Mortimer has been a close friend of mine since I met him back in 4th grade. Even then, he always seemed to have been one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Puzzle solving and mathematics of all kinds came so easily to him, they had him reading a grade ahead until he was reading university-level material before graduating high school. His teachers always praised his efforts in the sciences, even if his projects during the science fair were lackluster at best. When graduation had come around, he had no problem claiming a scholarship for any post-secondary program of his choosing - hell, half the schools had recruiters hounding him to attend their school. Everyone saw a potential in him: whatever calling he chose to follow, he’d be one of the leading minds in that field, pushing our understanding of the world around us forward. He was a prodigy, without a doubt.
And he was always so fucking obnoxious about it.
I’ll be the first to admit: I didn’t know much at all about his home life. If I had to take a guess now, though, I’d wager his parents valued him less as a child and more as a ticket to riches, because he was always hunting down attention from any fucking source. His teachers would give him that stimulus almost every time his hand shot into the air at the slightest inflection of a question. A lot of kids at school gave him it whenever he gloated over winning the spelling bee of the week, or whatever prize he claimed most recently in his quest for intellectual glory. As long as there was someone around to witness his triumph, he would make a point to succeed - and succeed loudly, at that.
That thirst for attention always left me wondering why he seemed to gravitate around me so often. I always gave him a gentle pat on the back when he won a prize, sure, but I practically made a point to shut him up once I could see his ego inflating. Every time his brow raised with his smug grin, mine furrowed in frustration. Maybe it was because I grounded him? He always loved video games, and always came over to my place to play whatever new game my parents bought. He was always loud when it came to his grades and trophies, but I never heard the same passion in his voice as when we talked about the wacky plots and fantastic characters in an RPG or fighting game. And funny enough, no matter how many times I beat his ass at any of my games, he never threw a tantrum like most egotistical types would. He learned, he caught on, and soon he was going even with me all over again. He found himself in video games, I guess, scratching an itch that school never could.
When Mortimer chose programming as his big pursuit in life, it was a bit of a shock to his parents, I guess. Maybe they didn’t care much for computers and the like, or they thought it wasn’t as noble a pursuit as physics or biology, or whatever. They didn’t disown him, but he ended up having to pay for more of his tuition on his own than he probably expected. As it turned out, the two of us had chosen the same college, so rooming together came naturally. I didn’t see a whole lot of him for… really, the first couple of years. He was a recluse, through and through, and I saw him more in between classes than when we were at home. Eventually, he opened up to me, bit by bit, and started showing me what kept him locked away for so long.
“So you know how VR headsets are really gaining ground these days?”
“Yeah, I actually got a chance to play at one of those VR arcades downtown once. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s a lot of fun!” I pondered the topic some more. “Are you trying to make your own VR game? Is that what you’ve been doing the past few years or something, as some kind of thesis?”
He chuckled in that obnoxious tone I had almost forgotten. “Just making a game is easy; I could’ve done that back in middle school!” Yeah, because art assets are so easy to make, you prick… “But lemme ask you something: what’s one thing VR games don’t have right now? Something that would really immerse you in the game world?”
“Thoughtful design aesthetic?”
“Nope.” Another chuckle, not as obnoxious as before, though.
“Intuitive control schemes?”
“Nnnope.” His smile relaxed.
“A half-decent OST?”
“No…” He started to look annoyed.
“Something to keep you from getting motion sickness every time you move in the game world?”
“No–” he shook his head, just after actually processing the last jest. “Wait, wait, okay, that one’s pretty close!”
Now my eyebrow was raised. I was just fucking with him, but did he actually come up with something to fix the motion sickness? “What, something that just hooks up directly to your brain or some shit?”
He snaps his fingers. “Bingo, right on the money!” He began rummaging through the gear on his desk, as he continued: “So VR may have made a lot of advancements in the last little while, but when you think about how they’ve managed to construct it, it’s mostly using the same two senses video games have always used: sight and sound. The big difference between it and other consoles is: the headset acts as your right analog stick and shifts the camera around in direct response to your head’s movements, while also attaching the screen directly to your face. So it’s definitely more immersive that way, but it’s still connecting to less than half of your senses!”
The implications of this build-up are frightening, but my skepticism keeps me grounded. He may be a genius, but could he really…? “Are you saying you’ve found a way to connect to those other senses somehow with a VR helmet…?”
As if on cue, he lifts a VR headset, as well as a metallic square. “I sure have! Ta-da~!” He presented the square to me. On closer examination, the green square had bevels and patterns not unlike a motherboard or graphics card. At least, one side of it did. The opposite side looked similar to a diode used in a sci-fi film. His excitement was painted on his face. “This here’s a hardware extension that can connect to my homebrewed MindVoyage headset! By connecting the chip end into the slot I have here -” He flips over the headset and shows a sloppily-made divot in the top-center of the inner headset, “- the diode naturally connects to the front of your forehead, which transfers a very specific set of data directly to your frontal lobe, sending electronic messages to your brain that convince you into feeling everything that happens in game!”
I blink. I look him in the eyes. They shimmer with anticipation. I look back at the device. On one hand, I can hardly believe he’d deface a perfectly good headset for nothing, but on the other… “I’m having trouble believing this could actually work.”
He shrugs, giving me a haughty laugh. “Sounds pretty out-of-this-world, I know~! But I bet you’ll be believing once you get to experience it in action!” He starts installing the chip before I process the implications behind those words. I reach my hand to his shoulder, gently.
“I know you’re excited to test this out,” I console him, “but there’s no fucking way I’m about to be your guinea pig on this.”
“Oh,” he pauses. “Yeah, I know that.”
“Then what’s all this about ‘experiencing it in action?’”
With the chip installed, he lifts up the headset to rest on his head, reaching for the controllers next. “You’re gonna help me test it, sure, but there’s no way I’m making someone else test run something so experimental like this! Especially when I made this more for my own ‘fun!’”
His own ‘fun…?’
“You’re not about to turn on a fucking hentai game and force me to watch you play it, are you?” My gaze is stern. “Because if I have to stand here and watch you cream your pants as you fuck some barely-legal anime chick–”
“Oh no, come on, dude.” He waves his hand, controller in his grip. “Don’t compare me to those freaks; you know me better than that! I don’t even like girls!”
“You don’t?” I was caught off guard. I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve ever heard one word about his sexual interests since I met him. “Okay, I guess if it’s just some regular RPG or something, it’s no big deal.”
“Well, no, it’s still a porn game.”
My fingers massage my forehead and temples. “Do you have some kind of ulterior motives behind having me test this…? Can you at least take me out to dinner first?”
His chuckle is pretty honest this time. “How about I take you out to dinner after this, then?” My face lights up, I can feel it. He keeps talking. “I thought it’d be best to get you to do this because it’s way easier to respect each other’s privacy on this if it’s you testing it with me. I just need you to pause the game in case the game sends any weird and unexpected sensations to my brain! If I tap my foot on the floor three times and stop, that means I need you to pause the game for me, so I can take the headset off safely, got it?”
I collect myself from the unexpected flirtation. “Y-yeah, sure thing. So the game’s still streaming from your monitor here, though, right?” I point out the smudged computer screen with the MindVoyage executable on screen, blank and waiting for input.
“Sure is!” He slips the headset over his eyes. “Just sit back and enjoy the show for a bit~!”
Corruptor’s Grasp
New Game
> Load Game
Loading… Please Wait…
…
Your quest has led you far from where you’ve began. Once a gladiator hunting for glory, you have found yourself seated above all your foes. Your raw power exceeds all who have opposed you, many of which had tried to subjugate you. Those you have let live now serve at your heels. Even the most powerful foes borne of this world, the dragons of old, struggle against your might.
You now face a foe not of this world, but of an ancient realm. The bookish sorcerers who had warned of its coming had only vagaries and cryptic chantings to describe it, but nothing concrete. It has been a frustrating task, for how can you decimate a force that you know nothing about, or worse yet, one that no one truly understands? Still, you crave that challenge. You suspect no one is more suited to combatting this foe than yourself, and if even you struggle to find your footing against it, then it is a worthy challenge indeed, one which may reignite the high of your earliest battles: the adrenaline and bloodlust brought on from the fear for your life.
I stared at the screen, cupping my forehead in hand. Mortimer seriously constructed this sort of legacy in a game too? You suspect, though, if this is apparently a porn game, that means he’s been getting off to the domination aspect of it all, which may explain why he’s always been so driven to compete in school. But what was going on with that last section…? “So you didn’t just pick this up now, huh…? Have you done any alpha testing on the chip before this point?”
From the screen, I could see the camera tilt up as I spoke. Straight upward. Even though I stood to his left. “Really minor tests, yeah. It hasn’t given me a lot of trouble yet, but this is like, the superboss, right? I might lose, and it does some fucked up shit, so I wanna make sure you can unplug me if it gets rougher than it should!”
Than it should…? “You sure you don’t wanna just ragequit if you lose instead…?”
“Hell no,” he boasts, “I’m not gonna drop everything because I lost to a stupid-hard boss! Plus, I need to make sure losing to this thing doesn’t fuck me up too, right?”
I shrug. By the sounds of it, I’m about to watch him get his character molested, then. At least the character build is pretty hot, according to the in-game mirror he was standing in front of. A tanned gladiator in pretty revealing and… erotically designed armor… I’ve known some gladiator armor to accentuate the pecs and abs, but the nipples? That’s a new one. He has a skirt under the leather tassel, which is oddly modest, given the context. His helmet covered his eyes completely, though it must be hidden from the player camera normally, as Mortimer had full view in front of him. Aside from those and a pair of gladiator strap sandals, the gladiator’s muscular form was completely exposed.
I walked over to the computer quietly, mousing around the screen to see if I could find an option to pop out a second window. If I have to watch this, I kind of want more than just Mortimer’s POV; I want to set up a third-person camera to get a better look of whatever happens.
Through the masterful magic taught to you after your most recent conquest, you arrive swiftly at the location divined to be the home of the cultists honoring this being. They’re already partway through their summoning ritual, and you can see their magic taking hold of something from beyond. You know well that if you aren’t quick to stop them, their master will emerge, and a far more ferocious battle will await you and the world.
So you wait. Some of the cultists see you, and while some are so foolish as to approach you - an act punished by your hand in due time - others find no hostility in your appearance, and continue in their tasks. The magic that forms in their spell circle builds and builds, as a shape takes hold beneath. You wait, still. Tendrils whip out through the opening in dimensions. Several cultists are not offered the opportunity to scream as their bodies are yanked into the portal, likely to be devoured by the master they served. You wait, still. The lights in the temple seem to disappear as a being finally starts to emerge from the other world. Just a bit longer now, and you will face this foe in battle.
Suddenly, the shape emerging from the portal vanishes. You’re caught off guard, and glance around the room, finding a hint of where it’s chosen to hide. Unfortunately, it seems the room has gone completely dark, as well. The wails of the cultists can be heard, if only for a moment, before they’re silenced, one by one. Conveniently enough, this force has decided to rid you of all the obstacles between the two of you. Now if only it would show itself…
“So this is the epitome of power in this world…” A voice rang out, as if within your own skull, yet also surrounding you from all angles. “How pedestrian… A disappointment, that this world offers me little to feast upon…”
You whirl around, expecting to meet it behind you, yet you see nothing in the darkness. Your eyes dart through the room, when you recognize a strange difference in the environment. Normally, you would expect the objects of the room to become gradually more visible as your eyes adjust to the dark, but it seems as if all the pillars and tables and stairs that marked this temple have only become harder to see, as if the whole world around you has begun to fade away.
“Poor creature,” the voice boomed once more, “I see your desperation… But perhaps even your feeble mind can understand this warning: I am not a being you are meant to comprehend. I conceal myself from your sight for your own benefit. Such base life as yours is incapable of witnessing my visage without falling to… a quaint madness…”
You feel something snap around your legs, gripping them tightly as they whip your into the air. You’re left dangling against gravity, before something writhes around your wrists, binding and elevating them. You struggle against them, in vain. Your strength had been honed for years, yet in their grip, you can’t make them budge an inch. “It’s pitiful entertainment, but if you are the greatest force of this world, then I can fathom spending just a bit of my time and energy subjugating you.”
You can feel a force sliding along the side of your helmet, as if searching for something beneath it. At the same time, something slips between your legs, finding its way to your lap. “Now, which of these is meant to be the house of your thoughts…?” The force between your legs - its size and its morphing shape make you think it might be a tentacle of some kind - wraps around your cock and balls. You were already starting to feel a strange arousal from being bound, but the rubbing of the tendril on your sensitive foreskin only escalates that. You can’t help but harden in its grip. The force on your helmet wriggles beneath your head’s cover, finding your earhole promptly. “... Here~!”
Without any warning, the tendril shoots through your ear canal, pushing past all your defenses. It wriggles and writhes inside, gripping onto something you can barely feel inside your skull. Your body jerks and twitches involuntarily as it scours your brain. The only thought you’re allowed is the recognition that all your strength and willpower is worthless against this invasion. You had no chance against this monstrosity.
Those thoughts are abruptly stopped, as the tendril within your ear expands. That expansion forms, seeps from the inside of your head to the outer rings of your ear canal, and slips away from your body altogether. It has taken from you, but you can’t understand what it’s taken. Another mass pushes out from your head through the tentacle, flowing away from you just as easily. What is it taking from you…? The process repeats, more being taken from you every second, and yet you simply can’t tell what you are losing. A fog descends on your thoughts, and understanding what you are losing becomes less and less important. Your strength becomes less important. Your freedom becomes less important. Your identity becomes less important. You become less important.
As reason slips away from you, the tendril once caressing your dick descends and invades into your ass, opening you up with ease. The invasion may have hurt, if you knew what it meant to hurt. It probes inside your hole, stretching your insides with its girth, rubbing in places that only cause that fog to consume more of your fleeting thoughts. Your cock is hard, drooling between your legs. You’ve become nothing more than a puppet to these lashing tentacles and their master.
“What a foolish thing you are,” the voice resounds. “You knew of the threat I posed to your puny world, yet you thought it wise to let me through all the same. You overestimated yourself. Your strength of body is meaningless before my form. And your strength of mind is easily disposed of. You are nothing to me; you are merely a passing pleasure to entertain myself with…”
Its words, even as it speaks them, lose their meaning. Whatever it’s saying, it’s absolutely right. You’re nothing now. You and your mind are simply the beginning of its feast upon this world.
G A M E O V E R
Even as the game over message pops onto the screen, Mortimer still sits there, drooling madly as the tentacle animation keeps playing. The tent in his pants is giving its best impression of a snow-topped mountain; he came about a minute into his character being tied down, and barely even registered it. I can’t help but blush, my own cock pressing into my jeans with a painful desire. I look at his feet. He didn’t tap either of them, even once… At this point, I feel like I have to be sure…
“Hey…” My voice is a bit shaky. “You still doing alright in there…?”
“Yesssh, Masterrrr…” His voice is slurred, and he barely closes his mouth as he speaks.
“Hey, tap your foot twice if you just wanna let this play…”
Tap, tap…
No third tap, so he must be enjoying this after all…? I wasn’t exactly expecting such an egotistical genius type to be into something like this… I’m honestly a bit surprised he had the wherewithal to tap at this point; the contents of his fantasy here were pretty extreme. I can’t imagine he’d bust a nut like that just from watching something like this, so perhaps his invention was a success after all. Granted, this could’ve been all for show, couldn’t it…? Or maybe he’s just that short of a fuse…? Suppose the only way I can find out is to try it myself…
Though I might want a more tame game to play before trying that...