Into the Game, Part 1 (Fantasy TFTG)

By FoxFaceStories

A Story Tier Prompt for TGSorcerer

David and June are a happy married couple who love to play geeky fantasy tabletop games together. But everything goes wrong when they try a new two-player card game and instead are sucked into a fantasy world - one where David is his burly dwarf cleric and June is stuck as her lithe catfolk rogue.

Next Part

Into the Game

Part 1: Fantasy Character

David and June were excited. They were a happily married couple in their mid-thirties who had finally achieved stability. Their mortgage was nearly paid off, their promotions were secured, and they both had disposable income to spend on their respective hobbies. And, of course, their major shared one.

Both David and June were obsessed with tabletop games, especially ones with a fantasy connection. They had actually met at a major event in town sponsoring said games, and things had kicked off from there. For June, David had been a tall, cute, bespectacled man with short brown hair and nervous smile that made her heart melt. For David, June was exactly his type: an adorable librarian type with glasses as well, not to mention a love of wearing sweaters like his childhood crush: Velma from Scooby-Doo. She was outspoken and geeky, and she snorted when she laughed, which made him go head over heels pretty much immediately.

Things had taken off from there, and now they were five years married and enjoying the DINK life: Dual Income, No Kids. It gave them lots of spare time to try out their endlessly expanding collection of fantasy board games, and so it was with excitement that the pair were now, on a free Saturday morning, settling down to try their latest acquisition.

It was called Erutell: Adventures in Fantasy Making, and it was apparently some kind of card game adaptation of an original board game they hadn’t managed to successfully track down. David read the instruction while June got the pieces sorted neatly and primly as she always did. 

“Okay, so we have to choose a character based on some classic fantasy traits,” David said. “Looks like there’s tons of options. We choose a race card, a class card, we determine the gender and can write a brief description of our character, and then we choose a heroic goal.”

“Ooooh, I love it!” June declared, snorting a little as she giggled. “I’m going to be like my DnD character Naralae: a sexy lithe catfolk rogue. Hmm, I’m thinking like a leopard print; black spots with yellow fur. Cute black ears on top. Big boobs.”

David chuckled. “Why do all your characters have big boobs?”

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Because I’m a member of the itty bitty titty committee, unless you hadn’t noticed? I wanna play my fantasy self. And my fantasy self is a sexy catgirl with big knockers.”

“I love your little boobs.”

“I know you do,” she teased, grinning. “Especially last night. But I’d go bigger if I could. Just let me have this, sweetie.”

“Fine, then I’ll go my fantasy character,” David said, organising his cards and then writing a description on the provided Character Tracker pad. “I’ll be Strongborn Ironfist, a super muscly dwarf with flaming red hair and a huge bushy beard. Not to mention cleric powers!”

“Seriously?” June said. “The beard thing again?”

“Hey, you want big boobs, I want to not be so tall and have big damn muscles and beard.”

“Fair enough. Just don’t grow a beard in real life.”

“Would that I had so much testosterone to get more than three whiskers, but alas!”

They laughed together, and then settled down to play. The game was not so complex; it simply revolved around a random card rotation of events to come, and the cool difference was that it wasn’t a surprise; all the challenges to be faced were known ahead of time, allowing you to plan your own action cards in advance. David shuffled the challenge cards and laid them out. 

“Wow, that’s a cool set of challenges,” he said, looking at the five major events to come before they could achieve their heroic goal. The challenges went as followed:

A battle against goblin raiders.

A mystical curse in the dark forest.

A battle of perspectives upon the great mountain.

A visitation from a magical dragon.

A final conflict with a dark mage.

“Nice,” June said. “This could be awesome. I bet my catfolk rogue will easily get over that mountain.”

“Ha! Just wait till Strongborn takes on the magical dragon! He’ll call down lightning from the gods upon it!”

“So where are the Heroic Goal cards?”

“Ah! Just here!”

David spread them along the table. According to the rules, these were not randomly shuffled, but instead chosen deliberately by the players. Interestingly, the rules stressed not once or twice but five times how important it was to choose a Heroic Goal. Some were classic: rescue the beautiful princess and marry her, for instance. Others were more greedy: become rich beyond your wildest dreams. Others were clearly for ambitious characters: Take the Crown of Erutell. The two poured over these for fifteen minutes, examining them. Finally, June giggle-snorted and took a card.

“What did you choose?” David asked.

“No peeking!”

“Aw, c’mon!”

“Fine,” she replied, sticking out her tongue. She revealed her card: Gain Access to Forbidden Paradise. It depicted a rogue on a beach, fawned over by multiple women as he drank wine and was fed grapes.

“That’s not heroic at all!” David complained.

“Well, you’re wrong, because it says ‘heroic’ on the card, ergo it is. Besides, it’s the ultimate rogue dream!”

“Can’t argue with that. Well, I might go with this one then.”

He held up a card and showed it to her. June smirked at what it displayed: Forge a Mighty Family Dynasty. It displayed a king and queen, and numerous descendants springing from their union.

“That’s so dwarven,” she said.

“I thought so too.”

“So how do we start?”

David brought out a specific card, one that had a slightly shimmery quality to it, unlike the others. “Okay, so this is where it gets kinda cool and thematic. We both have to say the words ‘I Enter Erutell, Land of Fantasy and Change!’ at the same time, and then I place down this card in the centre of the board. Then, the first scenario begins and we can react using randomly drawn cards and the like.”

June nodded. “Sounds neat. Okay, my sexy nerd husband, shall we do this?”

“We certainly shall, my adorably geeky wife. Ready?”

They spoke together, their voices enthusiastic, enjoying the roleplay element of it all.

“I Enter Erutell, Land of Fantasy and Change!”

David slammed the shimmering card depicting the map of Erutell down upon the table, and at the exact moment he did, chaos erupted. The card glowed brilliantly, nearly blinding the pair. June squeaked in shock, and David let out a “What the -!?”

The shimmer grew, the card expanding in size. The pair stood from their chairs and moved back, alarmed as the card took over the board, then the table, glowing brightly but now gleaming with the features of Erutell as if the world had unfolded into three dimensions before them, like an impressively photorealistic map in miniature.

“Is it supposed to do this!?” June shouted as an internal wind began to whip about impossibly, the enormous diorama emanating a powerful thrum.

“I don’t think so!” David shouted back. “How is this even possible!?”

It wasn’t, and yet it was happening anyway. The card was no longer looking like a card at all, or diorama, or a model, but rather a portal. The edges of it became circular as it grew, swirling and shifting and roiling with a magical blue fog. They rippled and turned, and it was soon clear that they were not looking down upon a map of Erutell, but the real world of Erutell from way up high; an actual portal into the upper stratosphere of the fantasy world.

“David, I’m scared!” June screamed.

“Me too, June! We should go! Run!”

They began to move, but the portal whirred louder, extending further. The table was no longer there at all; the portal was extending down to take over the floor. A powerful gravitational force began to tug upon the married couple, and while Doug gripped the edge of the kitchen, he was unable to hold on. He began to slide back towards the portal, and June did so from her side.

“Oh God! Oh, David, help! I’m getting sucked in!”

“Hold on, June! I’m coming for you!”

He tried to dive over the portal and grab her, but the gravitational hold became more powerful, and he just managed to catch the foggy end of the portal, clinging on for dear life.

“David!” June cried. “David, don’t let go! Don’t let - AGHHH!!”

She lost her grip on the sofa she was clinging to, and was suddenly hurled into the portal. David managed to grab her hand in his, but her weight combined with the force of the pull was too much.

“DAVID!”

“I’M SORRY! I CAN’T HOLD ON! I CAN’T-”

He was pried from the edge of the portal, and the two were sent spiralling down into the other world. David and June screamed, turning head over heels. They had just enough time to see the portal close above them, leaving just a blue sky, and then they were rocketing through the clouds, still screaming, gasping for air and knowing - knowing - that they were going to die.

“DAVID!” 

Her husband grabbed her, and she held him in turn. They were falling, and there was nothing else they could do. The alien world of Erutell in all its fantastical glory was getting closer, its verdant fields and magnificent cities and floating islands and massive volcanoes and endless tundras and impossibly large trees and - and - they were about to die!

“I’m sorry!” David cried, clutching his wife close to himself. “I never meant for this to happen! I love you June!”

June screamed, but gripped her husband even more tightly. “I l-love you too, David! I’ll never stop loving youuuuuuu!!”

Her proclamation turned into a wail as they descended at lightning speed into the forest beneath them, its trees easily three times taller and thicker than the greatest on Earth. The married couple didn’t have the time to appreciate them, however, because all they could do was scream one last time, knowing their end was about to come.

THWOOOOOMMM!!!

An enormous explosion resounded as they hit the ground, one filled with violet-coloured magic that expanded like a mushroom cloud from their ground zero. It should have been the death of them, and the pair were convinced it was, because the power radiated through them, infiltrating into their cells. It felt like annihilation, and the enormous gust of power that shot out like an earthquake from their newly-formed crater only gave further evidence to that theory. And yet David continued to groan, feeling his bones compress and warp, his muscles burning, his face tingling. June too whined, her voice high in the miasma of fog-like magic. Her skin tingled all over, and she felt something bloom in her chest. They were still clutching one another, moaning and half-screaming as their bodies transformed, height and shape and even race altering, not that they knew it yet. Even their clothing changed: David felt his gear become bulkier and heavier, while June lost much of her covering, feeling as if her midriff and thighs were now utterly exposed. Something pushed out from her backside, and she was convinced that it must be an internal organ falling out of a gaping wound. David was overcome by his body squatting down, wider and shorter, and he knew in his heart of hearts that his legs must have been crushed, his insides too. They were both dead, and by some miracle it was just taking them longer to die

Except that they continued to breathe.

The fog started to clear, and confusion settled in. How were they still alive? And why did they feel so different?

“J-June?” David said, his voice gruffer than usual.

“David?” June replied, her body . . . odd against his flesh.

“Are we still alive?”

“I think we are, David.”

“How is that possible?”
“I - I don’t know. But I feel . . . weird.”

“Me too.”

“Are you shorter?”

“I am. Are those . . . are those breasts resting on my head? Why are you wearing fur?”

“I’m not! I’m wearing leather! Why is your face so hairy and close to the . . . ground?”

June had hesitated with that last word, because the last of the magical purple fog had cleared around their impact crater, allowing the pair to finally see one another. From her view, she could see tufts of yellow fur upon a pair of very large breasts, ones that had black spots like those of a leopard. She was wearing a very short leather tank top of sorts to cover them, and a leather skirt that didn’t leave much of her new furry body to the imagination. Even stranger, her nose had grown enormously - no, her entire face had - becoming a feline snout. 

And then there was her husband. David now appeared to be a stereotypical dwarf, clad in impressive armour and with a wild red beard and long red hair. He had an axe on his back, and looked to be impressively stout and strong, almost as wide as he was tall. From his perspective, he was looking up at two huge furry breasts barely restrained by a leather top, and then a very feline face with triangular ears atop it. A tail swished around the catfolk’s backside, and her entire body was covered in fur, her stomach more white, along with the inner part of her legs. Even her feet were bare, and she had a slightly digitigrade stance, with paw-like feet. Her hands had claws that raked a little at his armour.

“J-June!?” he said.

“D-David!?” she replied, just as shocked.

“AAGH!” they both screamed, jumping back against the low wall of their impact crater. 

June instantly felt her body. She was now exactly like her catfolk character, and that includes her fur coating and her tail and her snout and her everything. She loved playing characters who were more flirty and confident than her own self, and that meant she was also scantily clad, too, though catfolk were often depicted this way due to the irritation of wearing clothing over fur. It meant she had a leather battleskirt and a sort of leather tube top and that was it. She was tall, lithe, and with a pronounced furry pair of breasts. It gave her a lot of mixed feelings to finally be bust, only in this way. And her tail! It was a totally alien sensation to have a new limb which was acting partly on its own without her permission.

“This is nuts!” she protested.

“I agree!” David said. “I’m so short!”

“At least you’re still human - er, sort of?”

David disagreed. He felt stouter, stronger, but also more aggressive than he’d ever been. There was definitely a mental change here, because he could feel an impatience in him that he’d never experienced before. Being a dwarf had left him just shy of five feet tall, but with muscles so powerful that he was certain he could lift an oxen over his head with ease. And then there was the matter of his beard; he felt a strange pride in it. His gaze wandered up to June and he noticed that as she looked over herself she was posing rather . . . sensually. One hip cocked to the side, her chest stuck out, her hips swaying with her movements. Flirty, just like her character.

“June, I think we’ve changed more than we think,” he declared in his gruff voice.

“How do you mean?”

“Look at how you’re posing?”

June realised she was stroking her fur almost erotically, and made a purr of embarrassment. “Oh my God, I didn’t even realise! I was showing myself off, why?”

“For the same reason I feel a need to summon forth Godly smites upon the enemy that did this to us. I think we’ve been changed a little in the head. I’m still me, but I feel this kind of overlay . . . like an instinct to be a proper dwarf.”

“Damn it!” June said. “Me too. I need to climb and scurry and . . . seduce.”

“This is why you shouldn’t play your characters like this!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, was I the one that picked the boardgame, Strongborn Ironarm?”

“What did you just call me, Naralae?”

“I said - wait, what did you just call me?”

“Naralae. I mean Naralae. Shit. I’m calling you by your character name!”

“And I’m thinking of you as Strongborn. We need to get out of here!”

The new catfolk clambered with ease up the crater using her retractable claws, jumping up to the forest floor and scanning with her new and better vision, looking for a way out. Strongborn, on the other hand, leaped out with his superior strength, an easy feat even with the bulky armour he was wearing. He landed and pulled forth his axe straight away, noting that it was infused with godly runes that indicated his mage-priest power. It crackled a little, surprising him.

“See anything?” he asked June/Naralae.

“Nothing. No way back. Can your magic do something, Strongborn? Sorry, I can’t say your proper name.”

He tried to summon some kind of portal, but it was well beyond his character.

“Nothing,” he said, tugging on his long beard. “What the hell do we do? I guess we need to get the lay of the land a bit, find some kind of village or town, perhaps reach the end of the game and-”

Suddenly, Naralae was at his side, moving so quickly she was like lightning. She pressed her beautiful and furry form against his, shushing him with a clawed finger.

“Shush!” she hissed like a cat. “I hear something.”

Her ears turned on her head, and then her blue eyes went wide.

“Oh God, I can hear a group of raiders coming. I can smell them too. Strongborn, what was the first challenge we had to face again?”

The new dwarf man realised immediately, hearing the rampaging horde now.

“The first challenge,” he muttered, readying his weapon. “A battle against goblin raiders.”

The game had just begun, it seemed.

To Be Continued . . .