Casey awoke to the smell of cooking, and for those first few moments of consciousness, he forgot who and what he was. When he found he couldn’t move, a brief sense of panic kicked in. Then realization kicked in, and he slowly moved his viewpoint away from his body.

The room was dark, but he could see everything as if it were midday. Cahaya was slumbering peacefully on a cot next to him, while the axe, Casey, rested on plush black pillows next to her. He watched her chest rise and fall for a while as she slept, and found a fondness for her growing within him. He doubted it was because she had made him cum like a firehose, although that surely had to be a part of it.

He brought his point-of-view back within the body of the axe, and sat there thinking about his predicament for a bit. There were no men here, just like Arousia, if Cahaya was to be believed. All the evidence so far seemed to corroborate her statement. If that were the case, both he and Jamen were about to be very popular very soon.

If this was some weird, glitched-out version of Arousia, it was a damn believable one. The realism of Arousia was second to none, although the pain feedback was lowered by necessity. For one, the technology to produce sensations like that was still not perfect; companies like Arousia's parent company, Eyecandy Entertainment, had been working on pain and pleasure feedback through the neural interface and hadn't been able to accurately dial it in. Horror stories circulated in the forums about sensation feedback emitters gone wrong, where the player would spend hours in agony even after they left the game.

It was this fact that led Casey to believe he might not be in Arousia anymore. Specifically, it was that mind-breaking orgasm he had just experienced.

Orgasms in Arousia could best be described as a pleasant tingle. The one that enveloped him because of the hands of Cahaya and her mother—well that was on a different level. It went on forever, magnified, and incredibly powerful. It was not something he could experience in a game, and not something he could experience in real life for that matter. It left him confused. Sated, but confused.

His thoughts were interrupted by someone entering the room. He shifted his field of vision, and saw that it was Cahaya’s mother.

“Hello,” he said, but the woman put a finger against her lips, the corners of which were turned up in a mischievous smile.

“You must come with me,” she whispered. She picked up the axe, cradling it against her chest as she had before, then took him from the room. Casey glanced back at Cahaya as they left—she had not stirred.

It appeared the rest of the women in the tribe were asleep as the woman carried Casey through the rock corridors. He could not hear anything but the low whistle of the breeze through the corridors and the occasional gentle snoring coming from offshoots of the main passageway. The woman carried him wordlessly through passage after passage, each lit by the bulbous white pods that grew from the rock.

Finally, she turned a corner and came to a narrow entrance closed off from the passageway by a thick decorative hanging. Pulling it aside, she entered the room. Casey did the battle axe equivalent of staring agog as he beheld the sight inside.

The room was richly decorated in woven tapestries and carpets. Thick pillows were strewn everywhere, and in the warm light Casey saw five women, reclining on the soft cushions and carpets. Two of them were in the throes of making out, kissing each other deeply while one of their hands worked vigorously between the legs of the other. Another pair lounged opposite of them, the younger woman sucking on the breast of the older one. She broke off as we entered, and smiled up at us, her chin glistening with a mixture of saliva and milk. Milk? Casey thought. The fifth woman was content watching the other four, rubbing slow circles around her clitoris and moaning.

All five of them stopped as Casey and Chaya's mother entered.

The one who had been breastfeeding her younger counterpart went wide-eyed as she saw the axe.

“Is this the seed-bringer, Wehweh?” the woman asked. Her breasts were positively swollen with milk. Casey thought that could be one of the reasons the breasts were all so big here. He had heard of forced lactation before. It made sense to him, both as a source of nourishment in a desolate land and as a way for the women to retain a tie to the motherhood they so longed for.

Cahaya's mother—Wehweh—nodded. "This is the one. He will seed each of us, but I am first. Long I wait for this. Place him inside me and put your hands on the flesh of his handle. Summon your sevel.”

Wehweh handed Casey to the woman that had spoken, then got on her hands and knees on the pillow-covered floor, lowering her chest while raising her ample posterior. Casey looked at the presentation—the woman was already wet with anticipation.

“Will you enter me, Casey?” Wehweh asked, looking back from her shoulder to where the woman was holding him.

“Y-yes,” he stammered. He had just woke up; he didn’t know if he was ready for another round like last night.

The other four women sidled over to join the woman that was holding him, each placing their hands on the axe’s handle. Ten hands helped slide the shaft inside Wehweh. After about eight inches, Casey could feel the resistance of Wehweh’s cervix. Then, all five women summoned their sevel, and Casey’s world exploded with white and gold light as the instant orgasm rocked him. The axe vibrated fiercely as the ten hands pulsed, and Wehweh moaned in pleasure as a torrent of Casey’s seed filled her. Jet after jet erupted into the prostrate woman, so much that she couldn’t contain it and the white fluid came jetting out of her, soaking the five women holding the vibrating handle. They did not thrust, just held him with their pulsating hands.

It went on like this for each of the five women in turn. Casey had lost the ability to form words after the second woman, lost the ability to think at all after the third. When he finally regained cognizance, he saw six women, sweaty and spent and lying in disarray around the chamber, contented smiles on their faces. His semen was everywhere—on the women, on the pillows, on the walls. A few minutes went by like this before Wehweh got to her feet.

“Today was special, sisters. Today the Tante are saved. Our people will continue, and sing songs of what happened today. May the seed grow inside you,” Wehweh said.

“And in you,” the women said in unison, slowly stirring.

“Go now,” Wehweh said. “Bring life to our people.”

The women slowly, achingly, got to their feet. Yet more sperm fell out of them and trickled down their legs as they stood upright. Wehweh knelt beside where Casey lay, still vibrating slightly on the plush, stained cushions. “You wait here,” she said. “I will bring the next five.”

“That’s great,” said Casey, who had just reacquired the ability to put words together. Then, the realization of what she had just said dawned on him. “Wait…more? I can’t…do you think we could wait a day or two?” Casey had never felt more exhausted in his life.

“We must rebuild. Our future depends on it,” she said, then left him alone in the chamber.

A minute later, Casey heard a voice.

“Can you hear me?”

It was a male voice, and one that he recognized. It wasn’t Jamen.

“Yes?” he said, unsurely.

“Oh, thank the good lords of Kobol,” the voice said. “We’ve been trying to reach you since the accident.”

Recognition dawned on Casey.

“Dr. Wurnsworth? Is that you?”

“Yes, Casey. It’s me,” he replied.

Intense relief and giddy excitement battled for control of Casey’s emotion centers. “Where am I?” Casey asked the air. “What happened to me, to Jamen?”

“Who is Jamen?” the doctor asked.

“My friend—he was playing with me. He lives out in New Jersey,” said Casey.

“Wait, someone not in the lab, but in your VR game, was pulled in with you?” Dr. Wurnsworth asked.

“Yes,” Casey replied. “Doctor, what the fuck happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I’m working on it. There was an earthquake that struck downtown Portland two nights ago, while I was working on an experiment,” said the doctor.

“Time crystals?” asked Casey.

There was a pregnant pause.

“How do you know about that?” asked Wurnsworth.

“A woman we met…never mind about that. Where are we? What is happening? Am I still in the game?” Casey asked, frustrated at the lack of direct answers but relieved that he was talking to someone from the world he knew.

“You are in a hospital, currently. The doctors say you should be awake according to all your brain scans. Indeed, they say you’re rather active. The pleasure centers of your brain have been going through the roof,” he explained.

I bet they have been! “Wait…so I’m not wearing my VR helmet right now?” Casey asked, bewildered.

“No, Casey. You’re not. All I know is that I can contact you, at exactly,” the doctor paused, “seventeen hour and twenty-minute intervals, and then for only five minutes, give or take. Right now, we have about two minutes thirty seconds left, so I’m going to ask you some questions.”

“Ok, Doc.”

“You were playing a game in VR at the time of the earthquake, Arousia Online, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re in another world now, yes? Active and mobile?”

Casey thought for a second. “Not exactly mobile, no. I’m a battle axe.” He decided to omit the bit about the 48-inch pecker pole.

This seemed to take the doctor aback.

“Wait…you’re not human?”

“I can think, and observe my surroundings, and…other things, but I’m trapped in a battle axe. Jamen carries me around. At least he used to. We got separated.”

“Okay. I will need to find Jamen. Do you have is address? Email? Phone number?”

“I have his email on my computer at home,” Casey replied.

"OK, listen closely. For right now, it is vital that you find him. Having you two together is the key to pulling you out of there and into your real bodies. I'm going to try to…" The doctor's voice decayed into squeaky white noise, then faded away entirely.

Casey tried to call out for the doctor, but got no response. Great, he thought. Another seventeen hours and change before he calls back. Casey wondered how many women he would attempt to impregnate before then. It didn’t hold the appeal for him it once did. It never really appealed to him at all, in these circumstances. He was just sort of thrust in, pardon the pun.

The hanging covering the entrance was pulled aside, and Casey expected to see Wehweh with the next group of women in tow. Instead, Cahaya entered, looking around to make sure she was alone. Seeing Casey on the cushions, she rushed over and knelt beside him, frowning as she realized she knelt in a wet spot. There was nothing for it; the whole room was a wet spot.

“No-man! Are you alive?” she asked, concern etching her features.

“I’m good,” Casey replied. Relief washed over Cahaya’s face. “Your mother, she…I had to give my seed to six of you. She is going to bring back more women soon. But Cahaya, you need to help me.”

“What does the no-man need?”

“First of all, quit calling me no-man. I need to get out of here. I need to find the friend you found me with,” Casey said, then thought quickly. “If I don’t, I might not survive to help repopulate your people.”

Cahaya’s eyes went wide. “This is true?”

“This is true.”

“Then we give your seed to all! Before no-man dies,” she said, her eyes wide.

Dammit. “No, Cahaya. My seed will not produce babies until I find my friend. He is my medicine man, my…” What was the word she had used? “My dukun.”

Understanding blossomed on her face, which turned to concentration quickly. This girl really wears her emotions on her sleeve, Casey thought. Not that she has sleeves. Or a shirt. Her face then steeled into a grim resolve. “Ok, no-man, I help you find the friend. My mother will hunt us,” she finished bluntly.

Cahaya picked up the axe and left the chamber, winding her way deftly through the tunnels. They bypassed the main cavern, which Casey could see through small portholes carved into the wall of the cavern they were in. Women were just waking up, going about their morning rituals. Twice, she hid in side passages while members of her people walked by.

Soon, they had left the main complex of the cave women behind them, and Casey felt an odd sense of relief. He felt, well, dirty, which was odd for someone who spent so much time in a game like Arousia. For the next half hour, they winded through the dark corridors. Cahaya hadn’t brought a torch but seemed to be able to navigate the caverns by memory. Soon, however, the cavern lightened as they approached an opening to the outside. It was the same entrance they had used when they came in—Casey recognized the rock that Jamen had sat on.

“Your friend is not here,” said Cahaya.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting him to be,” he said, then saw the expression on Cahaya’s face. “Were you?”

“I give him shootshadow water, so he sleeps. But the friend is awake now. When my sisters return, your friend is gone,” she said.

“Wait, you drugged him?” I asked.

“Yes. I make a choice. You,” she said, “I can carry. Now be silent. I look for tracks.”

She leaned the axe against the wall, then studied the red ground around the entrance. After about ten seconds, she said, “Three women take your friend. They have red hair.” Cahaya looked towards the sun, which had just risen over the mountains. “We walk, we see your friend before the night.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Casey asked.

Cahaya just shrugged, then picked Casey back up, resting him on her shoulder. She took a small jar from a pouch that hung on her hip, then rubbed a pungent salve on her shoulders, nose, and the back of her neck, then started across the desert. She hugged the perimeter of the plateau that contained the cave complex, and within an hour they were on the other side, leaving it behind them as they crossed the barren expanse.

As the day drug on, Cahaya seemed to become more cautious. Large boulders began to litter the landscape, and the woman frequently hid behind them, scanning the desert, before hefting the axe again and proceeding.

“What are you looking for?” Casey asked.

“Demons. Red-hair women. Food,” she replied.

At the base of a rock she spied a small snake-like reptile, with two small appendages by its head. She quickly bashed it with a rock then picked it up. Producing a piece of knapped flint from her bag, she proceeded to cut a slit around the beast's neck, then another down its belly. With a deft motion, she peeled the skin off the creature like taking off a sock. Another slit and a swipe of the thumb emptied the creature of its guts, and for the next few minutes as they walked, Casey watched on as she nibbled pieces of the small reptile's flesh.

Soon after she discarded the carcass, she ducked behind another rock, putting a finger to her lips. Apparently, the sign to shut up was universal. Cahaya sniffed the air.

“What is it?” Casey whispered. Cahaya didn’t respond, but slowly made the sign with her left hand that summoned sevel. The sigil hung dimly in front of the pair, and Casey had the feeling she was keeping it weak to not draw attention, yet still have it at the ready.

The ground began to shake. In front of them, the sky twisted, and a purple slit appeared in midair, about a foot off the ground. Slowly, the opening began to stretch as a purple, oily, lumpy mass pushed its way through it, like a diseased woman giving birth to a rotten bunch of grapes. Another mass of bulbous purple followed the first one, plopping on the ground beside it. The opening winked shut and disappeared, and the two blobs slowly began to unfold and open. Purple arms and leathery wings sprang out first, stretching and flexing, before two legs pushed the thing upright and a purple horned head unfolded from the beast's chest. The second blob slowly followed suit, and soon, two grotesque demons stood before them, stretching their limbs and giving their wings experimental flaps. The demons were small, only about three feet tall, but looked like they could put up a fight.

“I bring no spear,” Cahaya whispered. “Stupid girl,” she continued, admonishing herself.

“Cahaya, use me,” Casey whispered back.

“I never use axe,” she replied in the same hushed tones.

Casey felt an overwhelming rush of confidence. In his head, he could picture the woman wielding him, his blades slicing into the flesh of the two mini-demons with sickening efficiency. He knew then that it didn’t matter if she could use him or not, all she had to do was hold on for the ride. “Trust me,” Casey said. “I am ready for this. You swing me, and my blade will find its home.”

Cahaya seemed to accept this, then nodded. She closed her eyes and held her glowing hand over her head. The sigil sunk into her, and soon her entire body took on a nearly imperceptible glow. “Sevel will protect me,” she said, “only small, but I need no more with these.”

She picked Casey up, and although her hands, too, possessed the faint glow, he didn’t feel the rush of euphoria and ensuing explosion he had from his earlier experiences with the spell. This was more like a pleasant tingle. Earlier, they had been projecting their power. Now, she was holding it in, using it as a shield.

“Is no-man ready?” she asked.

“No-man is ready,” Casey replied, and together they leapt from behind the rock, catching the demons off-guard. It was more Casey doing the leaping, and Cahaya hanging on for dear life. For the first time since he had been put in this body, Casey felt free. He could move, as long as the woman was holding him, and he had something to…

Cleave!

The axe swung downward in a wide arc, embedding itself in the closest demon’s shoulder. Cahaya had nearly let go, but kept her grip with one hand, and quickly brought the other one up to join it before she wrenched it out of the screaming demon’s flesh. Casey noticed translucent grey text floating upwards from the point of impact.

-20 SP

He didn’t have time to think about it, and before the demon could recover, Cahaya spun around counterclockwise with the axe held parallel to the ground at arm’s length, hitting the staggering hellspawn where its wing met its shoulder. They heard the squelch of flesh and the snap of cartilage, and Cahaya brought the axe back to her chest. The demon’s wing hung grotesquely, uselessly limp and dragging on the ground behind it. The demon roared with anger, and the floating text let Casey know he had lost another twenty SP.

The second demon had recovered from the surprise and took to the air, bobbing a few feet above the ground. He brought his hands together in front of his chest, and a ball of blackness slowly began to coalesce between them. It grew to the size of a pumpkin, then the demon hurled it at the pair.

Instinctively, Casey called upon a power he had remembered seeing from his stat sheet. The head of the axe began to glow white, and Cahaya swung the axe around toward the incoming ball of black like a batter at the plate. With the sound of something between the crackle of thunder and a rotten fruit hitting a sidewalk, the axe impacted the black ball. The glob of darkness exploded, sending droplets of the black substance splattering everywhere. Where it hit Cahaya’s flesh, her skin glowed white, and the droplet fizzled out of existence, leaving only a small tendril of black smoke. Casey saw another message, telling him he had just lost another 40 SP. By his calculations, he only had another 120 to play with.

Meanwhile, the first demon roared again, after tearing off his ruined wing with a clawed hand. He charged at them, running surprisingly fast on his stumpy legs. Without thinking, Casey slashed upwards, catching the demon with his blade just under the jaw and sending the thing reeling backwards.

-20 SP

The thing gurgled at them through its ruined jaw, staring up at them from the ground. Cahaya brought the axe high overhead and slammed it down, cleaving the demon's skull down the middle like a melon. Bits of bone and brain flew upwards, but before they hit the ground, they disintegrated into black powder, as did the corpse of the creature.

-20 SP

The second beast took advantage of this distraction and sent another ball of black at Cahaya’s back. It impacted her shoulder blade, causing her back to arch as she grimaced in pain. Her sevel had glowed as it absorbed most of the blow, but apparently what remained wasn’t all that pleasant. She leaped at the low-bobbing beast, axe raised over her shoulder, but the demon dodged as she swung, and Cahaya tumbled to the ground, Casey falling from her grip about five feet away. She began to clamber over to retrieve him, but the demon swooped down at her, his filthy claws raking her torso just above her left breast. To her credit, Cahaya didn’t appease the demon with a scream. Blood welled up instantly from three parallel gashes and began to stream down her chest.

The demon landed on a rock about twenty paces away, but only for a moment, as it launched itself into the air and began circling them again. This gave Cahaya time to scramble over and pick up the axe.

“I missed you,” Casey said. “You OK?”

“It is only a scratch,” she said, rolling to her feet and holding the axe at the ready in front of her. She stood there, panting, her chest red and wet. Blood dripped in fat droplets from her heaving breasts.

“Okay, black knight,” Casey chuckled. “Have at you!”

Casey launched himself at the demon, and Cahaya had to scramble to keep up and keep her grip on him. Luckily, the bulging veins that decorated his haft provided a firm grip. As she caught up with him, she twirled the giant axe one-handed at her side. Ordinarily, she would never be able to accomplish this, but in battle, and with her hands on him, Casey called the shots. The demon charged at them. Cahaya sidestepped, and Casey swung around, catching the demon with a deep gash in the back of its thigh as it passed. It crumpled to the ground in a heap before springing back up again, shaking its horned head to clear it.

-20 SP

The demon leapt backwards, perching back on the rock, and began conjuring another ball of that damned blackness. Cahaya glanced around for cover but found none, and the demon was too far away for Casey to charge in time. Cahaya backed up, catching her heel on a rock and falling backwards. The demon smiled, revealing a mouth full of crooked, rotten teeth, as he reared his arm back, preparing to hurl the ball of evil. But before he could hurl it, an arrow whistled through the air, embedding itself in the demon's eye socket. The black ball dissipated, and the demon clutched at its face, screaming.

Cahaya scrambled to her feet and spun around, holding the axe to her bloody chest. Her eyes narrowed as she saw who had come to their aid—three women on horseback, each with fiery red hair.