Warning: This story is unsuitable for minors and contains explicit descriptions of sexual activity considered taboo (and illegal) in most (if not all) jurisdictions. If such activity offends you, DO NOT read any further. I do not condone any illegal activity and stress that this work is fiction, fantasy, and in no way meant to reflect reality. Sexual abuse of minors is a very serious issue and I encourage anyone tempted to engage in such behavior to seek immediate help.
This story is a work in progress. I am tinkering with it off and on and cannot give an idea as to how often it will get updated.
Last Updated: 3/12/18
Story Title: Land of Heroes
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Dear Reader: Thank you for taking the time to read my work. If you wish to drop me a line, please feel free to email me at CreepingDawn@protonmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Without further ado...
Chapter 1.
The sun shown brightly overhead as my eyes fluttered open, the scent of tree pine and maple wafting on the pleasantly cool breeze. I stared at the few lazy clouds above and wondered how long I had slept. Stretching casually, I sat up only to raise an eyebrow at my surroundings. I was in a mountain glen, a smattering of trees around me while sharp crags and sheer cliffs were visible behind the tree-line on three sides. I was sitting on a stone slab, the ground underneath and around it traced with exotic and otherworldly ruins.
"What the..." I mumbled, standing. My clothes, I realized, were not my own. Instead of jeans and a tee shirt, I was wearing a pair of very silky purple short-shorts, a lavender wife-beater that ended above my belly button, and a pair of leather sandals. I looked ridiculous.
"What am I wearing?" Tyler's incredulous voice echoed next to me and I glanced over. The boy was just standing up from his own slab of stone and my eyes almost fell out of my head at the sight. Tyler was clad in a tiny leather g-string and a pair of long leather boots that almost reached his knees. Nothing else. "I'm almost naked!"
And he was. The little pouch that held his boy bits was miniscule and left practically nothing to the imagination. Then the boy spun around and I saw, for a brief moment, that the leather straps that kept the garment in place truly resembled a g-string in that it's back strap was nestled deeply in his preteen butt crack while the leather top strap hugged the top of his cute boyish bottom.
I felt arousal flood me.
"Um... I don't know," I said, turning away from the boy and glancing about. On my stone was a small backpack and a long wooden staff, the thick wooden pole capped with a small leather-bound tome. Picking the staff up, I felt a small rush of energy enter my body. Odd. Flipping the book open, I saw most of the pages were blank. One at the beginning held words, though I didn't read them.
"WHOA!" hooted Tyler, my eyes leaving the tome and finding my pint-sized partner standing on his stone slab with a huge two-handed battle axe hefted above his head. The thing was almost the size of the kid and it's grey steel glinted in the sun.
"Tyler!" I shouted. "Be careful!"
"Duh!" he said in response, his eyes not leaving the ax as he began to jump about, swinging and swiping the thing at imaginary enemies.
Turning back to the tome, I flipped to the front and saw that the very first page had a simple text that was easy to read. Scanning it, my eyes widened.
"Ian and Tyler. We are so very sorry. As you played your game, a small airplane just taking off from the airport nearby was hit by lightening and crashed into the Kennedy home. All on board survived. You both were killed instantly. Feeling a great sorrow for your lost potential, several Divines expressed our objection to your untimely end and it was determined, after great debate, that you two would find yourselves here, in the land of Aurora, to live out the rest of your days. It is small comfort, we know, but Fate, Destiny, Goodness, Mercy, Lust, Time, Charity, Perversion, and I, Mirth, agreed that this new home would be the best place for you to thrive. Your loved ones miss you but will find peace. May you find peace in this new home. Go forth, thrive, and think not on your past lives but on the life you now may live."
I stared at the page, digesting the word. "Tyler, we need to talk."
.........
"So what do we do?" Tyler asked, his usually boisterous personality subdued as we talked over this mysterious turn of events.
"I don't know. It might be a lie but... well... I just have this weird feeling that it might be the truth."
"Me too. It's like I want it to be a lie but I know I'm not, like, back home or whatever. Plus it disappeared..."
I nodded. We had been discussing this revelation for nearly half an hour, reading and re-reading the first page over and over again. Then, after shutting the book for a few moments while we bounced around other possibilities, like a covert spy operation or a matrix-style dream world, we opened the book to find that the first page no longer held the mysterious message. Instead, it held Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken." It was a shock, of course, and we danced around for several minutes trying to figure out how the writing had changed or if the page had fallen out or something. Then we settled back down, read the poem (which I had read in high school and last semester in my English Lit 102 but which Tyler had never read), and pondered the words.
"Well I guess we should get up and start walking." I said finally, my eyes noticing that there was a worn dirt path the led down the slope and through some trees. Tyler shrugged, not offering a counter suggestion. The boy grabbed the axe and his own small backpack while I hefted my staff and pack. Then off we went. Five minutes later, we found ourselves out of sight of the small cairn where we had awoken.
We were clearly in the mountains; the path meandering steadily downward as we caught glimpses of beautiful vistas between the nearby cliffs and the various large evergreen pines. We continued to discuss our new situation and I covertly tried to perv on my little companion as much as I could without being too obvious. I had to keep looking away, of course, because I could feel my erection starting to grow if my gaze lingered too long on his smooth creamy flesh. His hairless pubic mound was just so visible and, even as we walked, the small amount of fabric covering his boyhood seemed unusually tented. Soon, we rounded a bend and found a small wooden hut sitting peacefully along the road. Standing in front was an older man, his hand up to his face as he scanned the woods. Spotting us, he waived. "Good morning strangers! I hope your day is pleasant!"
We stopped in front of the man, smiling. "It is. Thank you." I gave him a small bow. "Um... Sir, can you tell me where we are?"
"Of course!" he said cheerfully. "You are in the Sleepy Vale. Keep heading down this road and you'll reach Peaceford. It's a small village just down the way." The man smiled, glancing between the two of us. If he was concerned with how we were dressed, he didn't show it. "Say, are you two Heroes?"
Tyler and I glanced at each other. "Heroes?" I asked, unsure what he was talking about.
"Yes. Heroes. By the looks of you, I'd say you are a wizard and you," he said, glancing at Tyler, "are a barbarian. Am I right?"
Tyler and I turned to face each other, our mouths both agape. All of a sudden, this whole thing seemed rather familiar. Wizard? Barbarian? It couldn't be...
The man continued, "Do you think you could do me a favor? There are some Scraggly Foxes that have been sneaking into my chicken coop at night and I'd like to put a stop to it. If you two could kill 5 of those damn creatures, I'd be really grateful. I'd even give you a reward!"
Holy. Shit.
"Ah..." I said dumbly.
"Sure!" said Tyler, turning to the man. "What do we do?"
"Well," the man pondered, "if you go that way," he pointed to the woods, "I'm sure you will run across some of those Scraggly Foxes. Just kill five and come back."
.........
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," I said to Tyler as we crouched behind a few bushes and watched as a fox the size of a St. Bernard wandered aimlessly around the small clearing in front of us.
"Why not?" Tyler asked.
"Well... I mean..."
Tyler chuckled. "Don't be such a baby, Ian. Come on, lets just go over there and kill it."
"Well, its more complicated than that. What if the thing bites us? What if it has rabies?"
"It doesn't have rabies. Just go thump it with your staff. I bet it's easy."
"I don't know."
"If you don't, I will."
"Tyler! I don't want you to get hurt."
"Then go!"
"Well..."
"Come on..."
"Fine." I stood, gripped the staff, and walked into the clearing. The fox didn't seem to pay me much attention, so I crept closer and closer until I was about five feet from it. Then, the animal turned its beady eyes to me and growled. Nervous, I gripped the staff with both hands. Wait... Hadn't the guy said I was a wizard? Maybe I had spells or something?
Too late. The fox lunged, it's claw raking across my exposed knee for a brief instant and causing me to squeak with pain. Not a lot of pain, though. In fact, far less than I would have expected. Seizing the opportunity, I swung my staff and the end, where the closed book was encased in the wood, smashed the creature right in the head. The creature squealed much louder than I and lunched forward again, biting my shin for a moment before backing up. "Ouch!" I yelped, the slight shot of pain making me angry. "You stupid little fucker!" I shouted as I whacked it in the head again. This time, the creature let out a short bark of injury before falling over dead.
I'd killed it! Turning, I looked to where Tyler was supposed to be and gulped in surprise. Two more Scraggly Foxes blocked my path and appeared hostile, their hair bristling and their growling low but audible. I took a step back, raising my staff for protection. This was not good!
Suddenly, Tyler burst forth from the bushes and roared with rage. Jumping between the two startled foxes, Tyler swung his large axe and connected solidly with the first fox, lopping off it's head in one quick blow before spinning and slamming the sharp weapon into the spine of the other fox. It died without a sound and Tyler grinned at me. "That's how you do it Ian! Ha!" Then he began to dance around, his tongue sticking out as he re-lived the battle in his preteen mind.
Holy. Shit.
.........
We found two more foxes and Tyler dispatched them with ease, not taking a single wound. My shin and knee felt fine after the initial injury and, after closely examining them after the fight, I couldn't tell if I had been injured. On the way back to the hut, we discovered, to our surprise, that one small brown metallic coin had appeared in a small coin purse in my backpack while four small metallic coins of the same type had appeared in an identical coin purse in Tyler's backpack. My backpack also contained a small sharp claw while Tyler's contained four.
I found myself battling an erection for much of the walk back. My little companion kept drawing my eye and I especially loved it when he would dash forward to examine something in our path. When that occurred, I was treated to the gorgeous sight of his smooth bottom and silky flesh. Twice, he bent down to pick something off the ground and I watched as his luscious cheeks parted slightly to expose a tiny pink starfish slightly hidden by the g-string strap. I had to bite my tongue to keep from groaning.
I also thought I saw Tyler's eyes examine my own crotch when he didn't think I was looking. They were fleeting glances, for sure, and probably meant nothing. Still, I had the feeling that the boy was trying to take small peaks at the visible chub between my legs. I didn't raise the issue.
"How did it go, my friends?" The same man said to us as we approached his hut. "I trust you both found success?"
"I did!" Tyler said excitedly, giving me a wicked grin. "Ian didn't have much luck. Almost got eaten by one fox! Me, I was like 'Slash Bam Cut' and they were like 'Ah Tyler No' and I totally crushed them!" Tyler jumped around for a moment, demonstrating the fight for the... quest giver? Both the man and I laughed at his antics.
"You didn't cast any spells?" the man asked me.
"I don't know any," I responded. Indeed, after the fight, I had looked in the book on my staff but the only thing it contained was the poem.
"I can rectify that!" the man said, pulling out a small piece of paper. "Here! Read this!"
I did but, after reading the short phrase, the page dissolved into nothing. "Hey!" I said, confused.
"Check your spell book, doofus!" Tyler said, laughing as I glared at him. Flipping through the book, I discovered that the second page had changed into a spell entry. Entitled FIRE SPARK, the entry detailed how to go about casting this offensive damage-dealing ranged spell.
"That spell, FIRE SPARK, is a first level fire spell and you should now be able to cast it at any enemy. Just don't drain all your mana!" The man told me with confidence.
"Hey! What about me?" said Tyler, pouting.
............
"So this feels kinda familiar..." Tyler said slowly as we wandered through the forest, looking for the Scraggly Fox Den Mother that the man had asked us to dispatch. "Did... did we do this quest in Land of Heroes?"
"No. We didn't. There is no Peaceford in Land of Heroes and the world there is called Maeroon."
"But..."
"Yeah, I know. Even though this is not Land of Heroes, it does feel like we are in a starting zone quest chain. Kill 5 foxes? Then kill the den mother? Certainly the kind of thing you'd find in an MMORPG."
"Well that's not really a bad thing, is it?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
"I mean, you know all about Land of Heroes. So, if we are really... here..." The boy began to tear up for a moment and I put my arm around his shoulder, the emotion swelling up within me as well. "Then you can probably make sure we are ok. Right?" He looked up at me, then, his eyes shining from unspent tears.
"I... I think so." I said lamely, not quite believing it.
We kept walking, my arm around his shoulder as he leaned into me slightly for comfort. We died? We were never going home? The shock of these revelations, if they were indeed true, was nearly overwhelming. When we left the cairn, we did so without fully believing the message in the book. Now that much of the day had passed, and we had not awoken from this strange dream, the reality of what we faced was finally sinking in.
Realizing that Tyler had started to cry softly, I stopped our slow walk and turned the boy to look at me. Kneeling in the grass, I put my hands on either side of his face and our eyes met. "Tyler." I said, not really knowing where I was going but sure as hell certain I would speak from the heart. "I am here with you. I'm not going to leave you. Whatever happens, we are in this together. And... and if there is a way home, we are going to find it. Ok?"
The boy trembled for a bit before sliding forward into my open arms and burying his head in my neck, his tears flowing freely. As my arms encircled his bare flesh, I felt nothing but a desire to protect the boy fill me with determination.
............
The Scraggly Fox Den Mother, as big as a black bear, ambled along the bank of the shallow river without an apparent care in the world. Tyler and I, hidden behind a long copse of trees, had been following it for nearly half an hour and the sun had begun to dip into the tree line. We had no idea what we should do.
On one hand, Tyler had been able to kill the other foxes with little effort and, if we were indeed in a sort of real-life MMORPG, this creature should not be too difficult to defeat. On the other hand, fuck that shit. I had no idea what the rules in this world were and I did not want to put Tyler's life, or my own, in danger because I treated the world around me as a video game.
Tyler had calmed down considerably and was back to his jovial mood, pestering me to charge the beast with him and down it quick. I overruled his eagerness, though, with repeated words of caution. Even his attempts to bully me into action failed. I was not going to rush into a situation where one or both of us could get seriously hurt.
Then, without looking, I stepped on a dry branch and the glade we were hiding in was filled with a loud crack that seemed to echo in every direction like a bull horn.
"Nice." Tyler said with a grin. I winced.
The Den Mother, of course, had immediately looked in our direction and, if I was being honest with myself, could probably see me and the boy with just about perfect clarity. We were... not hidden all that well, truth be told.
"Maybe we should back away slowly," I said.
"Or maybe we should get ready," Tyler countered as the big creature began to amble, then sprint, then charge toward us.
"Oh fuck!"
"You said a bad word!" Tyler taunted with amusement as he danced back into the meadow and readied his large axe. The Den Mother would be upon us in moments.
Desperate, I pointed my staff at the rampaging beast and shouted FIRE SPARK as loudly as I could. To be honest, I didn't expect it to do any good. To my great shock, a small ball of fire accumulated at the tip of my staff the very moment the words left my mouth and, once it was about the size of an apple, it burst forward as if shot from a cannon. My aim was apparently true as the ball closed the distance between the beast and I in the blink of an eye and smashed into the huge fox's face. The beast gave a squeal of pain and stumbled slightly, losing momentum and coordination as it erupted from the foliage and into the grass where Tyler and I stood.
I dove aside, closer to the beast than Tyler was and afraid that it's bulk would run me over. As I stood and readied myself, I caught sight of Tyler jumping towards the angry creature and swinging his axe at it's exposed neck. The beast turned, it's shoulder taking most of the hit while it swiped out with one paw at the nearly nude boy challenging it. Tyler took what looked like a wicked slash across his chest and spun away.
"FIRE SPARK" I shouted, another ball of flame smashing into our enemy's flank. The beast spun at me, lunging forward as if to bite. Tyler rose behind it, though, and his axe flashed in the waning sunlight and scored a solid hit on the animal's hip. The creature kicked at him with it's back leg but the boy dodged to the side, the axe again biting into furry flesh. "FIRE SPARK" I yelled again, the cast spell missing the beast slightly as my aim was off. I felt... something... leave me with that cast and I knew that I only had one, maybe two more spells left before I would... be out of mana? The realization that I could feel my mana pool froze me for a moment and the beast's dagger sharp teeth sunk into my left forearm.
I howled with the expected pain but realized a heartbeat later that, while my arm hurt, it did not hurt that bad. The creature released me and turned back to swipe at Tyler while I stared dumbly at my own flesh. There was a slight amount of blood, certainly, and a few small puncture wounds, but the damage was exponentially less than it should have been.
"AHHHH!!!!" Tyler roared. I looked up, seeing the creature slumped to the ground. Tyler had apparently killed the monster in my moment of distraction. "Did you see that? Did you Ian?" The boy shouted at me in triumph, giggling with exuberance.
.........
"Hello again friends!" said our quest giver as we approached. Night had fallen by the time we got back to his hut but, as it was the only place to find shelter that I knew of, it seemed that we would be better served by trying to make it back to him than spend the night in the forest. As before, the man stood outside as if anticipating our arrival. This time, however, the man clearly had an erection as his linen pants were tented obscenely. It was difficult to tell in the darkness, however, and I didn't think that Tyler noticed.
"Hello." I responded, my voice filled with weariness and just a hint of amazement at the man's immodesty. My injuries, as well as the claw mark across Tyler's torso, had totally disappeared only a few moments after the battle but the energy we had expended in the fight made both of us rather tired and I chose not to think on his behavior. It had been a long day, after all, and I was beat.
"Well, how did it go? Is the Den Mother dead?"
"Heck yeah," quipped Tyler before I could say anything. I opened my mouth to confirm the statement but was suddenly overcome with a very strange sensation. My body tingled.
Out of nowhere, a bright light flashed around Tyler and I for a moment, filling the darkness and causing both of us to jump in shock. Then, as my eyes reacclimated to the darkness, I gasped in amazement. My vision had... changed slightly. I still saw everything in front of me clearly but there appeared to be a sort of hazy overlay of information floating right in front of my eyeballs. It read: [Class: Wizard, Level: 2, Experience 12/125, Health: 12/12, Mana: 22/22]
"What the heck?" Tyler mumbled, his hand suddenly in front of his face and waving as if trying to shoo away some annoying gnat. "Ian, do you see this?"
"I think," I said cautiously, "that we both see something."
"You both leveled up," the man interjected. Tyler and I immediately focused our attention on him. "It's pretty common around here. You went from level 1 to level 2; truly becoming heroes."
"We... leveled up?" I asked skeptically.
"Yeah. You did." The man whistled and a horse suddenly trotted around his little hut, a carriage attached to it. "Hop on in. I'm going to take you to Peaceford so you have a place to spend the night. I can also tell you a bit about leveling up."
Tyler and I glanced at each other and shrugged. Stepping up to the carriage, I helped hoist the boy to the seat before stepping up myself. Before I knew it, we were making our way down the road at a respectable speed.
"Oh, and by the way, each of you gets one silver piece for killing the Den Mother. Thanks for that!"
We both checked our packs and discovered that we had indeed increased our funds. Though I never saw the man do anything, it appeared that we had indeed been rewarded for completing that quest. Counting quickly, I had one silver and one copper. Tyler had one silver and four copper. It was a start.
"So what's this about leveling up?" I asked.
"Well, moving from level 1 to level 2 gives each of you the ability to review your statistics. You probably see some numbers in front of your face?"
"Yep," Tyler piped in. "There are numbers and words. Barbarian level 2. Experience 12 out of 125. Health 23 out of 23."
"That sounds about right," our chauffeur said, cocking his head to the side as he pondered Tyler's words. "And you, good wizard, probably have a mana statistic as well, right?" I nodded. "If you want to stop seeing the numbers, all you need to do is think about them going away and they will. Being able to see them was the talent you gained by leveling to 2."
I focused on the data for a moment and did as I was instructed, thinking about the words and numbers disappearing. Almost instantly, they were gone and my eyesight was back to normal. A grunt from Tyler suggested he had achieved success as well.
"As you level, you will gain new abilities. I think I heard somewhere that level 3 lets you see your actual statistics for things like Combat, Magic, and Social. There was a wondering minstrel who once said he knew people who had become level 5 and that they could see their damage resistance, spell resistance, and other even more esoteric statistics. Leveling also increases your health, and mana, damage, and all that good stuff. You become more powerful."
"That makes sense," I said.
"And here we are!" the man grinned at me and I looked around. We were on the outskirts of a very small village. Only five buildings were visible, with one having a sign hanging out front. It ready, "The Sleepy Maid," and had a picture of a woman lying in a bed of beer foam which was spilling out of a large tankard of ale. "Go inside and tell Gus you are adventurers. He'll almost certainly have a room for you at a good price."
"And then what?" asked Tyler.
"Then look around Peaceford in the morning. Plenty of quests, I'm sure." Tyler and I stepped from the wagon, with the horse beginning to move the moment our feet touched the soft road. "And good luck!" Tyler and I watched as the man and horse traveled back the way we had come. We lost sight of him soon, though not before it looked to me like his hand had been thrust suspiciously into his pants. Whatever.
Shrugging at each other, the preteen boy and I entered the inn to find it filled with the aromatic smells of roasted meat and somewhat stale beer. A man stood behind the bar, polishing a wooden mug and chatting amicably with one of the few patrons eating dinner. When he saw us, he smiled and waved us over.
"Gus is the name! The Sleepy Maid is my establishment. Welcome. Salutations. Peace be upon you." The man bowed slightly, his loud voice theatrical in its diction and presentation.
"Um... hi" I said. "The... um... we met a man not far from town who told us to tell you we are adventurers. He said..."
"Adventurers! Great! I have a room available for six copper a night. Dinner and breakfast included. It's yours if you want it; I love welcoming heroes into the Sleepy Maid!"
With a price that sounded somewhat reasonable, I pulled out the silver that was in my bag and Gus quickly replaced it with four coppers from underneath the bar. Gesturing to two of the bar stools, Tyler and I stowed our things under the bar and took our seats. Within a matter of moments, two plates piled high with roasted meat, fried potatoes, dark bread with butter, a wedge of cheese, and some sort of boiled green vegetable were delivered in front of us. He also delivered two tankards of watery beer and a pot of still boiling tea.
It was at that moment that both my stomach and Tyler's stomach gave loud growls of eagerness and I realized how famished I was. Tyler and I dug in, with me initially insisting that he stick only to the tea but the boy convincing me that the beer wouldn't have been placed in front of him if there were any drinking age limitation. Deciding it didn't really matter, as the beverage was pretty weak, I gave in and let the boy have his beer. The meal was wonderful; though part of my appreciation of it might have been due to how hungry I was.
Once we finished eating, Gus pointed us up the stairs and told us that our room was the third door on the right. Grabbing our things, Tyler and I trudged up the wooden staircase and soon found ourselves in a small room with a queen-sized bed. Realizing we both needed to use the restroom, we trudged back downstairs, inquired with Gus, and were directed out back to the relatively well-kept outhouse. The well next to the outhouse let us wash up slightly before the two of us trudged back upstairs, fell onto our bed, and were asleep within moments.