Once John had filled the hole in his stomach, he put all his recent gains on the table. All of them except for Ashkandi, which he immediately handed to Aclysia to put into her Adaptive Bladery.
“Which weapon shall I replace, Master?” The maid held the sword effortlessly in one hand, giving it a few test swings. John sighed, he would have loved to handle a weapon that had the same name as one of his favourite WoW swords, even if it looked nothing like it. In his hands however, it would be a waste. “Get the Sword of Glory out and you might as well eat it afterwards,” he instructed. Aclysia would have done just that if John wouldn’t have pulled out the splinter of Nathalia’s crystal at that moment, causing her to freeze.
“Aclysia, we went over this before, it is just an item.” John would have placed a hand on her head but she was standing at his side. Therefore, he took the next best thing and placed his hand on her butt. Aclysia slowly nodded before doing as instructed, soon sinking her teeth into the Sword of Glory. Seeing one of his earliest drops become Aclysia’s food made him feel nostalgic in the negative sense, like he was seeing history getting destroyed. These were not the times to get attached to anything though.
‘So, let’s see,’ he thought as he read the Attribute descriptions on the Splinter of Destruction. ‘Molten Core gives the ability to generate lava inside her body. Well, without any magic to control that this seems pretty useless. Volcanic Might gives +400 Strength while in the vicinity of a volcano…well this would be awesome whenever active, but way too fringe a case to take away one of Aclysia’s current attributes and Dreadful Presence is pretty much just an aura that prevents lowbieslowies from attacking. No reason to take that either.’ John sighed, overall this wasn’t particularly good for Aclysia, but she would likely catch up to his level with this, plus Elemental Resistance 7 was still an upgrade, plus whatever bonuses it would give her.
Aclysia had finished eating the sword by now and was awaiting her next order. With trembling hand, she took the Splinter, once offered, and threw it into her mouth with great haste. Like a child with ill-tasting medicine, she hastened to gulp it down.
Yeah, well, that was a clear upgrade. Problem being that it would increase Aclysia’s Libido even more. ‘Wait, how is that a problem?’ John asked himself. He deleted the old Dragonscale Bonus and then checked Aclysia’s screen. She did indeed level all the way to his level and then max out. ‘Dragon parts for the win,’ he thought and spent the 30 points Aclysia had just gotten.
“Master,” Aclysia shifted at his side, a motion he very clearly felt thanks to his hand which was still on her arse. “Did you raise my Libido?”
“The item did that,” John informed her. “Sorry, the bonuses were just too good to pass up on.”
She bit her lip before muttering one of the many phrases a combination of internet research and hanging out with Rave must have taught her, “Please take responsibility.”
John felt the confinement of his pants tighten as his member hardened. He looked up to Aclysia and the two shared a short moment of intimate eye contact before Salamander flew in between them. “Now wait just a fucking moment, I called dibs,” she announced.
“I don’t think I am something that you can call dibs on,” John informed her.
“No, wait!” Gnome finally got out of her hair cocoon and stumbled her way into this conversation. She was about to say something when she blushed and stopped herself, “I mean, I, uhh,” she pushed her index fingers against each other while looking to the side, “I, kinda wanna…”
“What do you want, Gnome?” Salamander asked, a mean streak entering her voice. “To do the dishes?”
“No, uhm.”
“How about scrubbing the floors? Somebody has to do the chores while Aclysia is occupied, you know? Come on, you blushing coward, tell us what you want? Take a long stroll down the fucking beach?”
“NO! I want to have sex!” Gnome suddenly exclaimed, stomped once in a way that made the house shake and then stood there with closed eyes in a stubborn pose. Several moments passed, then the expected blush rose in her face. “I mean, uhm, only if you, you know, that is fine with you,” she stammered, her eyes twirling in embarrassment.
“Sure,” was all John could get out before Gnome passed out and crashed to the ground.
“She is harming the floors,” Aclysia said in a slightly annoyed tone. John could only chuckle at that. He was way more appreciative of the embarrassed rock than he was worried about the floorboards of their temporary home.
Hanging in the air like a wet, empty sack, Sylph hovered over. Her voice was a dead whisper in the wind, bordering on horror movie audio. “Must be niiiiice, to be big and have a vagina that actually works, must be reaaaallllyyyyy nigrgrgrgrl…” Sylph’s aimless flight saw her colliding with Undine’s shoulder. Rather than move out of the way, or do anything really, Undine just remained there. Air bubbles rose inside her, while the air spirit slowly passed through the slime girl’s body.
A sight that succeeded in moving John’s blood back upstairs. “Okay, before we do each other, let’s get everything else in order,” John said. “First I need to spend my new Stat Points.” That endeavour was quickly taken care of though, he only had 10 points and the goal of 100 Endurance was still in effect. Next, he looked at the remaining three items on the table. He put on the two rings, which together boosted his HP/Reg by 30%. A negligible effect, considering his build. What bonuses the Necklace got, that was the true question.
Yeah, that was good, to say the least. He quickly threw the damn thing on and felt his power surge. “Wow, unreal, my gosh,” he said, staring at his hands, followed up by shouts of mindless indulgence, “This is amazing! I feel incridibleee!” He jumped up, the chair falling to the floor, prompting another sound from Aclysia, who was concerned about the floor. YES, YES, YES, YES! I CAN WIN! I FEEL GREAT! I – CAN – DO – THIS! UARGH”
“What are you doing?” Salamander asked. He froze in answer.
“Uhm, just, dunno, felt like the right thing to do,” John answered and awkwardly scratched his head. “I saw it in one of the parodies Jane likes so much. Felt like it would get the mood up.”
“Master,” Aclysia lamented and looked at the chair he had toppled over, “there is a nail sticking out.”
Interestingly enough, he had more health than Aclysia, even if he subtracted the 150 HP he got from the necklace. Well, with her regeneration her overall HP scaling being worse made a degree of sense. Anyhow he placed all of the stuff back in his inventory, he didn’t need it right now.
All around, although he had lost a week, he did not feel too bothered by it. What he had gained in return, through Nathalia’s boons, more than made up for what grinding could have achieved. Frustration with the situation was, therefore, easy to let go of.
“Now, there is only one more thing to do!” he announced and went upstairs. Everyone, save Undine, who kept sipping her water, and Sylph, still slowly travelling through her, followed him. The trio of girls made disappointed noises when, instead of the bed, John headed to the computer.
“The fuck man?” Salamander wanted to know. She had already changed into her bigger form. Arms folded under naked tits, she pushed their squishy size up, drawing the lustful gaze of the other two women in the room. Everyone liked large chests, to some degree. “Don’t you wanna play with these two, huh, huuuuh?!” Salamander proceeded to wrap her arms around Aclysia and Gnome, one of whom was confused but interested, the other blushing until her face was the same colour as the bosom she was squished into.
“Just, give me a minute!” John pleaded, struggling to keep his blood where he needed it right now. Luckily his Wisdom was still a lot higher than his Libido, otherwise this whole ‘self-control’ thing would have been even harder. “I need to buy Skillbooks,” he explained, “my arsenal right now is just Mana Ray, which was okay because you guys used up most of my mana but now that you are more independent I can free more of that up for attacks of my own.”
“What do you have in mind?” Aclysia asked. She could wait. Not for long, but she could wait.
“Well, I want a close quarter and mid-range skill, the latter probably being AoE focused. Get a nice balance of options. I’ll keep focusing on you girls as my main combat path, but I want the fallbacks.” John scrolled through the list of books that popped up after typing ‘Mana based attacks’.
The prices for most of those went far above his possibilities. With the four million he had he couldn’t even buy one. He sorted by price range to get a clearer picture. There was a book for 1$ but that was most likely a hoax, the black cover with demonic runes also didn’t look particularly trustworthy. “Master, I believe you have messages,” Aclysia pointed out.
John’s eyes darted to the top right of the screen. A red bubble with a white 3 inside did indeed inform him of a number of messages sent to him. Interested, he gave it a click.
“HELLO! Hello!”
John almost fell off his chair as the voice boomed from the speakers. ‘Who allows videos to autoplay via a message feature?!’ he thought. Levity was drained from his thoughts when he realized what was on the screen.
The teeth of the four-horned skull creaked, as they contorted into a grin. “You might know me from my work in Paris, or not, more likely not,” The Horned Rat said and leaned back on his throne. Absent-mindedly, he was playing with a pair of wooden, featureless puppets as he talked. “After looking through your data available on the Abyss Auction and then combining it with the information I got from Gaia for ‘helping’ you, I could not help but notice you are lacking in Skills. Out of the goodness of my heart, and to further my own ambitions, I therefore present you with this.”
Off the screen a Skaven walked next to the Horned Rat. He was unlike any John had seen yet, well-nourished and handling equipment that looked like it would actually be of use in a fight, not break at any moment. His fur was well kept and had a lustre to it, just like the armour he wore. The Skaven handed the Horned Rat a book.
“This, I wrote myself, just for you,” the god of knowledge said and waved with the thing, it was black and covered with red, demonic runes. Wait, hadn’t he seen that just now? “For the low price of 1 dollar, you can get it, do it before somebody else finds out that this isn’t actually cursed.”
John chewed the inside of his cheek for a bit. Could he pass up on potential power? Not really. He went back to the display and looked at the description. ‘Something something Arcane something something’, it said. No wonder nobody had bought it yet.
It arrived by drone and John carefully took the book out and examined it.
Those were some tall orders for a single Skill. He clicked yes and viewed his newest acquisition.
That looked nice. He didn’t want to test it indoors, so that would need to wait until tomorrow. ‘So, that takes care of melee attacks,’ he thought and looked at the other two messages. These were text only, thankfully. One was from Nathalia and read ‘LET ME IN, JOHN NEWMAN!’ It made John chuckle a bit, to imagine Nathalia screaming at her phone, or whatever else she had used to drop that message. His amusement faded immediately at the last message.
From: Rave
Two days ago: T stands for terror, H is for Horror, A is for Anarchy, N is for not so nice and another A for the absolute boredom I feel right now. Discovered this site and thought I might as well drop in to tell you that sending the Soviets after me was a dick move. They are dead now though. See you on Friday.
One day ago: Was that too edgy? Do I give a fuck? No, no, of course I don’t you cockroaches, NOW STOP SCREAMING AT ME! WHO THE FUCK IS VICTORIA AND WHO THE SHITTERLING IS ELIZA?!
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Hey, do I deserve this? Did I not pray enough?
I’m sorry for spamming. It just… keeps squeezing my brain…
Where are you?
Today: Fuck you.
Do you have any fucking idea what this is like? Fuck, I can feel them grinding against my bones. It's like nails on the chalkboard, but all over, all the time. Fuck. Fuck, why me? Fuck, why you? Send me more of these commie cunts, they’re at least terrible people. I just want to feel SOMETHING. PLEASE.
I can’t sleep, I’ll stop. I can’t be awake, they won’t stop talking. Can you sleep? Am I keeping you awake? Do we have something in common?
Hey, answer please.
I keep healing her. I won’t let her die again. I’m sorry I did that. I’m so, so story.
*Sorry, haha, silly typo. There’s blood all over the screen, in my defence.
Kill me and make these voices stop, John, come on, I can’t wait. Get your cowardly ass over here. Friday, Thursday, I don’t care, just do it. Do it. Do it, no balls.
You’re online! Fuck, yes, murder me, murder me, right now, come on, you can grow that fast right?!
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Rave is typing…
John closed the tab with a hard click. It seemed the world would not let him forget the situation he was in. “Let’s search for an AoE skill,” he mumbled to himself and scrolled through the list once again. Eventually he found something called Arcane Explosion for three million, which was the best he could afford.
‘Good, pretty high on the mana cost and the throwing part is going to be annoying, but good.’ John made note of the specific mention that the Skill dealt damage to enemies. Either this meant friendly fire was off for this one, or it was shoddily worded.
John rose from the chair and moved to the bed. The three girls followed. None of them touched him or even moved in any suggestive way. They just laid down with him and cuddled up to him, the warmth of their curves letting John breathe a little easier. The turmoil in his heart was difficult to work out, in a way it was impossible. Still, he eventually managed to close his eyes.
And Tuesday came to a sober end.
Once John had filled the hole in his stomach, he put all his recent gains on the table. All of them except for Ashkandi, which he immediately handed to Aclysia to put into her Adaptive Bladery.
“Which weapon shall I replace, Master?” The maid held the sword effortlessly in one hand, giving it a few test swings. John sighed, he would have loved to handle a weapon that had the same name as one of his favourite WoW swords, even if it looked nothing like it. In his hands however, it would be a waste. “Get the Sword of Glory out and you might as well eat it afterwards,” he instructed. Aclysia would have done just that if John wouldn’t have pulled out the splinter of Nathalia’s crystal at that moment, causing her to freeze.
“Aclysia, we went over this before, it is just an item.” John would have placed a hand on her head but she was standing at his side. Therefore, he took the next best thing and placed his hand on her butt. Aclysia slowly nodded before doing as instructed, soon sinking her teeth into the Sword of Glory. Seeing one of his earliest drops become Aclysia’s food made him feel nostalgic in the negative sense, like he was seeing history getting destroyed. These were not the times to get attached to anything though.
‘So, let’s see,’ he thought as he read the Attribute descriptions on the Splinter of Destruction. ‘Molten Core gives the ability to generate lava inside her body. Well, without any magic to control that this seems pretty useless. Volcanic Might gives +400 Strength while in the vicinity of a volcano…well this would be awesome whenever active, but way too fringe a case to take away one of Aclysia’s current attributes and Dreadful Presence is pretty much just an aura that prevents lowbieslowies from attacking. No reason to take that either.’ John sighed, overall this wasn’t particularly good for Aclysia, but she would likely catch up to his level with this, plus Elemental Resistance 7 was still an upgrade, plus whatever bonuses it would give her.
Aclysia had finished eating the sword by now and was awaiting her next order. With trembling hand, she took the Splinter, once offered, and threw it into her mouth with great haste. Like a child with ill-tasting medicine, she hastened to gulp it down.
Yeah, well, that was a clear upgrade. Problem being that it would increase Aclysia’s Libido even more. ‘Wait, how is that a problem?’ John asked himself. He deleted the old Dragonscale Bonus and then checked Aclysia’s screen. She did indeed level all the way to his level and then max out. ‘Dragon parts for the win,’ he thought and spent the 30 points Aclysia had just gotten.
“Master,” Aclysia shifted at his side, a motion he very clearly felt thanks to his hand which was still on her arse. “Did you raise my Libido?”
“The item did that,” John informed her. “Sorry, the bonuses were just too good to pass up on.”
She bit her lip before muttering one of the many phrases a combination of internet research and hanging out with Rave must have taught her, “Please take responsibility.”
John felt the confinement of his pants tighten as his member hardened. He looked up to Aclysia and the two shared a short moment of intimate eye contact before Salamander flew in between them. “Now wait just a fucking moment, I called dibs,” she announced.
“I don’t think I am something that you can call dibs on,” John informed her.
“No, wait!” Gnome finally got out of her hair cocoon and stumbled her way into this conversation. She was about to say something when she blushed and stopped herself, “I mean, I, uhh,” she pushed her index fingers against each other while looking to the side, “I, kinda wanna…”
“What do you want, Gnome?” Salamander asked, a mean streak entering her voice. “To do the dishes?”
“No, uhm.”
“How about scrubbing the floors? Somebody has to do the chores while Aclysia is occupied, you know? Come on, you blushing coward, tell us what you want? Take a long stroll down the fucking beach?”
“NO! I want to have sex!” Gnome suddenly exclaimed, stomped once in a way that made the house shake and then stood there with closed eyes in a stubborn pose. Several moments passed, then the expected blush rose in her face. “I mean, uhm, only if you, you know, that is fine with you,” she stammered, her eyes twirling in embarrassment.
“Sure,” was all John could get out before Gnome passed out and crashed to the ground.
“She is harming the floors,” Aclysia said in a slightly annoyed tone. John could only chuckle at that. He was way more appreciative of the embarrassed rock than he was worried about the floorboards of their temporary home.
Hanging in the air like a wet, empty sack, Sylph hovered over. Her voice was a dead whisper in the wind, bordering on horror movie audio. “Must be niiiiice, to be big and have a vagina that actually works, must be reaaaallllyyyyy nigrgrgrgrl…” Sylph’s aimless flight saw her colliding with Undine’s shoulder. Rather than move out of the way, or do anything really, Undine just remained there. Air bubbles rose inside her, while the air spirit slowly passed through the slime girl’s body.
A sight that succeeded in moving John’s blood back upstairs. “Okay, before we do each other, let’s get everything else in order,” John said. “First I need to spend my new Stat Points.” That endeavour was quickly taken care of though, he only had 10 points and the goal of 100 Endurance was still in effect. Next, he looked at the remaining three items on the table. He put on the two rings, which together boosted his HP/Reg by 30%. A negligible effect, considering his build. What bonuses the Necklace got, that was the true question.
Yeah, that was good, to say the least. He quickly threw the damn thing on and felt his power surge. “Wow, unreal, my gosh,” he said, staring at his hands, followed up by shouts of mindless indulgence, “This is amazing! I feel incridibleee!” He jumped up, the chair falling to the floor, prompting another sound from Aclysia, who was concerned about the floor. YES, YES, YES, YES! I CAN WIN! I FEEL GREAT! I – CAN – DO – THIS! UARGH”
“What are you doing?” Salamander asked. He froze in answer.
“Uhm, just, dunno, felt like the right thing to do,” John answered and awkwardly scratched his head. “I saw it in one of the parodies Jane likes so much. Felt like it would get the mood up.”
“Master,” Aclysia lamented and looked at the chair he had toppled over, “there is a nail sticking out.”
Interestingly enough, he had more health than Aclysia, even if he subtracted the 150 HP he got from the necklace. Well, with her regeneration her overall HP scaling being worse made a degree of sense. Anyhow he placed all of the stuff back in his inventory, he didn’t need it right now.
All around, although he had lost a week, he did not feel too bothered by it. What he had gained in return, through Nathalia’s boons, more than made up for what grinding could have achieved. Frustration with the situation was, therefore, easy to let go of.
“Now, there is only one more thing to do!” he announced and went upstairs. Everyone, save Undine, who kept sipping her water, and Sylph, still slowly travelling through her, followed him. The trio of girls made disappointed noises when, instead of the bed, John headed to the computer.
“The fuck man?” Salamander wanted to know. She had already changed into her bigger form. Arms folded under naked tits, she pushed their squishy size up, drawing the lustful gaze of the other two women in the room. Everyone liked large chests, to some degree. “Don’t you wanna play with these two, huh, huuuuh?!” Salamander proceeded to wrap her arms around Aclysia and Gnome, one of whom was confused but interested, the other blushing until her face was the same colour as the bosom she was squished into.
“Just, give me a minute!” John pleaded, struggling to keep his blood where he needed it right now. Luckily his Wisdom was still a lot higher than his Libido, otherwise this whole ‘self-control’ thing would have been even harder. “I need to buy Skillbooks,” he explained, “my arsenal right now is just Mana Ray, which was okay because you guys used up most of my mana but now that you are more independent I can free more of that up for attacks of my own.”
“What do you have in mind?” Aclysia asked. She could wait. Not for long, but she could wait.
“Well, I want a close quarter and mid-range skill, the latter probably being AoE focused. Get a nice balance of options. I’ll keep focusing on you girls as my main combat path, but I want the fallbacks.” John scrolled through the list of books that popped up after typing ‘Mana based attacks’.
The prices for most of those went far above his possibilities. With the four million he had he couldn’t even buy one. He sorted by price range to get a clearer picture. There was a book for 1$ but that was most likely a hoax, the black cover with demonic runes also didn’t look particularly trustworthy. “Master, I believe you have messages,” Aclysia pointed out.
John’s eyes darted to the top right of the screen. A red bubble with a white 3 inside did indeed inform him of a number of messages sent to him. Interested, he gave it a click.
“HELLO! Hello!”
John almost fell off his chair as the voice boomed from the speakers. ‘Who allows videos to autoplay via a message feature?!’ he thought. Levity was drained from his thoughts when he realized what was on the screen.
The teeth of the four-horned skull creaked, as they contorted into a grin. “You might know me from my work in Paris, or not, more likely not,” The Horned Rat said and leaned back on his throne. Absent-mindedly, he was playing with a pair of wooden, featureless puppets as he talked. “After looking through your data available on the Abyss Auction and then combining it with the information I got from Gaia for ‘helping’ you, I could not help but notice you are lacking in Skills. Out of the goodness of my heart, and to further my own ambitions, I therefore present you with this.”
Off the screen a Skaven walked next to the Horned Rat. He was unlike any John had seen yet, well-nourished and handling equipment that looked like it would actually be of use in a fight, not break at any moment. His fur was well kept and had a lustre to it, just like the armour he wore. The Skaven handed the Horned Rat a book.
“This, I wrote myself, just for you,” the god of knowledge said and waved with the thing, it was black and covered with red, demonic runes. Wait, hadn’t he seen that just now? “For the low price of 1 dollar, you can get it, do it before somebody else finds out that this isn’t actually cursed.”
John chewed the inside of his cheek for a bit. Could he pass up on potential power? Not really. He went back to the display and looked at the description. ‘Something something Arcane something something’, it said. No wonder nobody had bought it yet.
It arrived by drone and John carefully took the book out and examined it.
Those were some tall orders for a single Skill. He clicked yes and viewed his newest acquisition.
That looked nice. He didn’t want to test it indoors, so that would need to wait until tomorrow. ‘So, that takes care of melee attacks,’ he thought and looked at the other two messages. These were text only, thankfully. One was from Nathalia and read ‘LET ME IN, JOHN NEWMAN!’ It made John chuckle a bit, to imagine Nathalia screaming at her phone, or whatever else she had used to drop that message. His amusement faded immediately at the last message.
From: Rave
Two days ago: T stands for terror, H is for Horror, A is for Anarchy, N is for not so nice and another A for the absolute boredom I feel right now. Discovered this site and thought I might as well drop in to tell you that sending the Soviets after me was a dick move. They are dead now though. See you on Friday.
One day ago: Was that too edgy? Do I give a fuck? No, no, of course I don’t you cockroaches, NOW STOP SCREAMING AT ME! WHO THE FUCK IS VICTORIA AND WHO THE SHITTERLING IS ELIZA?!
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Hey, do I deserve this? Did I not pray enough?
I’m sorry for spamming. It just… keeps squeezing my brain…
Where are you?
Today: Fuck you.
Do you have any fucking idea what this is like? Fuck, I can feel them grinding against my bones. It's like nails on the chalkboard, but all over, all the time. Fuck. Fuck, why me? Fuck, why you? Send me more of these commie cunts, they’re at least terrible people. I just want to feel SOMETHING. PLEASE.
I can’t sleep, I’ll stop. I can’t be awake, they won’t stop talking. Can you sleep? Am I keeping you awake? Do we have something in common?
Hey, answer please.
I keep healing her. I won’t let her die again. I’m sorry I did that. I’m so, so story.
*Sorry, haha, silly typo. There’s blood all over the screen, in my defence.
Kill me and make these voices stop, John, come on, I can’t wait. Get your cowardly ass over here. Friday, Thursday, I don’t care, just do it. Do it. Do it, no balls.
You’re online! Fuck, yes, murder me, murder me, right now, come on, you can grow that fast right?!
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Rave is typing…
John closed the tab with a hard click. It seemed the world would not let him forget the situation he was in. “Let’s search for an AoE skill,” he mumbled to himself and scrolled through the list once again. Eventually he found something called Arcane Explosion for three million, which was the best he could afford.
‘Good, pretty high on the mana cost and the throwing part is going to be annoying, but good.’ John made note of the specific mention that the Skill dealt damage to enemies. Either this meant friendly fire was off for this one, or it was shoddily worded.
John rose from the chair and moved to the bed. The three girls followed. None of them touched him or even moved in any suggestive way. They just laid down with him and cuddled up to him, the warmth of their curves letting John breathe a little easier. The turmoil in his heart was difficult to work out, in a way it was impossible. Still, he eventually managed to close his eyes.
And Tuesday came to a sober end.
