DaBigBoom in HRPG-World: 2-3 Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions

After a slight pause where I was away last week, here's the third part of Jackson DaBigBoom in HRPG-World 2.  Chaos rules.  Attempting to parody something that was already a fairly wicked parody in the first place might not have been my best idea.  Oh well, let's see where it goes.  Hopefully sombody sexy will show up at some point to make up for the anarchy and weirdness at the beginning.


DaBigBoom in HRPG-World 2-3: Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions

The blonde looked at him.  A puzzled expression was back on her face.

“Hey wait!” she said.  “You’re the—”

Too late.  DaBigBoom had already stepped into the portal.

They warped to a rocky location that somehow managed to look cheerful despite being largely desolate.  The only plants DaBigBoom saw were the twisted remnants of dead trees.

Not quite dead, as it happened, but not exactly alive in any way DaBigBoom expected.  He watched as one of the dead stumps grew spindly arms out of its top and began to shuffle around.  Pihanga absent-mindedly booted it into a nearby pool of bright green acid.  She took out a telescope and surveyed their objective from behind a boulder.

Before them a wide bridge led to an enormous gate at the entrance of a cartoon-scary castle carved into the high stone wall of a cliff.  The gate looked like an enormous mouth and two openings above it looked like burning eyes.  It still looked about as scary as a Scooby Doo cartoon.

The oddest thing to DaBigBoom was the ground.  It was marked out with squares like a giant chessboard.  The pattern covered most of the grounds leading up to the bridge and continued right into the fort.  Some of the squares glowed with a strange light and that same glow lit up odd pyramid sculptures scattered throughout the grounds.  DaBigBoom thought they must serve some purpose within the game although he didn’t have the slightest idea what.

There were guards—more of the strange pointy-eared inhabitants he’d seen walking around back at the castle.  They grumbled and fidgeted, but didn’t leave the squares they were standing in, even though most of the positions they occupied seemed to serve no strategic purpose.

“Okay, equipment,” Pihanga said.

From somewhere, DaBigBoom had no idea where, she pulled out a sack of gear that was bigger than her, Schreck and Fiore combined.

Computer RPG physics, no point in being surprised, DaBigBoom thought.

“You.”  She beckoned to DaBigBoom.  “Time to equip you.  The high HP gear I think.”  There was a gleam in Pihanga’s eye DaBigBoom didn’t like at all.

She threw him a flak jacket that looked more suited to a cop game.  DaBigBoom had no idea what it was doing in a fantasy RPG, but it was armour and DaBigBoom would take any kind of protection.  He put it on.

It also wasn’t the only jacket as Pihanga passed him a second and then a third jacket largely identical to the first.

“Um, I already have a jacket,” DaBigBoom said.

Pihanga ignored him.  So did the world.  Before he even realised it, he was wearing all three jackets on top of each other.  They were uncomfortably warm and DaBigBoom could barely move his arms.  How was he supposed to fight like this?

“Perfect,” Pihanga said.  “Lots of HP.”

Once again, DaBigBoom really didn’t like the gleam in Pihanga’s eye whenever she mentioned ‘HP’.

DaBigBoom felt something rather important had been neglected in the equipping process.

“Aren’t I supposed to have something to fight with?” he asked.

“Fight?”  Pihanga seemed surprised by the question, as if it wasn’t really relevant.  “Oh, take this.”

She rummaged through the sack and came back with a bow so tiny it’d struggle to make even a child’s toy.  DaBigBoom held the undersized bow in his hands.  Now what the fuck was he supposed to do with this?

Pihanga turned her back and went back to observing the fort.  She turned around and began to draw lines in the ground.  She studied them with wrinkled-brow concentration while Schreck watched and gave the occasional nod of his head.  Fiore crouched down and watched Pihanga draw her plans, but didn’t contribute anything other than the occasional giggle.

“You got a bum assignment, mate,” one of the k’winnies, a real battered specimen, said to DaBigBoom.  “She doesn’t have the first clue about tactics.  She should have hired a warrior, mage and cleric by now.  Instead she just keeps throwing us k’winnies into the fray as if it’s still the first level.  It’s hopeless, mate.  I’m OldFart,” the beat-up k’winnie introduced itself.

“DaBigBoom,” DaBigBoom replied and then grimaced as he realised that stupid name had slipped out of his mouth again instead of his real name.

OldFart nodded sympathetically.

He introduced the other k’winnines.  “This is Assploder, KwinnyBomb, ShitBlast, Bob—”

“Bob?” DaBigBoom interrupted.

“She hit Enter too quickly on the naming screen, mate,” Bob explained, “and she hasn’t figured out yet how to rename characters.”

“LooserBait,” OldFart finished the introductions, pointing to the last k’winny, who was missing an eye.

“So what’s the objective?” DaBigBoom asked.  If they could complete the mission maybe he could get the fuck out of here.

“Waldorf, mate,” OldFart said.  “The big pile of blubber over there.”

DaBigBoom followed OldFart’s malformed limb and saw a gigantic blue thing just inside the entrance.  It was a big pile of blubber—Jabba the Hut with a pair of tusks.  The thing looked so cumbersome DaBigBoom had no idea how it even moved until he noticed the cord around its midriff that led up to a large balloon with a cartoon cat face on the side of it.  DaBigBoom raised an eyebrow.

“What, the walrus?” he said.

“Leopard seal,” Fiore corrected.  Bored with Pihanga’s battle planning, she’d come over to join them.  “It’s a leopard seal, not a walrus.”  She grinned.

“So the objective is to storm a fortress and kill a wal . . . leopard seal with a giant balloon tied to its arse?” DaBigBoom queried.

Fiore nodded.  “Exciting, isn’t it.”

DaBigBoom wanted out of this stupid game.

“And you guys are happy with this?” DaBigBoom asked.

“Fuck yeah,” Assploder said.

“Waldorf’s a cunt,” Bob said.

“We want the bastard dead,” KwinnyBomb said.

“He kidnaps k’winnies and sells them as toys to children in the human world,” LooserBait said.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Fiore said.

The k’winnies stared at the angel with stunned expressions.  They obviously regarded being sold to children as a fate worse than death.

“Human children are sweet and adorable,” Fiore said.  “Especially the boys.”  She stared off into space.  “Delicious, scrumptious, cute young boys.”  There was a gleam in her eyes that was most un-angelic.

The k’winnies shook their heads.  “Pervert,” Bob muttered under his breath.

“Tubby isn’t the problem,” OldFart said.  “He’s big and he’s got a lot of hit points, but none of his attacks does much damage.  No, the real problem is her . . . the succubus.”

OldFart pointed down to a pathway that ran off to the right of the bridge.  It wound between dead trees and under a broken archway.  At the end of the path was—

DaBigBoom’s mouth dropped open.

Wow.


Oh hello, somebody sexy.  Come back next week to see if she gets a chance to strut her stuff as I try and get this anarchic beastie back under control.

Print Version of A Succubus for Freedom Out & Other Anthology News

The print version of A Succubus for Freedom and other tales of Obscene Orgies is finally out. You can grab it on Amazon here, or from eXcessica directly here. I live in hope one day I might actually get both the print version and ebook version out on the same day. Sorry for keeping you print lovers waiting. My own copies are winging their way towards me to be added to my Shelf of Books Guests Must Not Read...

I also have a few new stories coming out in eXcessica's fundraising anthologies.

The first, Colors, is out now.


It's an anthology of interracial erotica. I submitted a story about two lovers skinning each other and having sex.

Sometimes I wonder why the good folks of eXcessica put up with me...

The next is back to more familiar territory for me: an anthology of erotic horror tales to chill the bones in time for Halloween.


My story for that one is titled "Crabs" and I believe the anthology will be available on the 12th October.

Warning: Will Make Readers Wince.

Jackson in HRPG-World: 2-2 Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions

And a little later than initially planned (the real-life 9-to-5 clobbered me with some things that needed fixing over the weekend), here is the second part of Jackson in HRPG-World 2:


Jackson in HRPG-World 2-2: Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions

“Come with me, k’winny,” the stroppy little devil girl ordered.

“Fuck off,” Jackson retorted.

Pihanga pulled out a gun and shot him in the face.

From his position on the floor of the factory Jackson looked up and saw a white number—forty-four—floating up into the darkness beneath the roof. Oh yeah, computer game physics. Boy was he glad for those stupid role-playing game physics. It meant he could be shot right in the face with a gun and it do nothing so long as the damage was less than his total hit points.

He wondered how many hit points he had. Normally he was able to see his full status. Not here for some reason. Maybe this was some kind of intro and the game hadn’t actually started yet.

He got back up to his feet.

Schreck stared at him with his blank fish eyes opened wide. The angel girl had hands on her cheeks. Pihanga was turning her gun over in her hands with a puzzled expression on her face.

“One shot is normally enough to kill a level one k’winny,” she said, looking at her gun suspiciously.

“He doeth theem rather hardy for a k’winny, mithtreth,” Schreck said. “Are you thure—”

“He’s an uber k’winny!” the angel said. She bounced with excitement like a tween standing in line for a Justin Bieber signing. “I told you they had a sixth rank.”

Schreck looked up at the numbers floating away into the darkness of the ceiling. “It doeth theem to potheth an unusually high number of hit pointh.”

At the mention of ‘unusually high number of hit points,’ Pihanga’s pointed ears pricked up and she switched her attentions from the gun to Jackson. Her eyes lit up and her lips curled up in a crafty smile. “High hit points . . .”

She skipped forwards.

“I’m Pihanga, Empress of Elegance and Overlord-to-be of all the Nether Regions. You’ll be a perfect addition to my k’winny mob.”

“Uh . . . okay,” Jackson said.

He didn’t want to test if he had enough hit points to survive a second shot from her gun.

“Good.” Pihanga turned to the side and a giant ghostly blue keypad appeared before her out of thin air. “Now to name you.”

“Um. Actually, I already have a name,” Jackson said.

Pihanga ignored him and tapped keys on the ghostly floating blue keypad. D, a, B, i, g, B . . . Jackson saw letters appear above the keypad.

“There. Perfect,” Pihanga said.

DaBigBoom? What kind of stupid name was DaBigBoom? Only an eight-year-old could come up with a character name as stupid as that.

“Hey. I have a name. I’m—”

Pihanga moved her hand to the bottom right of the screen and tapped the enter button.

“—DaBigBoom,” DaBigBoom finished.

He paused. Wait, that wasn’t right. His name was DaBigBoom not DaBigBoom.

Huh?

No. His. Name. Was. DaBigBoom.

DaBigBoom tried again, but every time he thought of his name, DaBigBoom came up instead of DaBigBoom.

This sucks, DaBigBoom thought.

“Come along, DaBigBoom,” Pihanga said. “We have the Nether Regions to conquer.”

“And then it’s the Post Game content,” the angel said, jumping up and down with girlish excitement.

DaBigBoom looked at them—the trashy devil girl, the blue-haired angel, and the cartoon Nosferatu caricature. What kind of insane game had he fallen into? Shaking his head, he followed them out of the factory.

He walked out onto a landscape somewhere between Burton and Bosch. A spooky castle with spires sticking out at odd angles pierced the sky. Scattered around them were vast lakes of molten orange lava.

“Where are we?” DaBigBoom asked.

“These are the Nether Regions, home to demons, monsters and k’winnies containing the souls of mortals that sinned during their lives in the Living World,” the angel said.

“So hell, basically,” DaBigBoom said. “Hey, what was that about k’winnies?”

“Anyone who sinned during their life is reincarnated in the form of a k’winny. They must work off the debt their sinning incurred during their life before they can be reincarnated back to the Living World. In heaven we set them all kinds of boring tasks to do. In the Nether Regions it’s much better. They get to fight for the glory of the Overlord!” The angel finished with a rousing flourish.

DaBigBoom looked at her fluffy white wings and white robes. “Heaven? Are you an angel?”

“Trainee,” the girl said. “I’m Angel Student Fiore. Or was,” she said, her nose wrinkling into a grimace. “They kicked me out for downloading shota porn.”

Her breezy smile returned.

“I don’t mind. It’s far more exciting down here. We get to go on missions and kill people.”

DaBigBoom didn’t know what to say to that.

They walked into the castle and DaBigBoom was surrounded by a motley collection of monsters—rotting zombies, hunched over dragons shuffling on their hind legs, lions with scorpion tails and even girls standing inside giant roses. It was odd, weird, but not very scary. More Jim Henson than Nightmare on Elm Street.

The girls in the roses were also kinda hot and not wearing much more than a few strategically positioned bits of foliage. One of them winked at DaBigBoom and blew him a kiss.

“They’re hermaphrodites,” Fiore whispered in his ear.

DaBigBoom’s hand froze mid-wave.

“I’m not sure what they’re doing here either. They’re not supposed to appear until the sequels,” Fiore continued, making absolutely no sense again.

Pihanga made her way to the main hall. A spear stood in the centre of room. At first DaBigBoom thought there was a severed, moustachioed head impaled on the spear. Impaled so hard the point came right out of the top of the skull. The head seemed surprisingly well preserved. Then Pihanga picked the spear up, the head’s eyes flicked open and DaBigBoom realised the head was actually part of the spear itself.

“Hey, unhand me!” the spear complained in a prissy voice.

Piihanga ignored it and tapped the shaft loudly on the stone floor. “Subjects!” she called out. “The throne of the Overlord will soon be mine. Join me and share in the glory!”

The weird inhabitants ignored her and carried on with what they were doing.

“Join me for a share of the loot?” Pihanga tried again.

That got the attention of some of the inhabitants, but only briefly before they waved their hands dismissively at her and walked away laughing.

Pihanga’s nostrils flared. She looked like a teenage girl in a strop because her parents wouldn’t let her go to the party.

“K’WINNY MOB!” she bellowed, banging the butt of the spear so hard onto the ground the moustachioed head complained in a camp whine.

A motley crew of yellow bird-doll-things emerged, grumbling, from the shadows. They looked even worse for wear than the Frankenstein’s abominations DaBigBoom had seen on the factory conveyer belt. They looked like they’d been repeatedly torn apart and then stitched back up again by someone with only a passing familiarity with what they’d originally looked like.

“We’re going to take on Cook Canyon again, and this time I want 150 percent.”

The k’winnies collectively groaned.

“We need more soldiers, mate,” one of them griped.

“We have more soldiers,” Pihanga said. “This is Private DaBigBoom.”

The k’winnies looked at DaBigBoom and for a moment their grumbling was silenced.

“Is he a player?” one whispered.

“What was that!” Pihanga said.

The offending k’winny gave an eep. They all shuffled backwards.

“I’m the player,” Pihanga said. “I’m the main character. This is my game. I’m the star. Me. Me alone. Pihanga, the Empress of Elegance and Overlord-to-be.”

She swung the spear like a golf club and the quavering k’winny vanished up over one of the balconies with a plaintive wail.

“Now we’re back down to the same number of soldiers as before, mate,” another of the k’winnies muttered, this time quiet enough for Pihanga not to hear.

“Follow me!” Pihanga ordered. “This time we will beat that level.”

“She’s not really the main character,” Fiore whispered to DaBigBoom after Pihanga had marched in the direction of one of the side exits. “It’s me.” She gave a girlish giggle and followed Pihanga.

Madhouse, DaBigBoom thought, shaking his head as he followed the others.

They walked through a crazy marketplace. Skinny kids with anime-spiky hair sold swords that were far too large and impractical for any normal—or even large—person to wield. DaBigBoom saw the entrance to a tent with a bleeding red cross stitched above the opening. Moans and groans emanated from within. A cute girl in some kind of traditional Japanese dress stood in the entrance and smiled at DaBigBoom. As he walked by he saw she was holding a hacksaw with clumps of hair and flesh stuck to the serrated blade.

They reached a short staircase that led up to a bright blue swirl of light about as big as a door. More computer game physics. DaBigBoom assumed it was some kind of portal that led somewhere else. Standing next to the portal was a gorgeous blonde girl with elf ears sticking out of her long hair. She held a gnarled wooden staff and wore flowing green robes. She looked bored.

Pihanga walked up to the foot of the steps. “Cook Canyon,” she said.

“Again?” the blonde girl said.

“We’re going to defeat Waldorf this time,” Pihanga said.

“You said that last time,” the blonde said, “and the time before that, and the time before that, and the thirteen other times before that.”

“My k’winny mob has increased in experience,” Pihanga said.

“Your k’winny mob is falling to bits,” the blonde said.

Pihanga gave her a crafty smile. “Ah, but this time I have a secret weapon,” she motioned to DaBigBoom.

The blonde peered at DaBigBoom. For a moment her brow furrowed as though she wasn’t quite sure of what she was looking at, and then she spotted the yellow hat and gave a disappointed sigh.

“It’s just another k’winny,” she said. “You need to recruit some proper monsters with classes. You can’t expect to beat the middle levels with only k’winnies.”

“K’winnies are cheap and easy to maintain,” Pihanga said.

“K’winnies are useless.”

The k’winnies quarked and harrumphed their disapproval.

“Do as you’re ordered and send us to Cook Canyon,” Pihanga said.

The blonde sighed. She waved her staff and the portal flared a brighter blue colour. “As you command, oh great and powerful Overlord . . .” Pihanga walked up the steps and jumped into the swirling blue vortex. “. . . to-never-be,” the blonde finished as Pihanga vanished from view.

Fiore and the vampire, Schreck, went next, followed by the battered k’winnies. DaBigBoom considered running off in the opposite direction, but that might mean he’d be stuck in this lunatic role-playing game forever . . . as DaBigBoom.

Fuck it. The quicker he completed it, the quicker he could get the fuck out of here. He walked up the steps.

The blonde looked at him. A puzzled expression was back on her face.

“Hey wait!” she said. “You’re the—”

Too late. DaBigBoom had already stepped into the portal.


I knew I should have left that game alone. What's happening? They've usurped my main character and changed his name. Isn't there supposed to be some pr0n somewhere?

Come back next week for part 3 (there may be some sex somewhere - I hope!)

Some game succubi require little pornification...

The Jackson in HRPG-World series is my affectionate little poke at some of the more risque inclusions in some computer games. Most of those games (not including the outright hentai games like Monster Girl Quest and Violated Hero) are harmless enough and require a truly filthy imagination to push their naughtier elements to their salacious extremes.

And then there are others...



(full link here. jump to 8:30 or so if you're bored of the fighting)

Am I even needed here? :)

The game is Vindictus or Maginobi Heroes and produced by Korean studio, Nexon. I don't know much about it other than it's an MMO based upon the Mabinogion, a collection of very old Welsh stories/myths.

It's a lovely interpretation of a succubus battle.

Given the sexism landmines that keep going off in the games industry after the Lara Croft rape thing, the Hitman sexy nuns thing, the Anita Sarkeesian thing, I wonder how long we'll get to enjoy little bits of offbeat titillation like this in computer games before the PC (political correctness, not personal computer) mafia shuts it down completely. I would be sad to see this happen. Games are fantasy. That fantasy can be ultra-violent and even include comicbook-representations of anatomy for titillating purposes, but it's still fantasy - a confection whipped up for pure entertainment. It might not appeal to everyone, but to stomp on something someone else derives innocent (largely!) pleasure from because it disagrees with your worldview is a particularly mean-minded attitude in my opinion.

There should always be a place for sexy succubi in games. And ludicrously over the top execution scenes a la Manhunt. It's. Not. Real.

The real world is grey enough without shoving that greyness into fantasy as well.

Enough ranting from me anyway. Will Jackson be paying a visit to a Vindictusian "Naughty Room" at some point in his future? Possibly. ;)

Edit: Here's the full intro as it's cut off on the first vid (yes, she doesn't care whether her visitors are male or female):

Jackson in HRPG-World: 2-1 Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions

Time to kick off another mini-serial to run here over the next few weeks. I think we'll corrupt a few more innocent childhood gaming memories and continue Jackson's adventures in HRPG-World.

Jackson in HRPG-World: 2-1 Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions

Where was he now? Ian Jackson thought.

He was standing on a giant conveyer belt running through some kind of madhouse factory. Giant gears clanked and clacked amongst puffs of steam. A lunatic carousel tune played in the background.

This didn’t look like the usual hackneyed, sub-Tolkienesque setting he expected for a fantasy role-playing computer game. It was a cavernous factory, more suited to a first-person-shooter or horror game, although the crazy organ-grinder music playing in the background seemed a poor fit for either.

Jackson wasn’t alone on the conveyer belt. He might have been tempted to describe them as toys. They were yellow and looked like a plushy doll of a cartoon character—some kind of flightless bird with a long bill. A kiwi?

The dolls were hideous. They looked as though they’d been put together by demented lab assistants working under Doctor Frankenstein. The stitching was crude, visible, and looked more like scars. None of the dolls had legs or feet. Instead, a pair of miniature cartwheels was attached to the sides of their bodies. Jackson doubted they were toys. Children were more likely to run screaming than play with these.

They were also alive.

Jackson watched as one of the bird-doll-things sat up and blinked oversized cartoon eyes. It was maybe about three-foot in height. The thing turned a head and looked around. In animation it looked like a real-life cartoon gone horribly wrong.

More bird-doll-things stirred as the conveyer belt reached an end illuminated with purple and red spotlights. More of the bird-doll-things waited for them, but they were brown in colour rather than yellow and directed the new arrivals with the scowling efficiency of airport security personnel. Jackson watched as the bird-doll-thing ahead of him hopped off the end of the belt. It was given a leather bum bag and pointed in the direction of a growing queue.

Then it was Jackson’s turn. He stepped off the end of the belt. The brown bird-doll-thing was halfway through the motion of giving Jackson a bum bag when it paused.

Jackson was about average height by human standards, which meant he towered over the three-foot-high bird-doll-thing. The brown attendant turned and found its bill level with Jackson’s crotch. It tilted its head up a little, then a little more, and then tilted it up a lot more until it could actually see Jackson’s face. It blinked slowly, as if aware something wasn’t quite right with the picture but not exactly sure what.

“Um, where is this place?” Jackson asked.

Crazy oompah carousel music continued to blare away in the background.

“You’re in the Nether Regions, mate,” the bird-doll-thing said.

Nether Regions? Must be the setting for this game.

“What am I supposed to do?” Jackson asked.

He wanted to ask, ‘What is my objective in this game?’ but most characters he came across, even the obvious designated game tutors, rarely gave any indication they knew this was really a computer game.

“Work for the masters, pay off your debt, get reincarnated back to the living world, mate.”

“Living world?”

“You’re dead, mate,” the bird-doll-thing said. “These are the Nether Regions. Souls are reincarnated here in the form of k’winnies and must work to pay off the debts their sinning accrued during their life, mate.”

“Dead? No no no,” Jackson said, shaking a finger.

He wasn’t dead. It was just a computer game. He was trapped inside until . . . well, he wasn’t sure exactly. He’d thought it was until he completed the game, but the rules—and the game—kept changing.

“Mate, they all say that,” the brown bird-doll-thing—k’winny?—said.

“Look at me,” Jackson said. “Do I look like I belong here?”

The k’winny peered at him. It frowned. Or rather Jackson assumed the expression was a frown given that it had a cartoon bird face rather than a human face. It blinked. Then it turned around and fetched a novelty yellow baseball cap that resembled the top half of one of the k’winny’s heads. The bill had a slender beak stitched into the fabric and there were a pair of large googly eyes glued to the front. The k’winny motioned for Jackson to duck down and then it reached up to place the k’winny cap on his head. It looked up and smiled. All was right in its world again.

Jackson glanced up at the cap on his head and shook his head.

The k’winny bent down, retrieved the greyish-brown bum bag it had put aside and handed it to Jackson.

“This is to hold your tāra, mate,” it said.

That meant nothing to Jackson. He held the bag up and looked at it in bafflement.

Something bumped against his leg. Jackson turned and saw another blearily blinking k’winny had come off the belt.

“Move along, mate,” the brown k’winny said. “You’re holding things up. Move along. Move along, mate.” He directed Jackson with a limb that was somewhere between a wing and an arm and looked fit for neither purpose.

Jackson walked away shaking his head. Maybe it was one of those games where he had to do a bunch of everyday shit for a couple of hours before the real plot became apparent. JRPGs never seemed in any hurry to actually start.

He joined a line of yellow k’winnies. Two of them looked back at him in surprise. At least until they saw the yellow cap on his head, at which point they went back to grumbling amongst themselves as if nothing at all was out of place.

“K’winnies!”

A shrill voice ripped through the factory. The voice was high-pitched, as though the owner was small, but it blasted through the air as if expelled by the lungs of a giant.

“Oh k’winnies,” the voice warbled.

“Shit. It’s Pihanga.”

Jackson turned his head. All the brown k’winnies had suddenly vanished. When he turned his head back the yellow k’winnies had vanished as well. Jackson was left alone to face the small party walking towards him.

Not quite alone. The k’winnies were still there, but hidden behind the barrels and crates littering the floor of the factory. Jackson saw a yellow head poke up from behind a barrel.

“K’WINNIES!”

The head hastily ducked back down. Jackson wondered if he should be joining it, but by then it was already too late. The party, a strange trio of individuals, had reached him.

At the front was a girl. Sort of. She had the dainty body of an adolescent girl or gymnast, but she also had horns, a tail and a pair of vestigial bat wings that looked too small to be anything other than ornamental. A devil girl, in miniature. Her eyes were the colour of raspberry juice. She gave off the air of a stroppy and spoilt teen and dressed as though she hadn’t yet learned the difference between party girl and streetwalker. Spiky black air erupted in defiance of gravity from two pigtails and her pointed ears were adorned with gaudy, lizard-skull earrings. Her red gloves and boots—long enough to reach her elbows and thighs respectively—covered more flesh than the rest of her clothes combined. Shorts that were little more than panties hid her crotch while a band of red leather was all that covered her chest. Not that there was much to cover—she was as flat as an ironing board.

“Aha, here’s one,” she said, looking at Jackson.

Behind her stood a pale-faced man in evening wear that had seen better days. Jackson assumed he was a vampire—one of the old school Nosferatu, not one of those stupid twinkly fairies from Twilight. He was hunched, had a hook for a nose, wide staring eyes and fangs so long they made him talk funny. Jackson supposed he should be scared of him, but he couldn’t quite muster fear in the face of what appeared to be a walking cartoon caricature.

“Are you sure Mithtreth Pihanga? It lookth a little large and . . . awkward for a k’winny,” the vampire said with a reedy lisp.

“Of course it’s a k’winny, Schreck,” the little devil girl said. “See,” she pointed at the yellow cap on Jackson’s head.

Jackson looked up at the bill of the baseball cap. They couldn’t be fucking serious.

The third figure giggled. Jackson had no clue what she was doing here. She looked like an angel—in the cartoon sense. Fluffy white wings too small for flight stuck out from her back. A white ribbon was tied in her long blue hair. She had a similar flat-chested figure to the devil girl, Pihanga, but less of it was visible beneath her sensible white robes. Was it Halloween in the madhouse or something?

“Come with me, k’winny,” the stroppy little devil girl ordered.

“Fuck off,” Jackson retorted.

Pihanga pulled out a gun and shot him in the face.


Given the source material, I may have trouble keeping this one under control . . .

A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 6

There are six brand new stories in my new collection, A Succubus for Freedom. I've already run excerpts of five of them. Here's an excerpt from the sixth. It's the twisted homage to Robert E. Howard I talked about back here. This time it's "Barbarian vs. Succubus".

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Even exaggerated with wine-soaked bravado, none of the tales of the Seraglio of Neeb matched up to the reality. It truly was a temple to the worship of sensual pleasures. The rooms beyond were more sumptuous than even the King’s own chambers. Nanok saw pools of crystal-clear water with fragrant flower petals sprinkled on the surface. Mountains of soft silk cushions were piled upon lush, exotic furs. And the girls . . .

Nanok had never before seen such a collection of comely beauties. If willing wenches were as plentiful as apples on the ground then these maidens must be the sweetest, most succulent fruits of the Gods’ own orchard. Nanok saw sapphire-eyed willowy blondes from Fe’berg; flame-haired temptresses from wild Zeminolia; olive-skinned beauties from the islands of Oran; a dark-skinned Buronthian with her black hair twined together in long braids; girls from every corner of the map he’d travelled to and some from regions he’d only heard of in campfire tales. Their supple bodies were naked save for swathes of fine silk around their shapely hips. All were adorned with delicate golden chains and glittering precious stones. A king’s treasure in metal, stone and flesh, was Nanok’s thought.

This temple even had its own idol. At the far end of the long room, with its legs astride a walkway between two pools, stood an enormous statue of the same horned devil woman Nanok had seen on both the chains of office and capstone above the entrance. Clouds of incense wafted around the statue’s legs.

All civilised men made a worship of hedonism and pleasure, in Nanok’s opinion. At least in Neeb they were honest about it.

The girls remained queerly composed. Nanok would have expected some to flee screaming at the arrival of ten bloodstained and battle-weary men, and wouldn’t have begrudged them. He’d sacked his fair share of cities. He knew full well men with their blood up from battle, even the most noble, often committed terrible atrocities in the moments following a city’s fall. These girls seemed so unafraid Nanok wondered if they might be ensorcelled or lost in dreams of the lotus. The same enchantment seemed to have spread to Nanok’s men. Rather than charging in like lusty sailors finding port after a long voyage, they were stricken with a kind of awe. They entered quietly and respectfully, more like men on their way to worship at a temple than men looking to spend coin and seed at a bordello.

Two veiled maidens—one dusky, the other as pale as a snowfield—approached Nanok and bowed.

“Esqeta told us King Lyoncar is dead and we are to serve you as we served him,” the dusky maiden said.

“We are yours as we were his,” the pale-skinned girl said.

“What is your wish, King Nanok?” the dusky-skinned girl asked.

Nanok smiled. “I have some battle-weary dogs in need of the light touch of a woman’s hand to pick up their flesh and spirits.”

As with the veiled Esqeta, if the women balked at the presence of the sweaty, bloodstained soldiers, they hid it well. They seemed well-versed in that peculiar civilised art of quelling the fires of the heart that Nanok so often found infuriating when dealing with the sophisticated elites. The slippery sons of snakes never let on what they were really thinking. By Dhom, the battle had been hard enough as it was. He was in no mood for thawing the loins of frosty dancing wenches.

He didn’t have to worry. The two veiled maidens led him to a soft pile of silk cushions. Both ran soft hands over the iron-hard muscles of his biceps and thighs while cooing like lovebirds. Nanok grinned. As usual, the daughters of civilisation were only too eager to let in the wolf prowling outside their gates.

Nanok lay back on soft cushions. It was a welcome change from cold earth and hard pallets. Around him the atmosphere grew more raucous as his men stripped off their armour and cavorted with the harem girls. Music—an exotic caterwauling of unearthly pipes, cat-screech strings and beating drums—played in the background. Plentiful food and fine wines were brought in—a coronation feast befitting a new king. And by Dhom, why shouldn’t he enjoy it. He’d earned it through blood and steel, as was the right of all men.

“Ha ha,” Vroo guffawed. “These wenches have been starved of real men for too long. The sagging sceptre of a fat old king is no substitute for the sword of a virile fighting man.” He took a bite out of a large leg of ham and rubbed his face between the breasts of the voluptuous maiden lying next to him.

Over on a plush divan Dranitreb was attempting to woo his maiden like a yellow-bellied Kosskootan—a kiss to her hand, a kiss to her wrist, a kiss to her arm, a kiss to—

“You’re supposed to make love to her, lad, not send her to sleep,” Nanok called out. “Forgive the pup,” he said to Dranitreb’s partner. “He became a man only today.”

Dranitreb blushed. Understanding flashed in the girl’s eye. With one quick motion she had Dranitreb on his back and was astride him. Nanok smiled. The Zeminolians were renowned horse riders. The young pup was likely to find himself broken in like a stallion if he didn’t watch himself.

The corded steel of Nanok’s neck and shoulders softened as he relaxed on the cushions. The battle was won; time to enjoy the spoils. The pale-skinned maiden brought a platter of sweet grapes and fed them to him while her companion caressed his muscles with first her hands and then her lips.

Scented smoke was filling the room like a fog. He watched it spill out of the nipples and sex of the giant idol and roll across the floor like mists across the northern lakes of Abyleen. Nanok snorted, trying to clear his nostrils of the cloying perfume. The scent was pleasant, but too thick. It overpowered his senses and left him feeling diminished in the way a blindfold over his eyes would take away his sight.

A fiery ache blossomed in his body and surged down to his loins. Sensing his arousal, the dusky maiden took off his loincloth and Nanok’s cock rose with the mists. The air must be drugged. Nanok had heard of such things. Plenty of peddlers in the flesh pits of Po-Teat promised all kinds of unguents, potions and scents to help a man’s rod stay straight and true. Undoubtedly King Lyoncar had required a little something of that magic to help him fully appreciate his treasures. Nanok thought it feeble. If a man had a willing wench beside him, he needed no help.

A gong sounded. The music paused.

“Lady Esqeta will now dance for your pleasure,” the dusky-skinned maiden whispered in his ear, close enough for him to feel the soft pressure of her full lips.

Nanok’s interest pricked up. He was curious to see what the mistress of the seraglio was hiding beneath her robes. A great cloud of smoke billowed from between the legs of the giant idol. Like the breath of a dragon, Nanok thought with a small sliver of disquiet. Two slender girls—golden-skinned beauties from far-off Kallahia, waved fans as they fluttered before the cloud like exotic butterflies. The smoke faded and revealed Lady Esqeta.

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This was the last story to finish for the collection. Originally it was a simple prospect - take musclebound-but-dim stereotypical barbarian and have a succubus turn the tables on them. Then I reread all of Howard's stories and remembered his Conan, the archetypal and Ur-barbarian, is far more clever and cunning than the fantasy stereotypes that followed.

There's a little black joke at Howard's expense buried in the story. It wasn't deliberate, just a combination of words that could be taken to mean something else. I only noticed it was there when I was editing. I thought about editing it out, but that would mean acknowledging I have something other than a lump of black coal for a heart, which patently isn't true. Apologies anyway, Mr Howard, you stupid daft bugger for killing yourself so young. His genius is available to read here, and well worth checking out to see how good the early pulp masters were.

My humble effort, A Succubus for Freedom, is available now as an ebook from here, here, here, and even B&N here, although no one seems to go there anymore.

For the people waiting for a print version, I do have the full coverflat artwork now and I'm just waiting for the print manuscript to go through. I'll post here with details as soon as the print version of the book is available to buy. Sorry for the delay on that.

I'm not sure which fantasy stereotype is up next for "vs. Succubus". I have Rogue and Samurai (with a guest appearance from another of my characters) pencilled in. Any others you'd like to see?

Hentai Game Review: Violated Hero 2

Yay, another monster girl hentai game came out. Yay, another opportunity to lure fresh readers here and pimp books to them under the guise of a game review. As this is a hentai game, if you’re under 18 or likely to be offended by such things, now is the time to steer the mouse cursor up to the top left and hit the back button.

I blogged about the original Violated Hero back here. It was a game with some nicely executed H-scenes, but some rather lacklustre gameplay and a few iffy quirks. Well, it has a sequel out now from Dieselmine and the good news is they’ve managed to iron out a lot of the annoying wrinkles of the original.

They're not kidding around when they say violated...

It’s pricey at $34, but it’s a really chunky file at 1.5GB, so you do get a lot of content. Gameplay-wise it’s similar to the first one—the player wanders around two Dungeon Master-esque mazes, defeating enemies with either sword or magic. Lose (or sometimes win!) to certain enemies and you get a gorgeously rendered Game Over hentai scene where the monster girl performs a variety of different sex acts on the lucky/luckless hero.

The first maze is set in a forest and the second is set in the demon queen’s castle, both with nicely drawn backgrounds. As with the first game there isn’t a lot of strategy other than hit either the sword attack or magic attack button. The player also has the option of a special strong sword/magic attack, but each has a limited number of usages and is best saved for the bosses.

In the original the player levelled up by picking up a stat boost for each monster they killed, which meant an awful lot of tedious grinding against boring silhouette monsters to be able to beat the monster girl ‘bosses’ in order to proceed. This is mostly gone apart from six special conventional monsters (this time with full artwork rather than plain black silhouettes) hidden in each maze that give a stat bonus when defeated. Aside from them, the player levels up each time they defeat one of the main monster girl characters.

Milfy. Cute, bouncy, adorable...and general of an army focused on exterminating humanity.

The mazes are divided into five regions, each containing one of the main monster girl characters locked off behind a mystical barrier. The random encounters in each region are smaller versions of the main monster girl with lower quality artwork. Yes, the idiosyncratic pixelated artwork is back, but at least the main characters are all drawn with detailed artwork. Defeat three random encounters and the barrier pops open. Most of the time the player will do this before they even get to the barrier, so it’s not really a chore.

There are five monster girls in each maze as well as four generals and the demon queen herself, making fifteen characters in total. Common types such as harpies, lamia, slime girls (Milfy is adorable), mermaids and succubi are all present, and even some more unusual creations as well. Each has their own Game Over H-scene, which is the real reason you’re here, let’s face it. In that respect VH2 doesn’t disappoint. As with the first game, the artwork is consistent and well-drawn, and each scene is fully voiced. There’s a reason for that huge file size. Most of the monster girls have at least two scenes and the generals also have a third bonus epilogue scene after defeating you as well. These range from the sexy to the…um…yeah…weird.

Insector. I'm not sure I want to unlock her H-scenes...

Dieselmine clearly had one eye on Monster Girl Quest while developing this, and there’s more of a story this time around rather than a straight dungeon crawl to the Big Bad at the bottom. In particular there are plenty of cutaway scenes building up the characters of the demon queen and her generals.

Overall it’s still a collection of sumptuously-rendered hentai scenes in search of a game, but at least the game elements are less annoying this time around. It can be bought from here and the Dieselmine website is here. If you don’t fancy all the mucking around with AGTH and locales in order to play the Japanese version, this fella is working on an English translation, so it might be worth bookmarking their site.

And finally the inevitable plug. If you like this sort of game may I also humbly suggest giving my books a try, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too. Sample stories can be found here.