, but hey, theater of the mind.”

“You’re really thinking about letting this shit-stain go?”

“Why not? Like you said, we don’t know shit about this, and it’s not like we walked in on him sacrificing virgins or something. Sure he’s a creep, but it's a little hypocritical for me to be getting into the creep-slaying business, dig?”

Brent shifted in his seat. “Still, this is… I dunno. This doesn’t feel weird to anyone…?”

In one smooth motion, Cindy took off her shirt and rose to her feet. She’d shed her jeans long since, squirming out of them while they fought off the minions. Her bra and panties matched her bleached blonde hair and toothy smile, white against deep bronze skin. Where it wasn’t red.

“We could LARP it, if you want,” she said softly. Live action roleplay was something the lot of them had mocked since forever. Yes, their hobby might be on the fringes of geekdom, but at least they weren’t LARPers. For this, though…

“Holy…” gaped Brent.

“Fuck…!” finished Andy.

“Is that… Jesus, you’re even wearing Sintheigha’s paint?”

“When did you take your pants off? Did I fucking blink or something?”

“Are you two fucking with us?”

“God, you are so much hotter than I ever thought you were, Cin.”

“When my girlfriend said we should take a break for the summer, I don’t think she figured I’d be doing this  in the first twenty-four hours!”

“Do it, Brent dude. Fucking do it. Do her , I mean. You can have shotgun .”

Bobby interjected in Koltron’s voice. “I’ll leave the two of you to… think it over. Bregan?” He stood, reaching across the table to move Koltron’s token out the chamber door, then Bregan behind him. He spun the green die, then drew a thick line across the door to indicate the door was shut. Then a slash, to show it was sealed from the other side. Neither uttered a word of protest at his departure. As for Bregan’s apparent betrayal, well, she was a small sacrifice for this.

Bobby walked to the apartment door. Finally, as it opened to the dimly lit hall, they reacted.

“Dude! Are you leaving?”

“You said you wanted privacy.”

Andy was already taking his shirt off while Cindy worked on the more taciturn Brent’s. “Fuck, man, I barely get what is going on right now, but this is… this is fucking tits, man. Literally, fucking tits.” He squeezed Cindy’s breast, letting out a whoop when she permitted it. “Your girl here is a goddamn national treasure. If this is part of the game, then it’s the best fucking game you’ve ever run.”

Bobby performed one of his trademark small scale cheers. “Thank you. Both of you. I did it for him, but since you played your part, he’s decided to reward you.”

Brent’s face was sandwiched in between Cindy’s tits. She moaned in very sincere delight at finally getting to earn her place at the table. “Play with me.”

Andy shook his head in bewilderment. So much was happening so fast, and none of it made any sense. “Him? Him who?”

Bobby snapped his fingers. “And if you want Eisheth, she’s done, too.” Andy’s jaw dropped as Evelyn Tewning, his all-time masturbatory favorite, the hot bitchy cheerleader he’d loved to be scorned by since forever, rounded the corner. She was wearing her cheerleading uniform. The boy slapped himself, unable to believe this was real, but as a newly dark-haired Evelyn shed her uniform – the same LARPy paint job on her skin, too, he noticed after a moment of gaping – he had no choice but to accept that it was happening, real or not.

“Leave the skirt on!” he blurted. What was going on with her ring finger? It was like the thing had a bunch of miniature tires stacked on it. He squinted. No, just a bunch of plastic rings, piled on from the base to the tip. Weird. “Sorry, you just look… fuck, exactly like I remembered. You’re perfect.”

Evelyn stopped undressing immediately, but glanced at Bobby. “Thanks. I stopped by home this morning on some errands and picked it up while I was there. He said you’d like it.”

“My fuckin’ hero, dude.”

“Don’t mention it. Evelyn, you be nice to these guys, OK? Remember what you promised.”

“I’ll never forget. Thank you.”

Cindy pulled the crotch of her panties aside and slid Brent’s cock inside her, forced his hands on the big round tits he’d helped teach her to flaunt. She had to admit, they might look even better with a boost from the bra. Whatever. Brent could decide how he liked them. “Thank you, Bobby.”

“You’re sure you don’t want a piece of this, Bobby? Fuck man, we don’t mind sharing.”

“No bad deed should go unrewarded,” Bobby said with a smile at his two friends. A leer at his gamer buddy, his cheer buddy. “To think, I almost didn’t believe him when… Anyway, I can’t take them with me where I’m going. They’re yours now.”

“What? Where are you going?”

Bobby left. None of them ever saw him again.

The orgy ran on well into the night. The girls never grew tired. There was nothing left in them to tire. Cindy had no idea what Evelyn got out of it, but for her part, she had friendships to earn. Friendships that would give her endless more opportunities to roll her dice in years to come. If she had years to come. Nothing was ever certain.

It was going on midnight  when finally the boys, spent, retired to the sofa to recuperate, though neither had the resolve to stop the girls from kneeling at their feet and fellating their semi-flaccid cocks in tandem, glaring at one another out of the corner’s of their eyes. Cindy knew it wasn’t possible to blow them both at once, but that didn’t give Bobby’s fuck toy of a wife the right to horn in on her boys’ dicks.

“What do you say, ladies? A little Netflix and chill while my boy and I work up to round… what  are we on? Forty?”

“Feels like forty.” Brent shared a tired laugh as Andy switched on Bobby’s TV.

“… bizarre series of events in this usually quiet small town. Again, for viewers just tuning in, multiple deaths have been reported in two fires. The first this morning at the home of Senator Mike Tewning, who has been in the news this week for the disappearance of his daughter Evelyn Tewning.”

“Uh… isn’t that… what?”

Brent shushed him harshly as the news man continued. “His body was discovered in the home, though Channel 8’s sources tell us that he may have been attacked, possibly killed, before the fire even began. We’ll update that situation as reports come in. As for the senator’s daughter Evelyn, police have confirmed that the suspect taken into custody earlier today in association with her disappearance has died by apparent suicide in his cell at the county jail, though details are yet to be disclosed.”

The man took a long breath, recovering from having to report so much, with so little. “Oh, Frank,” murmured Evelyn between bobs. “He’d be so proud.”

The female anchor stepped in as footage showed an enormous fire, flames shooting dozens of feet above the roof. The sky was blue, so this was clearly earlier in the day. “A second fire occurred across town at an Arby’s restaurant in what firefighters have told Channel 8 reporters was a massive grease fire that engulfed the entire building in mere minutes. They are still trying to reach the building’s lower levels, but so far only one body has been discovered. We have just been told that it is that of local business owner and beloved philanthropist Sampson Oleander, owner of the restaurant and more than a dozen others throughout the region. Initial reports indicate that his body was found locked in the manager’s office, though no word yet on whether foul play is suspected.”

“Is that the one where you worked?” Andy whispered. Cindy didn’t answer. He was just starting to get hard again.

“Related, police and firefighters are still looking for any trace of Travis Gallagher, Jr., whose car was found abandoned in the restaurant parking lot. If you have seen Mr. Gallagher, please contact the authorities right away.”

As the boys’ eyes popped wider and wider, the male newscaster came back on screen, his rehearsed, professional empathetic grimace in tatters, an expression of horror in its place. “As of this hour, it is unknown whether there is any connection between the two incidents. Police haven’t announced any suspects as yet , though… God. I… Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these tragedies.” His head hung low, shaking.

“Do either of you know anything about that?” Brent asked softly.

Reluctantly she let his cock slip out of her mouth, stroking it vigorously while she answered, “He was trying to cure cancer. That’s what he told me when I got home. Guess he must’ve gotten too close, huh.” She chuckled, and resumed her slow but passionate blowjob.

“He… Gallagher? Or… who?” When Cindy didn’t answer, he looked to Andy, still trying to focus through Evelyn’s enthusiastic display. “Should… should we call someone?”

“Don’t you want to play with us?” Cindy asked pleadingly, shaking her tits around his cock.

“I don’t think whoever did all that would like it if you called,” Evelyn observed evenly, only slightly slowing the topless cheer routine she was performing for an exhausted Andy.

“I bet, if you wanted, Evelyn would join us for our next game,” Cindy pointed out.

Evelyn scowled. “I’m not into that dork  shit. I’ll stay and pleasure you, in case he ever comes back, but… no thanks.”

Cindy snickered. “You’d like it, bitch. It’s like Lord of the Rings.”

That was all it took. Evelyn fell to her knees, ring finger reflexively buried in her twat. “Let me play,” she whispered.

“Let me play,” Cindy entreated.

“What the hell is even going on?” asked Brent as he arched his neck back and came on his gaming buddy’s face.

“This is insane,” Andy protested, feebly, as Evelyn crawled into his lap.

Cindy playfully rolled her d4 and shared a meaningful look with her GM’s bride. The goth slut nodded back. “Let’s play.”