What Zoe really wanted, right then, was someone to be angry at, or at least someone she could be angry with. Zoe was a moody little ball of Goth at the best of times, and given the evident circumstances, where she would not just have to play through, but live through, a game in a genre known for its intense difficulty, dark atmosphere, and violent gameplay, she didn't think anyone would think her unjustified for being thoroughly pissed off with everything. When Zoe found Jon, she decided, she was going to chew him up and shit him out for all of this. His little friendzoned gf Karen, too, for sending her to find him. Maybe she'd get to talk with her best friend Athena before then; she'd understand. Really, Zoe just wanted to yell at someone.
Right now, though, there was nothing to yell at but empty cave.
After her moment of sulking, there would be nothing else to do but to forge ahead and start figuring out how to play the game. Eventually, she sighed, and did just that.
So. Observation number 1 was that the combat (well, "combat") in this full-body VR game was more... intimate than a typical Soulsborne. A LOT more intimate. The most "intimate" combat maneuver Zoe could think of in a mainstream soulsborne was Bloodborne's Visceral Attack, and maybe some specific enemy grab attacks if you counted those. In this game, though? Unarmed players in TSW didn't just have punches and grabs; they had tackles, shoves, grapples, pins, trips, sweeps, strangles, throws, bites, scratches, kicks, slams, clinches... there was even a function in the game to forcibly kiss an opponent, apparently necessary for flavor-accurate Succubus spellcasting.
Oh yeah, there was also magical spellcasting in this game, apparently. Zoe didn't have any spells available to her yet, but apparently they were out there for the finding, and she did have an MP bar, unused at the moment. She had the whole trifecta of typical RPG bars, plus one, in fact: An HP bar ("Physical Health"), an MP bar ("Mental Health"?), a Stamina Bar ("Stamina" of course), and a curious fourth bar labelled "Poise". This fourth bar, she'd eventually learn, was a returning mechanic most prominently from Sekiro; the poise bar, like the stamina bar, would replenish by itself, but it could also be depleted by successful attacks and blocks, and if it was depleted completely, the owner's stance would break, they'd stagger, and become susceptible to deathblows (or as it was called in TSW, to "dominations"). Metaphorically, in Sekiro it represented the amount of control a player or enemy had over their own body. In TSW, on the other hand, it literally represented the amount of control Zoe had over her own body.
While at full or nearly-full poise, as Zoe was now, her body was crisp, responsive; the extension of herself it always had been, just as she always needed it to be. At mid-to-low poise, though... Zoe was going to have to get used to that subtle feeling common between the dizzy and the tipsy, the concussed and the spasmed, where her body didn't quite act as she willed and sometimes had a mind of its own. And at 1 poise, or 0 poise? Barring only game inputs that were absolutely perfect, Zoe would just be a passenger in her own body, doomed to ride out whatever prerendered animation Immersion Arcade would force her into, until her poise bar finally decided to start building up again.
That might sound bad, but don't worry, it gets worse: there was also a mechanic in TSW, similar to Hollowing, that would reduce Zoe's maximum Poise with every death until reversed. Zoe had carelessly died twice already, not counting the intro, and for her recklessness, she was now sitting at only 90% of her full poise. Already she could feel the tug on her mannerisms and her actions... It was bad enough being in some unfamiliar new body she couldn't even look at, and frankly she didn't even wanna think about what exactly the "bimbofication" mechanic might be making her do.
Zoe did her best to put that out of mind, and instead focus on what she was actually wanting to do at the moment, that being to figure out the best way to vent her anger at her enemies. The tutorial, for example, was teaching her that most enemies had weak points, which could be hit for extra damage as usual; but novel to this game, as far as Zoe knew, was that apparently the type of extra damage she got would change depending on the weak point. Some did extra poise damage, others did extra physical damage, still others would cause certain detrimental status effects to build faster, and even still others could impact the enemy's mental health with the right attacks. Evidently, this game was going to make Zoe get really familiar with her enemies' bodies and switch up her target priorities depending on her build.
And yes; of course this fantasy RPG just had to have builds, customizable and weirdly intricate as was the mandate. She had been a little surprised when she hadn't been prompted with the usual character creator right out the gate, but even without being much of a Souls player beforehand, once she realized it was a soulslike she knew things were going to be handled a bit differently. If TSW was following tradition, then somewhere out there, there was a Shrine Maiden. Once Zoe had gotten out of the very-early tutorial areas and proven she sorta-kinda knew what she was doing, then the game would trust her enough to let her meet the Maiden and start leveling up, differentiating her build from the starting stat block. Honestly, that particular realization tickled Zoe a little. "What kind of sexpot is it gonna be in THIS lewd-ass game?" she wondered. Shrine Maidens were always eye candy, at least as she understood it. She was pretty sure Jon had a sort of crush on the heterochromiac redhead from Elden Ring, and from what she understood the Maiden in DS3 was basically 2B, Lord-Of-The-Rings edition; to say nothing of the fact that Bloodborne's Maiden was literally a living sex doll. Zoe fancied that the Shrine Maiden of Sodom was probably gonna be some crazy oversexed haremette or barely-dressed angelic beauty or R34-variant elf or something, and on some level, she realized she was actually excited at the idea of finding her.
But first, she wanted to get revenge on the Asylum Demon.
That wasn't actually its name; the healthbar had branded the tutorial boss the "Overgrown Baby" or something bizarre like that, but honestly, if you knew Souls games, you knew it was a different coat of paint on the Asylum Demon, or the Erdtree Avatar, or the Stray Demon or the Vanguard Demon or whatever name you knew it under best. "Asylum Demon" was just burned into Zoe's memory since one of her first turnoffs from soulsbornes was DSR's Asylum Demon repeatedly clubbing her into the ground like a fly with its swatter. She beat it eventually then, but it was honestly frustrating more than anything. That was then, but this was now, and now she was itching to go back and show her old nemesis who was boss.
Dispatching her little minions went by all too easily. As expected, they were mostly just there to train Zoe in the fundamentals of what "combat" meant in TSW and give her an early feel for her set; how much stamina various moves used and how to manage it, how long it took to wind up and execute them, how to actually initiate dominations once the enemy lost poise, how to attack different weakpoints and do different kinds of damage, how to dodge, how to escape grapples, how her moveset changed while grappled, etc. The only thing that really threw her for a loop was the revelation that it was apparently possible for regular enemies to have extra lives and second phases; rather than burn away and turn to salt completely, as the others had on death, one bigger enemy was apparently transformed by the flame, revealed to be a smaller, leaner thing once an outer layer of salt and smoke cleared, and apparently faster too. It caught Zoe unawares with the new health bar and got a lick in, but ultimately Zoe easily dominated her a second time. She was rewarded with the puny amount of lifesalts she was due, and that was that. She chugged a health potion (she didn't really need to, but wanted to confirm that "Medicinal Saltwater" was indeed TSW's version of Estus, and that she could use it properly), and then went up to the Tutorial Boss's arena for the third time. A player message let her know: "Poise weakness in Groin, Physical weakness on Head." She left it a like, then entered, and the door locked behind her as usual.
The Overgrown Baby was somewhat shorter than the Asylum Demon Zoe knew, but retained the overall form. With the cosmetic now being evidently succubish, it looked like what you'd get if you asked a Fat-Fetish Artist to draw their version of a female Gluttony Demon. An obscene jutting belly bulged out and hung over their jiggling fat upper thighs, all riddled with cellulite and stretch marks. It stood squat and very wide across, so much so it could only really waddle slowly to Zoe in some deformed imitation of a walk. It's arms weren't small, but on that thing's lower body they may as well have belonged to a T-Rex. Babyface McChubbyCheeks could hit hard and wide, Zoe knew, but all her attacks were slow and telegraphed, and if she did get hit Zoe could just step back and chug a medicinal brine.
In fact, now that Zoe 1) knew what she doing, 2) had read all the advice she needed, and 3) wasn't just hastily rushing in each chance she got, the fight was almost disappointingly easy. She'd dodge out of its big, clumsy attacks, slam as much damage as she could into the thing's vulva, and repeat until its poise broke. It fell to its sausage hands and obese knees with a thunderous PLAP, and Zoe took her chance to finish it with a domination. Behind it at the time, she shoved a hand up its vaginal canal in a prerendered move, grabbed something warm and squishy, and yanked out hard enough to tear. She ended up covered in the thing's fluids (apparently this restored MP to a succubus?), but it's health bar was depleted, and Zoe, thoroughly grossed out by what she'd involuntarily just done, thanked her lucky stars that was over.
Except, of course, the fight was not over. Apparently even the tutorial boss in this game had a phase two transformation.
A symbol disappeared that Zoe would eventually realized signified an enemy having an extra life, and the body caught fire. The outer layers of fat and salt burned away, and when the smoke cleared, the Overgrown Baby had transformed into the Oversized Lady. This veered hard away from the unsexy hag-witch design the enemies outside had going on and right back into the oversexed hentai creature modern Succubae were usually depicted as: a red skinned, youthful hourglass-shape with big burning-yellow eyes and graceful suggestions of horns. This particular specimen was still definitely a BBW, but only somewhat pudgy where before she was obese, and still bottom heavy, but pear-shaped where before she was muffin-shaped. She was shorter now, but still towered head and shoulders over Zoe. And also? She was PISSED.
Zoe was surprised enough by the phase two transformation that she didn't dodge or block or counter the Oversized's first attack when she probably should have, it being one of the slow, heavy grabs that ate a big chunk of her health and a HUGE chunk of her poise on a successful connect. Zoe found herself wrapped up in the big lady's big arms, those arms pressed her chest against her waist, her face between her boobs and against her sternum, Zoe was in a crushing bear hug, the breath was being squeezed out of her, and the next moment she was falling backwards. The entire weight of the Oversized's chest came crashing down on Zoe's head, she lost a little less than half her health in an instant, and well over half her poise. Zoe was flat on her back, and once Oversized pushed herself up she was straddled and mounted by the big lady, who to look at her didn't have any intention of letting Zoe up while her posture was unbroken. This was a bad spot; Zoe was going to have her face beaten in if she didn't do something, and in her low-poise state her body seemed hesitant to do anything anyway. Taking a risk, she wound up a heavy attack while Oversized wound up hers, and thankfully Zoe's landed first, smashing a fist in between her thighs and doing just enough poise damage to interrupt her enemy's attack and cause her to recoil just a bit, just enough for Zoe to push and scramble out from under her legs. Then it was up and onto her feet, then dodge rolling away. And then she was nearly out of stamina.
At low stamina and low poise, there wasn't an awful lot Zoe could do except watch as the Lady got back up and wound up another big swing at her, but this time she was ready, and countered successfully. This time, Oversized ended up off-balance and then thrown by Zoe for the attempt, and it was she who ended up prone and taking heavy poise damage. Zoe made no attempt to follow it up while her enemy was vulnerable and on the ground; she chose instead to backpedal away, wait for her stamina and poise to recover, and chug a medicinal brine. Her last brine, she realized.
By the time Oversized got to her feet, she was at full poise too, and nearly at full health. But she was still slow and easy to read; She swung, Zoe dodged, and she missed, then she swung again, Zoe dodged, and she missed. Then Zoe sensed an opening, and she tackled her. Zoe got low, drove her shoulder practically into the Lady's navel, and then it was Oversized who was flat on her back, and Zoe straddling atop her. No heavy attacks now; Zoe just swung as many light attacks as she could at Oversized's face as she could before she ran out of Stamina (stamina didn't regenerate in a Dominant grapple), hungry for physical damage while she could get it (she was still going for a Domination, but poise regenerated more slowly at low health, she'd learned). She assumed Oversized was just going to scramble out once there was an opening, but it turned out the boss had other ideas; Zoe was nearly out of stamina when she felt the Lady wrap her legs around her chest and twist, dealing a little poise damage but more importantly rolling Zoe on her back, so Oversized was on top again. This time, though, Zoe made no attempt to escape, just kept her hands up to block and deflect and eat a little poise damage while her stamina recovered. Then she slid herself down, between the Lady's legs, and bit her there. Chomped her HARD. That did plenty of both types of damage, and staggered her so much Zoe could scramble out and to her feet easily.
The fight was far from over, with Oversized at a bit over half health and a little under half poise, but Zoe had learned by now this was the sort of game where you were smart to keep the pressure on and keep enemy poise from regenerating, so she dove back into it as soon as she had her bearings. For that, the Lady smashed her in the face, attacking as soon as she got up. Just like that, Zoe's health and poise advantages were gone. Internally, she cursed, chided herself for getting too greedy, and returned her focus on the enemy. The Oversized Lady then charged at her horns first, in another of those long, slow wind up attacks, and Zoe got an easy counter. She stepped aside, grabbed her by the horns and bulldogged her, forcing her to the ground and dealing heavy poise damage. The Lady tried to get up, but Zoe was starting another grapple by then; Zoe had grabbed her serpentine, succubus tail, and used it to hold her steady while she slammed a knee into the Boss's weak point between her legs. The Lady was back on her knees and at Zoe's mercy, since with the next blow she was out of Poise. Zoe took the Domination, grabbed her by the horns, and twisted hard until she heard a snap from the Lady's neck. Time seemed to stop until the horns in Zoe's hands had turned to ashsalts.
- Victory Achieved -
The usual big popup announcing that she had won the bossfight faded, and Zoe was rewarded in her inventory somewhere with a Voodoo Doll, a Small Lifesalt Rock, and of course lots of the boss's Lifesalts. Then her poise meter refilled, and once her hands were back under her full control they were shaking hard.
"I just did that. Holy fuck I just did that. I wasn't fully in control of my body but I did that. Holy shit." Zoe's internal monologue was freaking out.
Eventually, Zoe just left the arena. It was only a couple-yard drop down to the starting Bed, where she planned to Rest. But first, after a bit of fiddling with her inventory via the Master Control she found the Voodoo Doll.
Voodoo Doll
Rare Item that contains the Identity of a person. Use to gain 1 Self and restore a large amount of HP and FP.
Someone lost their Self once. That you have this doll is proof of it. Try not to repeat their mistakes.
Zoe used the Doll, destroying it in the process and gaining 1 Self as promised. Then she climbed in the Bed to Rest, where, naturally, the Master Controller afforded her some options.
Spend 1 Self and reverse Bimbofication?
Zoe did it without hesitation. Her Max Poise went from 90% to 100% and she had absolute control of herself again. Somehow she didn't feel much less scared.
