Dungeon Crawl, page 1
dungeon crawl
Three Player Tag-Team Book 5
allyson lindt
acelette press
This book is a work of fiction.
While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Allyson Lindt
All Rights Reserved
Cover Art by Romancepremades.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Acelette Press
For every person looking for yourself and that place where you belong.
contents
Introduction
1. Fallyn
2. Elliot
3. Link
4. Fallyn
5. Elliot
6. Link
7. Elliot
8. Fallyn
9. Fallyn
10. Link
11. Elliot
12. Fallyn
13. Link
14. Elliot
15. Fallyn
16. Fallyn
17. Link
18. Elliot
19. Fallyn
20. Elliot
21. Link
22. Fallyn
23. Elliot
24. Link
25. Fallyn
26. Link
27. Fallyn
28. Elliot
29. Link
30. Elliot
31. Fallyn
32. Elliot
33. Link
34. Fallyn
35. Link
36. Elliot
Epilogue
introduction
Dungeon Crawl: A scenario in a role-playing game where the heroes navigate a maze of sorts—a dungeon—battling monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and sharing any loot they find along the way.
1
fallyn
My taste in men was just the worst. At forty, I was still shite for identifying red flags. A lifetime of bad dating decisions had helped me build up a blind spot when it came to detecting toxic guys.
As I walked through the Salt Lake International Airport, my tummy was a wreck of anticipation. I so very badly wanted this time, the men I was about to meet in person, to be different.
The relationship was better than any I’d had in the past, and I was just enough of an optimist to believe that it would continue to be. It wasn’t unusual that I’d met both men online, and neither was the fact that it had been in a game. I’d been in video game testing for long enough, and an introvert even longer, so it made sense that I’d meet most people through a screen first.
What made this time different were the details. We hadn’t exchanged real names, or photos. Individually identifying details were kept off the table. I was falling for their personalities, and they for mine.
Oh, yeah, there were two of them. And they both knew about each other and didn’t have a problem with me seeing both of them. I was pretty sure they were together as well, but they insisted they were just co-workers with benefits.
Last time I’d tried a with benefits relationship with a guy I worked with, he got me fired when I tried to break up with him. And then stalked me for months anyway, insisting he could get me my job back if I’d just stop being a stupid cunt and go back to him.
Just. The. Worst.
It was easy to spot my bags when they came up on the luggage carrousel—I’d purchased the candy red Samsonite specifically for this trip. I wanted something that was distinctly me, and just as fresh and new as this opportunity.
Stalker-from-Quality-Assurance was the last serious relationship I’d been in, though oddly enough not the first, or last possessive, obsessive fuck.
Was it wrong that I just wanted a guy—or two—who would smack my ass, pull my hair, and call me a filthy whore in the bedroom, but treat me like a human being when we weren’t fucking?
And on a completely unrelated note—I knew this was a small airport, all things considered, but I was about to drown in the sea of people. Why did I think flying out of my small, safe town, to a big city, to wander a convention center with tens of thousands of people, was a good idea?
Because RinCon was good for my career, and because my guys would be here. Puff69 and Archer—I didn’t give them grief about their screen names because they’d never once teased me about calling myself D3m0nK1tt13–demon kittie.
I stepped outside the airport, and a shock of cold hit me. It wasn’t quite so cold in Green Valley, the Northern California town I’d just left behind. And what we’d considered cold in the small London prefect I grew up in were almost tropical compared to this cold. The snow here wasn’t as pretty as in California though. Gray slush built up along the curbs, and dirty mounds piled as tall as me near pillars around the roads and lots.
The guys didn’t know what I did for a living, or any of the smaller details about my life, and I didn’t know about theirs. They were programmers, or so they claimed. For all I knew, they worked help desk at some little call center.
Archer certainly had the voice for it. Sex line operator, maybe. I’d have paid to hear him say a number of things he’d said to me over the past several months, and he’d said them to me for free.
But they thought I was an Instagram influencer. Cosplayer.
A tiny misdirection on my part. Puff had assumed, and I let him. His suggestion to come out here and meet them and make the con part of my feed was appropriate to what I really did anyway.
I grabbed a waiting cab, let the driver load my bags in the trunk, and gave him Puff’s address.
This was it. Last leg of my trip. I was finally meeting these guys in person. Seeing what they looked like. Learning their real names. Maybe fucking like bunnies, but more importantly, hopefully having a lot of fun both at RinCon and outside of it.
I should’ve grabbed one of the airsickness bags from the plane and brought it with me. It would be rude to puke inside this poor guy’s taxi.
The smart thing for me to do on this drive would be to go over my work plans for the next week. While I wasn’t an influencer in the sense Puff and Archer believed, I had an impact on opinions.
I broke video games. My online persona was an intentionally cold-hearted bitch. I loved her, because when I slipped into Online Fallyn, I was untouchable. People didn’t sneer at me for the purple stripe in my long, dark hair. No one called me shorty and cute stuff while they patted me on the head.
And I could block anyone who thought they could control or deride me.
Besides, playing the games was fun, and finding the exploits was almost as entertaining.
Instead of making notes about work while I was in the cab, I couldn’t stop thinking about intense, controlling Puff, and adorable, cuddly Archer, and this place they lived.
This city felt massive and small at the same time. I was used to being able to see mountains, but where were all the trees? And how come there were so many houses and apartment buildings, all jammed so close together?
The taxi navigated down one road after another, and when it turned onto a heavily tree-lined street, I would’ve let out a sigh of relief, if it weren’t for the slushy roads. But I could do snow. I’d gotten used to light snow.
Not many of the houses were visible from the road here, and we had to slow down to find a lot of the numbers. Puff had told me his driveway was the one with the wrought iron visible from the road, and sent me a picture. The only picture I had from him.
As we crept down the road, a house number sign matching the photo on my phone appeared. “There. That’s it.” I pointed.
The driver slowed his already crawling car even more, and we headed down the driveway. As the trees parted, a large house came into view. It wasn’t quite a mansion, but it was the closest I’d ever seen outside of historical buildings.
Puff probably wasn’t some random help desk guy after all. Unless he was a trust fund baby.
We stopped at the head of the driveway, I paid, and I insisted I’d be fine if the driver left me here.
I wouldn’t be. I was going to hurl. Taking a few deep breaths, I approached the house and rang the bell.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” The voice that came through the speaker next to what was probably a camera sounded a bit like Puff, but a lot angrier, and familiar for a reason I couldn’t place.
This was a bad idea. Why had I done this?
Nope. This weekend was about embracing my online persona, and Online Fallyn would push ahead with no fear. “I’m Demon Kittie? I’m looking for Puff69.”
“Ha.” He let out a barking laugh. “No. Really. How the fuck did you get my address?”
I’d pictured dozens of scenarios about how this would go. He wouldn’t like my hair. I wouldn’t like that he lived in his parents’ pool house. We wouldn’t have anything to say to each other in person…
But this abrasive attitude wasn’t on the list. “You gave it to me? Puff?”
The speaker went silent.
Now what?
I was debating turning away or trying again, when I heard noise coming from the other side of the door, and it swung open.
Oh.<
Oh, fuck me.
I was staring at a very familiar face. He was the head developer for the game we’d met in. I’d seen him in livestreams, but he was gorgeous in person. Tall with dark, messy hair. A jawline that could slice glass, and a hard, slender frame hidden under a faded Plaid Peanut Butter T-shirt.
He was the kind of guy I’d stop and stare at on the street, while I fantasized about yielding without hesitation when he asked for my panties.
And I spent a lot of my show breaking his game.
If this was a movie, this was where I’d puke on his shoes, and the scene would cut to someone else. Instead, the best I could manage was, “It’s you.”
Elliot—Puff69?—rolled his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Go to hell, Fallyn.” He let the door swing shut on me.
That was that.
What was I supposed to do now? Get a hotel, probably. Given that reception, things probably weren’t going to work out with Puff69 and Archer.
Elliot and… one of his developers?
This was surreal. Sure, I played under an account that masked me, when I was playing for fun. It made sense they would do the same, because they wanted to watch people beta their game through an unobstructed lens. But what were the odds…?
It didn’t matter. Would he call the cops on me if I hung out here long enough to figure out my next steps?
I called the one person I knew in the city besides them, or at least knew well enough to have his number. Please let him pick up.
“Hello,” Nigel answered.
“Hi. It’s Fallyn.” I usually only talked to him—anyone—over chat, but he’d given me his personal cell because the office tended to screen my messages.
He was their Quality Assurance Director. The only person at AcesPlayed who talked to me like I wasn’t the scourge of the earth. “Hey. Are you okay? How was your flight?” He knew I was traveling here, but I hadn’t given him any details beyond that I was meeting friends, and I was looking forward to meeting him at RinCon.
“I’m…” Not fine at all. “Can you recommend me a hotel that’s not too far from the convention center? Or at least tell me what part of town I need to book in?”
“I thought you were staying with friends. What’s up?”
It wasn’t like I could say bad things about his colleagues, but I had to explain something. It was likely he’d hear about it anyway, and I’d rather he hear my version of the story too. “These friends I was going to meet… I only know them from the game. Like, I’ve never seen their faces and I only knew their screen names.”
“Are you in trouble? I can track down owners of IP addresses.” No wonder Megan and Landon adored him.
Yup, we were close enough I knew the people he was dating—we all gamed together when I was playing as Fallyn—but I had to come out here for strangers. The one with the sexy voice, and the one with controlling streak. “I’m fine, I promise. Not in any danger.” Unless the cops were on their way to evict me from this front porch. Was Elliot watching this on the doorbell cam? “Do you know who Puff69 and Archer are?”
Silence met me.
That wasn’t a good sign.
“I’m not allowed to answer that,” Nigel finally said.
Of course not. Because of privacy concerns and also because he worked with them.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sitting on Elliot’s front porch right now, and he just slammed the door in my face. I didn’t know, hand to god. I had no idea I was…” Earhole fucking someone who possibly considered me his arch nemesis.
“I’ll talk to him,” Nigel said.
“No. No, no, no.” I didn’t want Nigel to get in trouble with his work. They’d already been mad enough when they found out I was going around them to bring bugs to him directly.
Which was a weird thing to get mad about, but people were touchy about me breaking their code. You’d think I snapped their dicks off with my bare hands, the way they reacted sometimes.
“You’re here to see him. He invited you.” Nigel sounded sympathetic but insistent. “You’re Demon Kittie? You didn’t tell me. He’s been swooning over meeting you for weeks.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the doorbell cam. Swooning? Over me? “A girl’s gotta have some secrets.”
“I’ll talk to him. Don’t go anywhere.” Nigel disconnected.
Like I said… My taste in men was just the worst.
2
elliot
What was I supposed to do about the woman sitting on my porch?
The woman wearing the face of my arch nemesis, for longer than I’d been part of AcesPlayed. The petite, spunky, gorgeous woman who apparently also possessed an incredible mind.
I mean, I knew Fallyn was smart. It took brains to make the online show that she did. Brains. Balls. And a lot of sadism. I should respect that. But…
And she was the same woman Link and I had been voiceterbating with for months. It was impossible to ignore that smooth, sultry voice tinged with a British accent, even if I wanted to. Except the woman online was much sweeter, far less crass, than the woman who spoke with a cockney twang in the videos that annoyed me when they were mild and infuriated me most of the time.
But Fallyn was Demon Kittie. The most exquisite blend of bratty, submissive, and brilliant conversationalist…
Nope. This was a dream. Any minute now, I’d have to pee and wouldn’t be able to find a bathroom. Or someone would come after me with a fire ax. Or my dick would shrivel up and fall off. Or worst of all, every redundancy we had in place for the game would fail, the entire thing would vanish, and nearly six years’ worth of blood, sweat, and cum would be destroyed.
Worst nightmare, right there. Which must be why Fallyn was on my doorstep, claiming she was Demon Kittie.
And I couldn’t stop watching her through my doorbell cam, like some sort of proper creeper. Was it better or worse that I chose to leave the sound off? I didn’t want to hear who she was calling. I didn’t want to admit that I was an idiot to not recognize that Demon Kittie and Fallyn had the same voice.
My phone rang, and Nigel’s name appeared on the screen.
It was starting—things were breaking at work. The apocalypse mere days before our game’s official debut. “Hey,” I answered.
“Are you going to talk to her or sulk like a six-year-old?” Nigel asked.
Now I knew who Fallyn called. The office traitor. Was I being a little immature about this? Yes. But I was going to allow myself the indulgence, because this was one of the most important weeks of our lives—of the lives of everyone I worked with. “Do I have a third option?”
“You have a lot of options, I assume. But if you’re not going to let her stay with you, like you promised, I’ll come pick her up.”
“Does your girlfriend know you’re getting some on the side?” Yup, that was me crossing a line. I knew it as soon as I said it. Nigel would be within his rights to deck me the next time he saw me.
Instead, he chuckled. “Megan loves Fallyn. They craft in game together. Hell, Landon adores her too.”
My growl slipped out without my permission. “He’s only been working for me for a few months, and you already have him hiding things from me?” Like playing the game however and with whomever he wanted.
“Do you want me to come pick her up? Save her from the troll who lives in the forest?”
I’m not the troll, she is. Nope. I would not say that out loud. I also hated the idea of someone else coming to Demon Kittie’s rescue, even if she was wearing Fallyn’s body.
