Chapter 7: The Lich King Prevails
The walk back to the common room felt like crossing a chasm. Every step was a conscious effort, a recalibration of her entire sense of balance. The weight inside her was no longer cold; it had warmed to the temperature of her body, becoming a persistent, humiliating presence. It wasn’t painful. It was there. A relentless reminder that her body was no longer entirely her own.
She focused on the floor, the scuffed linoleum, the sound of Sarah’s casual footsteps beside her. A sidelong glance, a knowing smirk.
They re-entered the common room. The lamp’s glow seemed softer, the shadows deeper. Mark glanced up from his screen, his gaze lingering on Emily for a half-second too long. Did he see the heat in her cheeks? The slight stiffness in her gait?
“All squared away?” Leo asked, not looking up from his spell cards.
“Divine service rendered,” Sarah announced, dropping into her chair with a satisfied sigh. She shot Emily a glittering look. “Silfrína’s been… anointed.”
Emily sank into her seat, the hard wooden chair pressing the jeweled base more firmly against her. She swallowed a gasp, disguising it as a cough. She pulled her character sheet closer, the numbers and stats blurring. Her entire awareness had contracted to the secret nestled within her, a hidden star of shame and arousal.
“Right,” Mark said, his voice dropping into its narrative timbre. “Where were we? Ah, yes. The inner sanctum. The air is thick with the dust of millennia and the scent of corrupted magic. Before you, on a throne of fused bone and shadow, sits Kal’thas, the Lich King. His empty eye sockets burn with cold, violet fire. ‘Flesh,’ he whispers, the word echoing from the stone walls. ‘You have brought me fresh flesh.’”
The game resumed. Jake rolled for initiative. Leo consulted his grimoire. But Emily was trapped in a feedback loop. Every slight lean forward, every shift in her chair, sent a jolt through her system. She felt hyper-visible, convinced the others could see the outline of the jewel through her jeans, could sense the distraction humming in her veins.
Her turn came.
“Silfrína,” Mark said, his eyes finding hers. “What do you do? The Lich King’s phylactery gleams on his chest, but his skeletal guardians are closing in.”
Emily’s mind was fog. Strategy evaporated. All that remained was a raw, impulsive desire to end this, to break the tension coiling in her stomach. To do something so reckless it would match the insanity vibrating inside her.
“I… I rush him,” she blurted out. “I duck under the guardian’s axe and I go straight for the phylactery. I try to rip it off.”
A beat of silence.
“Dude,” Jake said, leaning back. “That’s a suicide move.”
“Bold,” Leo mused, a grin spreading. “I like it.”
Mark simply stared at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. It was a different smile from his usual DM’s smirk. This was darker, more intimate, as if she’d just played right into a script he’d written for her alone. “Alright,” he said, his voice a low purr. “Roll an Acrobatics check to evade the guardian. Then a Strength check to grab the phylactery. Both at disadvantage because, well, you’re basically diving into a blender.”
Emily’s hands were trembling. She picked up her d20. The plastic felt alien. She rolled.
The dice clattered, spun, and settled.
A four.
“And with disadvantage…” Mark prompted.
She rolled the second die. A three.
A critical failure on the most important move of the night.
Mark didn’t even look at the dice. His eyes were locked on Emily. “Kal’thas sees your desperate lunge. He doesn’t even raise a hand. He merely exhales—a breath of ancient, entombing magic. A wave of viscous, golden energy erupts from his jaws. It washes over you, Silfrína.”
He paused, letting the moment hang. The room was utterly still.
“It doesn’t burn. It doesn’t freeze. It holds. You feel it solidify around your ankles, crawling up your calves, your thighs, sealing your arms to your sides. It’s warm and heavy, like being submerged in honey made of light. Within seconds, you are completely encased, up to your neck, in a prison of translucent, enchanted amber. You cannot move. You can barely breathe. Only your head remains free, staring out at your comrades, your eyes wide with terror.” Mark leaned forward, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers. “You are trapped. Utterly and completely.”
The description was a physical blow. Emily felt a wave of claustrophobia so intense it stole her breath. The enchanted amber in the story mirrored the unyielding fullness inside her, a perfect, horrible parallel. She was sealed in fantasy, and anchored in reality.
A small, helpless sound escaped her lips. A whimper, high and thin.
From beside her, Sarah leaned in. Her breath was warm against Emily’s ear, her voice a feather-light touch that carried the weight of the world. “Looks like you’re stuck twice,” she whispered.
The words liquefied Emily’s spine. A flush of pure heat exploded across her skin. She was glad for the table hiding her lap, for the dim light hiding the tremor in her hands. She was a statue within a statue, screaming inside, her nipples tight points against her bustier top. A fine sheen of perspiration stood out on her forehead.
“Can she do anything?” Jake asked, his fighter’s practicality slicing through the thick atmosphere.
“She can speak,” Mark said, his gaze still on Emily. “Small comforts. She can watch. She can feel.” He emphasized the last word just slightly. “The amber is magically conductive. She will feel every strike against it, every spell that washes over her prison, as a distant, echoing vibration through her entire body. She is, for all intents and purposes, a captive sensor.”
The game moved on, the party now scrambling to deal with a frozen rogue and an advancing lich. But for Emily, the narrative had split. She heard the rolls, the tactical debates, Leo’s frantic incantations. But it was all underwater sound, muffled and distant.
Her reality was the solid pressure inside her, and the fictional prison of warm amber holding her character fast. Each vibration Mark described—the thud of a missed axe blow against the amber, the sizzle of a lightning bolt—echoed not in her imagination, but in her core, syncing with her heartbeat. She was sweating, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge of the table.
Sarah’s leg pressed against hers under the table, a line of steady, knowing heat.
The battle raged for what felt like hours. Emily, as Silfrína, could only watch and report sensations in a strangled voice. “It… it feels like a drumbeat,” she whispered when the fighter slammed his shield into the amber. “A low… thunder.”
“Fascinating,” Mark murmured, making a note.
Finally, Leo’s wizard, in a desperate move, channeled a disruptive wave of pure arcane force. It failed to shatter the amber prison, but the full shock was transmitted to Silfrína. Failing another save with a groan, Emily his her face in her hands, her character knocked out cold even as her core throbbed with hidden heat.
“And… we’ll call it there for the night,” Mark said, closing his notebook with a definitive snap. “Good session, everyone. We’ll pick up with the lich wounded and pissed next week.”
The spell broke. Chairs scraped. Jake and Leo launched into a post-mortem of the battle, grabbing leftover chips. The ordinary world rushed back in, but it no longer fit Emily. She felt grotesquely different, marred by the evening’s secrets.
She stood, moving slowly, carefully.
“Walk you back?” Sarah asked, already shouldering her bag.
Emily nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
They left the murmurs of strategy behind, stepping out into the cool night air. The campus was quiet, pathways lit by soft orange lamps. Each step was a fresh negotiation with the object inside her.
“So,” Sarah said after a long silence, her tone conversational. “That was intense. You really went for it.”
“I couldn’t think,” Emily admitted, her voice raw.
“I know.” Sarah smiled. “That was the point. To see what you’d do when you stopped thinking. And you were beautiful.” She said it like a fact, like noting the weather.
They reached the fork in the path that led to their separate dorms. Emily stopped, unsure. The thought of going back to her empty room, of finally being alone with this thing, was terrifying.
“Do you want it back?” she asked softly, staring at the ground.
Sarah considered her. “Not yet,” she said. “I think you should keep it a while longer. Get used to the feeling. It’s part of you now. Until I say otherwise.” She reached out and tapped Emily’s nose, a gesture absurdly playful given the context. “Text me when you get in.”
She turned and walked away, her figure soon swallowed by the shadows between the campus lights.
Emily stood frozen on the path. The jewel inside her felt like a claim. A brand. She began the long, slow walk to her dorm, every sensation magnified by the night silence. The rub of denim. The gentle, internal pressure with each step. The terrifying freedom of being alone, yet profoundly occupied.
She was almost to her building’s door, fumbling for her keycard, when a voice called out from a bench nearby.
“Em?”
She froze. It was Cody.
He stood up, smiling, holding a small paper bag. “I texted you. Wanted to surprise you with those donuts you like from that all-night place.” His smile faltered as he got closer. “Hey, you okay? You look… flushed. Did the game run late?”
He was here. Solid, real, handsome in his jacket, smelling like cold air and sugar. The boy who had knelt before her, who had made her say the words. He had no idea what she carried inside her, what had just been done to her, what she had become.
The disparity was dizzying. She felt the jewel shift as she took a sharp breath.
“Yeah,” she managed, forcing a smile. “Game ran late. It was… a lot.”
“Cool,” he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. He kissed her temple. “Tell me all about it.”
As he guided her toward the door, his familiar touch a stark contrast to the secret nestled within her, Emily realized the true depth of her entrapment. The amber was gone. The game was over.
But the service, it seemed, had only just begun.