Considering how many bounty heads like to stick to civilization, scanning for power signatures isn't typically that useful unless they've decided to head out into the country... or a stone-age paradise like this one. Of course knowing that, the smart thing for Comet to do would be to shut off all of his active equipment and set his blasters to 'power as needed' instead of 'ready charge'. But then, he's obviously gotten old and sloppy enough to do something stupid enough to get the Guild to turn on him, add in that if he's arrogant enough to think no one else would have tracked him down. With that in mind, you draw out your scanner and configure it for standard power signatures, having it do a sweep of the nearby area.\n\nYou soon get back a pair of pings... two little groups of signatures that would correspond to light defense suits and weapons of the sort a lot of Guild mercenaries favor. That there's more than one isn't too surprising... when you read Comet's bio, it said he had an entire crew, almost entirely made up of other 'beast-type' races like himself. You were semi-hoping that Comet might be alone since he's the only one there's a bounty on, but from what you read it's not surprising the crew would still be loyal to him, with at least one of them loyal enough to actively assist him in his hiding. Keeping the MK-99 lightly at the ready, you carefully set off in the direction of the signatures, approaching from an angle that you hope will bring you up behind and from the side, to judge from the way they're moving.\n\nThis necessitates moving through the jungle, and soon you're beneath the canopy of the flowery jungle trees, grateful for the shade from the sun even if not exactly grateful for ducking around all the vines. (And being careful to watch for any that look like they're moving on their own. You may be a space baby but you're familiar enough with planets like this to know the fauna often like to masquerade as flora... and the flora can be mobile and dangerous on its own, at times). Every so often your steps send little bipedal lizards scattering, their little toothy maws almost blurring as they chitter at you admonishingly in a string of nonsentient invective that sounds like an undecoded comm stream.\n\nYou check the readout holo on your wrist as you get closer to where you expected your path to intersect the signatures... indeed, they're just up ahead, and you can even faintly hear voices pitched low in serious conversation. Aha! They should be just ahead past a fairly thickly-grown line of trees. You can cover your approach by...\n\n<hr>\n[[... going between two of them.|LeoNova1x2]]\n\n[[... using that big flower for cover.|LeoNova]]

"You know, I think you might be right," you answer, grinning as you mosey on towards the door. Fuck it, you're only young once, and besides thinking Amanielle is both beautiful physically and attractive personality-wise, you're kind of dying to find out whether she's the sweet and innocent flower her sometimes shy and blushing demeanor says she is, or the lusty vixen the look in her eyes you see sometimes says she is.\n\nJudging from her attire as she lets you in the door, maybe a little bit of both. Up top is a sheer green babydoll nightie, hugging her breasts and draping down her sides and parted in front of her belly... and not doing much to hide the matching green garter belt and netting stockings she's wearing. Just those, no panties, her smooth crotch and the trim lips of her pussy both fully on display. 'I see this is one of those low-tech worlds where their lingerie technology is remarkably advanced,' you think in an amused tone, even as Amanielle steps in close, your thoughts drifting away from smug observations on the developmental process of other cultures and focusing entirely on her as those sweet lips press to yours.\n\nHer manner isn't particularly shy but not overly bold, either, as she slips your coat off, her body gently arching and pressing in closer to yours as you run your hands gently down her back and over the soft silk of her babydoll. Her hands in kind roam over your arms, squeezing at the slender tone of them, kneading the muscle there even as you slide your hands lower and give her round ass a squeeze, making her moan softly into your mouth. You shift your arms as she unzips your top and tugs it off of you as well, then lift your hands to cup her breasts, squeezing them through the silk as she kisses along the top of your chest. 'Ah... turns out she's just a sweetheart, not some wild lust monster,' you think with an internal chuckle, lowering your own head to kiss at the side of her neck, nuzzling and inhaling the scent of her hair and skin, like warm vanilla and wildflowers.\n\nThat's what you think, anyway, until you kiss upward and wind up kissing just below the little 'notch' between her earlobe and the base of her ear, and she gasps loudly, a noticeable shiver running through her body and her nipples actually seeming to get stiffer under your palms. You pause for a second, then kiss directly on her ear, hearing another, louder gasp and feeling her body arch against you much more instinctively. "Ah, L-Leo, that's-" she whimpers, but can't seem to bring herself to say something like 'too much' or 'don't'. ... Well. That's a fun reaction! ♥ Grinning, you bring one hand up to her other ear, starting to gently stroke your fingertips back and forth along the back of it, while tucking your other hand between her legs, finding her practically dripping and radiating enough heat to warm your fingers in the slightly cool room. Your mouth continues its work on her earlobe, kissing and licking as she writhes and mewls against you, her hands dragging across your chest, occasionally dropping down to weakly tug at your pants or fondle you, but barely seeming able to focus enough for either from the apparent pleasure from stimulating her ears.\n\nIt's when you give one a little nip after flicking your tongue along the inside that she actually gives a soft cry, then rasps out, "Fuck me."\n\n"Mmm?" My my, you knew you'd gotten her worked up, but somehow you still hadn't quite expected that language. But when you lift your head, her hands move up to grip your hair and tug you to look into her pretty green eyes, which are now slightly glazed, shiny glass over an emerald fire of lust.\n\n"I need you to fuck me, right now, I need you to put me on all fours on the bed and fuck me like some cheap whore with your big fat human cock, rip this nightie off of me like you were going to rape me, I want you to fuck me like you're trying to drive the soul out of my body," she whispers urgently, as if the part of her brain that kept her from just blurting out whatever she was thinking had completely shut down.\n\n"... 'Kay," you reply with a grin. This really is the best fucking day ever.\n\nTrue to your word, less than two minutes later the two of you are on the bed, you no longer wearing anything and Amanielle only wearing her garter belt and stockings, the babydoll lying in shreds on the floor nearby. The elf princess's skin is covered in sweat as she moans shamelessly and fucks back against your thrusts, her breasts jiggling under her as she energetically works herself with your own motions. "Yes, yes, fuck me, fuck, I feel like an animal in heat," she gasps, letting out a low mewl of delight as you lean forward and cup her breasts for a firm squeeze, then squealing loudly as you flick your tongue over the back of one of her ears. Oh shit her pussy actually squeezes around you when you do that! Fucking an elf princess is so much better than you ever even expected it to be, you think as you nip and lick at her ears, Amanielle's litany of dirty talk devolving into incoherent, almost bestial moaning and other lewd throat-noises, her eyes rolling up and tongue lolling out as she cums repeatedly around you, a brainless smile curling her pretty, perfect lips not long before you thrust forward and start spilling inside her.\n\nThe both of you writhe together in your position, not unlike tied dogs mating in the street despite your much more elegant surroundings, Amanielle moaning and mewling and almost whimpering while you huff and pant for breath. Gradually both of you start breathing a bit steadier, and you straighten up before slipping out of her, your still-hard cock jutting in front of you, dripping with a mixture of your cum and hers. Amanielle glances over her shoulder, then turns and flops as elegantly as it is possible to execute such an action onto her back, glistening breasts shaking before they settle. She smiles up at you, seeming a bit calmer now that you're not in the midst of pressing her 'dirty slut' button. "Mm. That was certainly... a way to start," she says with an almost rueful giggle. "I'd heard other girls say that human men... and women... could be rather shameless about going for the ears. I suppose it's true, hm?"\n\n"That's me, I guess, shameless," you reply with a grin, lowering your head and kissing her smooth, slick belly, listening to her 'mmm' softly as you start kissing further downward, along the edge of her navel, the flat expanse quivering just a little as you get lower, and lower-\n\n<i>Click</i>.\n\nWith an immediacy born of this not being the first time you've been in a bed you really shouldn't be in, you shove hard with your hands and roll yourself away from the sound of the door opening, toppling over the side of the bed and cushioning your fall as you hit the floor, mostly to kill the sound. Even as you're dropping you can see Amanielle kicking the bunched-up comforter off the bed to drop down onto your clothing and her nightie as she yanks the sheet over herself... yeah, probably not her first time for this either.\n\n"Amanielle?" you hear the king's voice say, as well as footsteps drawing closer. "Is everything alright? I noticed that Leo isn't outside on guard."\n\n"Ah, yes, a little bit ago he knocked and said that he thought he heard something somewhere else, so he was going to do a patrol of the hallways," the princess replies. Despite her obviously breathless and still a little pleasure-shuddery tone, she sounds pretty convincing... way to go, you think, even as you turn your thoughts to what to do now. "It didn't sound like he thought it was anything serious, so he should be back soon."\n\nIf Jhad doesn't buy it, it would be the most simple thing in the world to walk around the bed and spot you there, or even look underneath it. You need to consider your exit options, you think, shifting into analytical mode as you look around. You actually notice that there's a squarish opening in the wall almost directly in front of you, a bit bigger than would be necessary for you to crawl through, and it looks like it goes in fairly deep. Some sort of escape tunnel? Well you could sure use one now... except that you have absolutely no idea where it goes, and it seems awfully dark in there... you doubt you'd be able to turn around once you crawled in, either. Much riskier and more daring would be to crawl under the bed, hope Jhad <i>does</i> walk around the room, and then make a belly-dash for the bathroom, the door's a bit open, you doubt he'll actually check in there. Or you suppose the other option is to just 'shelter in place' and hope he doesn't come around and check on you. \n\n<hr>\n[[Use the tunnel.|LeoAma1x5]]\n\n[[Make for the bathroom.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Stay put.|LeoAma]]

"Don't suppose I could bother you to get me down?" you ask, even as you keep the MK-99's barrel pointed in their general direction without quite pointing it at them.\n \n"I think we can manage that," the tiger says in a mildly amused tone. "Assuming you're not with Comet Lion?"\n\n"I'd show you my Guild card, but uh..." You briefly glance at your own body, before letting your head lower again to look at him, hair drifting and waving with your motions. "That'd currently mean emptying that pocket and I'd rather not."\n\n"Alright, one second. Honey?" he continues, glancing at the fox woman.\n\n"There should be a stone on the other side of the tree holding the other end of the rope, let's find that and we should be able to let him down a bit more gently," the fox answers, the two of them moving out of your range of sight.\n\n"Thanks. I'll just... hang out, then," you murmur. You had to say it, if you're going to have this memory you're going to at least acknowledge it with the standard quips.\n\nAfter about ten seconds you do indeed feel yourself slowly lowering towards the ground again. Eventually the rope does go suddenly slack and allow you to drop jarringly to the ground, but it's nowhere near as bad as it would have been if you'd just cut yourself free. As you're getting up the pair come back around the tree, and this time you're able to get a better look at them. The tiger man is wearing a white and blue flight jacket in addition to the suit, with the logo of the Void Force on it that includes the gold starfighter that indicates he's earned the level of Ace. He's lean but powerful, the suit managing to show off some muscle as well as the bulge at the crotch. (One reason you don't wear the things despite their utility, they just seem... inherently braggy.) Up closer you can see that the fox woman's fur is only iridescent purple-blue in the majority, that the fur running down her front is less shiny and cyan in color, and that she's not actually wearing a bikini... rather, she's also wearing a flight suit, just that it's mostly transparent except for the parts forming a silver bikini shape, as well as her silver boots. Her hair is a slightly darker color than her fur and hangs in a long, thick braid down her back to almost her knees.\n\n"I'm Nova Tiger, and this is my wife, Gem," the man says by way of introduction, gesturing to the woman at his side who bows slightly, tails giving a flick. (From close up, not upside down, and not mildly panicked you can now make out that she has three.) "We're also members of the Guild here for Comet Lion's bounty."\n\n"Figured. I'm Leo," you say by way of introduction, ducking to pick up the HW111 and sling it back into place on your back. "So you figure he's hiding out here too?"\n\n"He has before, so it seemed a natural place to start. With the added benefit that Gem is from this world, originally."\n\n"You need to watch out for Teng traps like that," Gem picks up, glancing towards the tree with a scowl on her muzzle. "You definitely don't want to wind up being caught by them. Outsiders may call this entire world 'Savage', but the Teng truly are."\n\n"I'll keep it in mind," you answer, since brushing off her concern doesn't seem very diplomatic... she clearly has Very Strong Feelings about whoever the Teng are. A rival tribe of foxpeople maybe?\n\n"Listen, if you're here for the bounty, why don't all three of us team up to take Comet down?" Nova suggests, gesturing to you with one hand again. "To be honest, we're more interested in bringing him to justice than we are with the bounty. If you're amenable, we'll work for operating costs only... the, if you'll excuse the expression, lion's share of the bounty would go to you. I've heard of you, Leo, and I know you do good work, so I'm willing to make this offer, as long as you agree to one stipulation."\n\nYou'd already been turning over the offer in your head, enough that you're at least willing to ask, "And what's that?"\n\n"That we do everything we can to bring Comet in alive." Nova's expression turns grim as he continues. "He's done a lot to hurt me and my crew, as well as other people... but he used to be my father's best friend. He was family once, and I at least owe him that if nothing else. So even if it comes down to killing him or letting him go for the time being, I want you to promise you'll do your best not to take his life."\n\n<hr>\n[[Agreed.|LeoNova1x4]]\n\n[[No deal.|LeoNova]]

Yeah, let's just sliiide between these two trees, they'll provide cover from this angle, and you can probably draw a bead on them from there and crunch.\n\n... Crunch?\n\nIt takes you a blink to realize you've actually stepped on a twig and made a nice loud snapping sound that caused the nearby conversation to instantly go silent. Of course you're not given long to worry about that since there's a painful yank on your leg and the world goes blurry and topsy-turvy, flinging you back and forth and knocking you against one of the trees in a stunning blow that has your head spinning as you wind up dangling in the air. The HW111 crashes to the forest floor beneath you, its long strap having easily slid off in your inverted position, but between reflex and its own shorter strap you've somehow managed to hold on to the MK-99 in one hand. \n\nEven as fast as you've been trained to react, the suddenness of your being yanked off the grown and abrupt rushing of blood to your head still has you stunned for a few seconds. In that time, a pair of figures emerge from the bushes nearby... a tiger man with short orange-blonde hair and wearing a white and blue flight suit, a blaster pistol in one hand, and a fox woman with iridescent purple-blue fur and a silver bikini(?!) and multiple(?!?!?) tails, carrying what looks like a combo stun-pole and rifle slung across her back. Both are looking up at you curiously, the tiger's blaster not quite raised and the fox's hand on her weapon.\n\n<hr>\n[[Open fire!|LeoNova]]\n\n[["... Little help?"|LeoNova1x3]]

"Princess, it's a pleasure to meet you," you say warmly, bowing a little bit lower than you did for Luwin. "I'll be accompanying you during your trip. I hope my presence puts your mind at ease as to your safety."\n\n"Oh. Yes. Thank you. Very. Thank you." Princess Amanielle definitely seems just a little flustered, smiling at you brightly with that hint of a blush on her cheeks, but she quickly gets it under control. "Thank you very much for your protection, sir. I'll be counting on you for the next few days. If you'll excuse me, I need to finish preparations for our departure." She curtsies lightly, then turns and sweeps back out.\n\nYou smile after her. Gosh she's cute. Then you can feel a roomful of glares being directed at you, with the most narrowed and heated coming from the Duke. Plastering on an expression that says you've received the message and holding up your hands in an 'I'll be good' gesture, you turn and make your way out of the tent as well. No one actually speaks any threats aloud as you go, so you figure that's probably more of a 'Say goodbye to your bonus and good review if you get up to shenanigans' glare than a 'Say goodbye to parts of your anatomy if you get up to shenanigans' glare. You've been doing this long enough to have a pretty good idea of the difference.\n\nWhich is a bit of a relief because as much as you want a potential bonus and definitely crave that good review, shenanigans are on your mind as you sit across from Amanielle in the carriage a bit later. The princess is sitting with her hands folded in her lap, occasionally glancing out the small slitted windows, or just glancing around, or occasionally giving you a sunny smile. 'Ah, man, she even smells fantastic,' you think dreamily despite the confident-looking lounging you're doing. 'The whole carriage is full of it, like warm flowers in summer, ahhhh she's so friggin' cute, please forgive me if I wind up fucking her, my review rating.'\n\n"I'm sorry this isn't exactly the luxury you might expect from traveling with a princess, Sir LaChance," she says after awhile. "My uncle thought it was better to use a more secure war carriage."\n\n'At least he made sure the other caravan carriages look the same,' you muse, before grinning and shaking your head. "Nah, I've been on way worse escort duties than this, trust me. In a lot of ways, y'know," you add in a warm tone, suppressing a bit of an internal happydance as she blushes just a little again. "And just Leo is fine, I don't have a knighthood or anything like that."\n\n"I see." She hesitates, then smiles again. "Then you must call me 'Amani'. I insist."\n\n"Hm. Well, if the princess insists, can't exactly argue," you reply, giving her a quick wink.\n\nAmanielle giggles rather girlishly, before clearing her throat softly and composing herself. "Mm. And how did you come to be in such a fascinating profession?"\n\n"That's easy enough to explain. Both my parents were members of the Guild... pretty much everyone I knew growing up and for that matter, even most of the people I met were members too. I spent at least as much time in the Guildhall... that's the place where most of us go to get our assignments and a lot of other things we need... as I probably did in any other place we called home when I was growing up. I'm seriously not sure what else I'd have done, I always took it as a given. I was born to this life and it's been pretty fantastic."\n\n"Oh my, your lineage is quite storied as well, it seems. You must have so many stories of daring adventures!"\n\nSo you start telling her about the time you were hired to retrieve an ancient alien energy weapon and wound up releasing and fighting an interdimensionally famous space pirate. You do sort of modify how that one ended so that it's suitable for all audiences, no reason to go into certain details that both you and said pirate agreed to never discuss again. She seems enthralled, and so over the next few days you tell her more stories, which are mostly true and again only slightly censored for particular activities or the dignity of those involved (yours, others whose bad side you don't want to be on, or both). At night the two of you retire to different tents... you'd like to say that you got a chance to see how much nicer hers is than yours, but alas, she has not directly invited you. There have been a lot of warm glances and lingering at the flaps, but nothing quite blatant enough to risk sneaking into her tent for. She's giving you enough cues that you're at least relatively certain she has a crush on you... or at least wouldn't mind fucking you a few times, depending on how deep that sweet, mostly innocent exterior actually goes.\n\nYou're in the midst of one of your stories when there's a few light knocks at the front of the carriage, and the little window to the seat where the drivers sit slides open. "We're coming up on the spot where you identified as most likely for the ambush."\n\n"Oh." Amanielle glances from the window to you. "Do you think there really will be an attack?"\n\n"It's possible. It sounded kind of like your uncle thought whoever is organizing these attacks probably has pretty good intel abilities... if they do know you're here, it's gonna be a pretty strong incentive. But don't worry, if there is an attack, I'll keep you safe," you assure her, giving her another roguish grin.\n\nEven as her cheeks are going pink with it, both of you turn your head as the sound of a guttural howl reaches the carriage. Pressing close to the thin slits in the thick wood of the carriage's side, you quickly spot the big green masses of muscle charging down the decline of the open ground between the road and a large outcropping of trees, using the angle to add speed to their long charge. Yup, just like you figured. ... First time the orcs you've faced were <i>quite</i> so naked, you think wryly, noting that the majority of them seem to be wearing little other than red warpaint, thick cocks and heavy balls wobbling madly in the breeze as they run towards the elves now rallying together. Just from the thin angle of view you can access, you spot over a dozen... figure probably at least that many again that you can't see from here.\n\n"They're here," Amanielle whispers in a shocked gasp, though you can hear the undercurrent of excitement in her voice. ... Hm, wonder if that's because of the potential for adventure or the view? Either way, she looks over at you with wide green eyes. "What happens now?!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Do what you were hired for.|LeoAma1x2]]\n\n[[Try to impress her.|LeoAma]]

You turn over the offer in your head for a minute. While you'd prefer to work alone to garner the greater glory, you're not a complete idiot... if Nova's a Void Force Ace he's been trained in combat by one of the best fighting forces in the multiverse, even if groundfighting isn't his specialty. And turning down a local guide's expertise is just stupid... you don't want to wind up embarrassing yourself (or worse) if you run into more traps that Gem could have steered you away from. Besides, it's not like you're all gung-ho on killing anyway, agreeing to a nonlethal takedown isn't a big deal. "Alright, sure, agreed," you say finally, shifting your MK-99 to your off hand to proffer your main one to Nova.\n\nOnce the two of you, and you and Gem, have all shaken on the deal, your new trio sets off. "There's a series of caves that are quite livable at the foot of that mountain in particular," Gem says, gesturing to a mountain to the side of the one you would have headed towards. "They used to be home to a small tribe of Skahlehs, but in the fighting that ensued during Comet's last 'visit' here, most of them were killed and the rest scattered. He'd know all this from that time, so the likelihood of him using it as a 'hideout' seems high."\n\nThe trip takes most of the day, with Gem doing most of the guiding, warning Nova and yourself away from various dangers, though Nova himself points various things out, indicating it's not his first time on Saurion either. As the three of you get closer, you hush your voices, then eventually stop talking altogether. As you approach the mountain proper, all of you start keeping low, keeping to what cover you can. (You several times find yourself having to not look at a very shapely pair of buttocks being jutted at you... flightsuits are braggy, for sure.) At a little 'nnh' noise from Nova, you and Gem quickly scuttle behind some rocks as cover, quickly seeing just what prompted that... the green and purple starfighter parked about twenty feet from a cave opening.\n\n"There it is," Nova whispers. "Now we just need to-"\n\nBefore he can even finish speaking, you see a tall, broad figure emergy from the cave... and start firing. The rifle in its hands spits crackling orange orbs that strike with an echoing impact that sends up clouds of dust and rock shrapnel, causing all three of you to duck low. When you come up it's to start firing with the MK-99, Nova and Gem doing the same with their own weapons, all three of you doing your best to either lay down area denial fire or alternately take shots at the fleeing Comet Lion. But for such a big man he's just as agile as you feared, ducking and weaving between the shots and taking a moment to fire with that damn cannon of his any time the three of you's fire starts being too effective, forcing all of you to duck for safety briefly. Then you hear him fire three times as quickly as you think it can, but none of the impacts are even close... prompting you, without looking, to shout "MOVE MOVE <b>MOVE</b>!" and go scrambling over your rock, daring a run out into the open.\n\nEither obeying your desperate cry or having picked up Comet's intent, Nova and Gem also dive out of cover, Nova rolling over the low, flat boulder in front of him and Gem leaping over hers like it was the athletics horse in gym class, one hand making contact with the top to fling herself into a flip so she can land on her feet. Still, the impact of the rockslide Comet started with his blasts hitting the ground behind you knocks everyone sprawling, Gem barely able to get off a few yards-wide blasts in the direction of the starfighter as Comet's already hurling himself into the cockpit.\n\nThe engines are already whining with powerup as you scramble to your feet, both you and Nova firing on the starfighter... but it's designed to take at least one direct hit from capital guns without going to pieces, anti-personnel weaponry might as well be rain on a waterfowl to it. Comet obviously knows every dangerous shortcut for powerup that there is, because it's less than two seconds before it's lifting into the air and banking, already picking up speed as it heads for the sky.\n\nWithout really thinking about it, you drop the MK-99 and swing the HW111 around into your hands, eye going to the viewscope. You have about two seconds to make the shot before he's out of effective range, but his rapid powerup and takeoff means that its power regulators aren't shielded, and the disruptor blast will definitely take the engines offline instantly. Which means that between his altitude and momentum, that's a crash no one's walking away from, let alone someone who didn't engage all the possible safety features a typical takeoff sequence involves.\n\n<hr>\n[[Take the shot.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Let him go.|LeoNova1x5]]

Hey, you really need to save up for that down payment, y'know? That is absolutely the reason you smile and tell Amanielle, "Sure, I'd love to stick around and make sure you stay safe." It's not that blush on her cheeks or the very faint little stiff bits capping her breasts beneath her dress.\n\n"Wonderful! Then I'll introduce you to my family!"\n\nSoon the princess is showing you into a large, beautiful throne room, where a number of guards are standing arrayed about the walls, and four individuals are standing near the set of thrones of different sizes near the back wall. Amanielle primly leads the way up and turns to the side, taking a step back and curtsying. "May I present Leo LaChance, hero for hire from the Guild of Professionals, to the royal family of Juristania."\n\n'Hero for hire'... that's got a nice ring to it, you're gonna have to remember that one. Doing your best to rein in your silly, happy grin, you instead execute a bit more of a courtly bow since you're pretty sure you actually are in court. "Your majesties."\n\n"First of all, I must of course present my father, King Da... ahem, forgive me, the dust of the road is in my throat, King Jhad."\n\nYou can see why Amanielle almost called him 'King Dad', and not just because he's her father. He looks like a dad... like, he's tall and slender and pretty like every elf you've met so far, but his short darkish hair, the look of his ears and nose, his posture, all of it somehow just bellows 'Hi Leo I'm Dad', even with the sleek, elegant crown of woven-together gold strips. He must be a pretty popular king, you imagine... everyone probably feels like their own father is the ruler of the country.\n\n"Sir LaChance, I understand you singlehandedly fended off an attack by more than thirty orcs on the princess's travel caravan," the king says, even his voice having that measured 'I'm being reserved but I'm still very proud of you' dad-like warmth. "A truly impressive feat, aside from the heroism of saving my daughter's life."\n\n"Thank you, your majesty, but it's what I was hired for after all. Also I'm not a knight or a lord or anything, so you don't have to call me 'sir'."\n\n"Perhaps we'll see about fixing that while you're with us, hm?" King Jhad replies, quirking an eyebrow and actually grinning a little.\n\n'Squee!' you think internally while externally just smiling in a dashing way and giving another short bow.\n\n"And my mother, Queen Mamilith," Amanielle continues.\n\nYou admit you kind of had to suppress some surprise when you walked in and saw what was presumably the Queen standing next to the King... you'd kind of assumed that Amanielle's paler hair and different eye color was just a variation within the type. But the queen is obviously a different kind of elf, with longer, more slender and pointed ears, snowy white hair, yellow eyes, and skin the color of milk chocolate. She's also... significantly bustier than Amanielle is, even in her relatively modest (but thin, they seem sort of thin) purple and silver robes. "It's lovely to meet you, <i>Sir</i> LaChance," she says with just enough of a teasing lilt that combined with the dance of her eyes it's almost a giggle.\n\n"Your majesty," you acknowledge with another bow.\n\n"And my younger siblings, Jurielith and Lokieth," Amanielle finishes, apparently deciding it's appropriate enough to introduce both of the others together.\n\nJurielith, you assume, is the older one, looking like she's probably only a year or two younger than Amanielle, at least relative to human ages, you're not sure how it works for elves though you do know they're supposed to live way longer. She's inherited more of her mother's coloring than Amanielle, with white hair (cut short and rather messy) and caramel skin, though her eyes are purple instead. She's also dressed rather more daringly, her shoulder-baring outfit purple and gold on top where it hugs her full but pert breasts, and white and gold further down where it's slit up the sides far enough to show off the ties of her white panties. She's also the only one who's visibly armed, what looks like some sort of saber sheathed at her hip. Actually now that you look at it, her outfit is closer to being a more expensive and high-quality version of what some of the female guards are wearing, just without the thin, shiny halfplate armor most of them wear over it that makes it seem a bit more modest.\n\n<img src="images/Jurielith.jpg">\n\n"I see you have a sword too, not just that 'rifle' you apparently used to kill all those orcs," she says, her voice even and collected, to the point it would probably make her sound very icy and cool if it wasn't a bit on the 'high and cute' side instead. "Do you know how to use it, or is it just decorative?" Amanielle hisses 'Juri!' in a way that says she thinks her sister is being rude, but you just grin.\n\n"I'm pretty good with a sword, yes, your highness," you answer. "And most other weapons you can name, I had a very thorough and diverse training."\n\n"I see. Please have a few matches with me later, so I can steal your techniques," she answers, still in that even tone, though there's just enough of a shift that you're fairly certain she's actually trying to be amusing. And you can see those calm purple eyes actually dance a bit with excitement as she adds, "And please teach me to shoot the rifle."\n\n"Nyohoho~, I bet it would make big sister feel good indeed to finally get ahold of a powerful weapon that shoots," Lokieth smarms from the side, putting her fingers to her lips as she smirks sideways at her sister, who just tosses her a somewhat confused glance. Lokieth appears to be the youngest of the sisters, if you had to put it in human years maaaaybe thirteen? She's also the one that most resembles her mother, their coloration and the shape of their ears identical, though Lokieth's hair is even longer, coming down well below her rear and with a braid on each side in addition to the loose hair. She's wearing what looks more like a human aristocrat's gown, dark purple with poofy shoulders, accents of lace, and a mock corset snugged around her middle, the top of it trimmed with silver, as are the black leather bracers she's wearing. The dress part of it, though, only comes down to just below her hips, where it brushes over the tops of the tall black leather boots she's wearing.\n\n'That one's trouble,' you think, several different kinds of alarm bells going off in your head. Do not approach for any reason! your brain screams, and this time you decide to listen without arguing. Uncertain how to banter without acknowledging the double entendre her parents and eldest sister are giving her different varieties of Look for, you just bow a bit and say, "Your highness."\n\n"Now, Leo, I insist you join our family for evening meal," King Da-, er, Jhad says as he steps forward and puts a hand on your shoulder. "We can discuss the terms of you staying on for a bit, as well as a few other items I'd like your insight on."\n\nThe issue of your pay is pretty easy to work out... room and board (and you're betting that counts for a lot in the castle here, especially considering how great the food you're eating now is) and fifty gold a day (which translates to a not inconsiderable amount of credits), until either the mastermind behind the attacks by weirdly magic resistant orcs is flushed out or you're ready to leave. The king then turns his attention to that other matter he'd clearly been champing at the bit for. "How could I acquire a large number of weapons just like your rifle?"\n\n"Unfortunately, your majesty, that specific thing isn't possible," you inform him, trying to use as delicate a tone as you can. "That particular weapon," you continue, tilting your head to where it's leaned against the side of your chair. "Is the result of fifteen years' work and extensive modifications. There isn't another weapon that does everything it does... there are some that have a similar number of functions, and probably do one or two things it does better, but they're very expensive."\n\n"So you're saying it would be impossible for me to arm all my troops with even similar weaponry," he acknowledges with a bit of a frown.\n\n"Unfortunately. Even without the expense, those are very specialized rifles that tend to use expensive components, there probably just aren't enough of them in existence to outfit an entire army," you explain. Then you continue, "Probably what's a lot more feasible is outfitting most of your army with much more limited versions... variants on the base rifle this one is built on are actually pretty common, combination rifle-shotguns. Then you could outfit a select number of them with more versatile... or actually, I'd suggest more specialized... weapons. I'm sort of an all-rounder, but a dedicated sniper is still going to be way better at sniping than me."\n\n"The long-range attacks, like the first ones you did against the hoard according to the guards? Yes, I can see that. Do you have connections that would let me acquire these weapons?"\n\n"The more specialized ones maybe, since you'd only need small numbers of them, but if you're talking about importing enough basic advanced weaponry across interdimensional barriers to outfit an army, that's trickier," you murmur, rubbing the back of your head, before clearing your throat and dropping your hand, trying to project confidence again. "But if that's what you're interested in, I could definitely make some calls to people who know people, try to get some offers for you."\n\n"I would certainly be much obliged, and very willing to provide a generous finder's fee for such things," Kinh Jhad says with another paternal grin. "And perhaps we could also discuss potential fees for helping train others in their use."\n\n'Man, this job is the gift that keeps on giving,' you think happily a bit later, walking out of your (as hoped, very posh) room and heading towards Amanielle's for your assigned guard duty. 'Week-long escort turns into maybe a few months of steady work, with bonuses and opportunities all over the place. Forget putting a down payment, at this rate by the time I'm done I may be buying a ship outright!' You settle into a light, relaxed but ready stance in the hall outside the princess's suite, keeping most of your senses focused for danger, but in the back of your mind turning over conversion rates of gold to credits, finder's fee percentages on dozens of crates of high-tech weaponry, and lists of gently-used starships with dimentemp drives. Then you hear a soft click and turn your head, seeing the door open and Amanielle's green eyes peek out.\n\n"Good evening, Leo," she says softly.\n\n"Good evening, princess," you reply with a smile.\n\nYou can see her own smile through the crack in the door as she says, "You know, you could do just as well guarding my body from in here, I think, as out there."\n\nAnd there it is... the direct invitation to 'guard her body' that you've been waiting for. Every part of your boyish heart sings in celebration, because holy crap the gorgeous elf princess is <i>actually</i> inviting you in! Meanwhile your more adult hopes and aspirations are trying to grab that juvenile glee and drag it back to the ground, because weren't you <i>just</i> thinking that if this job goes well you could get your longterm goal realized much, much sooner than otherwise? Are you crazy?!\n\n<hr>\n[[You may be a little crazy, but fuck it, go in.|LeoAma1x4]]\n\n[[... man remember how cool the Neutron LE-115 looks with that chrome paintjob and that new nosecone shape...?|LeoAma]]

They are the two you know the best so far, even though it's mostly been idle chatter up to this point. Plus they're your hosts, so it only seems right to call on them. You haven't even really properly thanked them for the nice room, after all. Getting up and pulling on your boots, you head out into the hallway. You're fairly certain that their quarters must be nearby (you're assuming they live together, being husband and wife, though you guess that isn't true for all couples), and if trends are anything to go by, you'll know it when you see it. Indeed, just a bit down the hall you find a slightly larger door, one that splits down the middle rather than just sliding to one side, with a small tribal art style tiger on one side and a similar purple fox on the other. Yeah, these guys are apparently really proud of their species identities... usually the only time you see someone displaying little figures of humans to mark doors is on bathrooms.\n\nSnickering a bit to yourself at the thought, you reach over to press the 'Announce' button on the panel next to the door. You're expecting someone to call 'who is it', but you guess with a crew this small the occupants must have a pretty good guess, since the door almost immediately slides open. Your brain makes a little internal error sound at the sight presented. 'Very naked,' is the first thought it's able to spit out, followed very closely by 'That's a whole lot of-'\n\n<hr>\n[['-stripes.'|LeoNova1x7]]\n\n[['-shiny.'|LeoNova6x1]]

"Probably because you've heard of my bartending prowess, huh?" you ask as you walk over, also descending into the conversation pit and making your way towards the revealed bar.\n\n"I admit, it was one of the things I'd heard about you in passing," Nova chuckles as he pushes off the wall and moves to take a seat in one of the chairs. "I don't drink a lot myself, but it is something of a tradition to welcome new members of the crew with a round of drinks in the captain's cabin. You're only here temporarily, but I suppose that could always change!" he adds cheerfully.\n\nHm. Not sure how you'd feel about that... at least yet. Though it's at least gratifying to know he's at least already considering extending the offer. You pluck some of the cocktail mixing implements out of the grav field holding them stuck in place as if they had suction cups on the bottom, arraying them in front of you. Now let's see, how about making...\n\n<hr>\n[[Something light for both of you.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Something strong for the both of you.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Something strong for Nova, and light for you.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Something light for Nova, and strong for you.|LeoNova4x1]]

"I am, yes," Nova answers easily enough, stepping back and gesturing to the apparently otherwise unoccupied captain's quarters behind him... they're a bit larger and nicer than yours, but that's because it also seems to incorporate a sitting area and work area, presumably also functioning as an office. "Gem decided to scout ahead in the system, since she was feeling a little restless... we'll meet up with her when we get there in a day or two. Why don't you come in? I wouldn't mind the company?"\n\nYou hesitate briefly, but since he's being so casual about it you're just assuming his species must not have any real nudity hangups... or maybe it's a personal thing. Either way you try to keep it just as casual as you say "Thank you" and step inside, shrugging out of your jacket and hanging it on a wall hook next to his at his gesture. "Does she often do that?" you ask as Nova wanders over to the slightly lowered seating area, stepping down into it and pressing a hand against the wall, parts of it retracting to show an ingenious little hidden bar. "Head out on her own?"\n\n"She does. Gem grew up on a savage planet, so sometimes being enclosed in a slower-moving ship disagrees with her. Even a smaller, faster vessel like one of the fighters suits her better since she's in control there." Nova chuckles as he turns around and folds his arms as he leans back against the wall, bare balls swaying lightly with the motion and his tail flicking behind him. "So I occasionally get left here alone to entertain myself, if no one feels like coming over and hanging out. Which is why I was really rather hoping you'd come over, Leo... I was actually considering comming you and asking you to come over, but then you just showed up at my door. It's really rather convenient!"\n\nHm. 'Convenient', huh?\n\n<hr>\n[[Because he wanted to hang out, clearly.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Because he heard you make a mean cocktail, obviously.|LeoNova1x9]]\n\n[[Because he wanted to fuck, duh.|LeoNova3x1]]

You don't really remember where you came from, or how you became a slave. Apparently some places do that... memory wiping their inventory, on the idea that they're less likely to try and escape before they're sold. Not that you could with the chip in, as they explain, but it still saves trouble. All you remember is being told you'd been given the randomly-assigned name of 'Kai', and not too long after being sold to Doonian along with one of the other girls from your group. One of Doonian's older slaves explained things to you... Doonian had been one of the Guild of Interdimensional Professionals, Specialists, and Enforcers' biggest and brightest stars back in the day. He got so much work and so many high-profile jobs that he couldn't handle it all, so he started buying slaves and training them to assist him or do other jobs in his stead. \n\n"'Course that was the stupid old fart's downfall," one of the other older slaves had snorted, causing the one telling you the story to shoot her an annoyed look.\n\nBut it was true. Doonian did such a good job training his slaves and building the brand that they were just as good as him for jobs, and so instead of a shortage of time he found himself with an excess of it. A lot more time for lazing around and drinking. Combining that with the fact that he wasn't a spry thirty-something anymore, and, well, soon he wasn't doing such a good job training his slaves. So jobs got flubbed, money got lost, and bit by bit that grand lifestyle started to fade as he was forced to sell off his slaves, including most of the ones that were still worth anything. When he bought you it was just two of his best, you, and the other slave from your same lot that he bought for purely menial purposes. You yourself were trained by the two older slaves, and eventually they were gone too... one sold to a wealthy family, the other buying her freedom with funds she'd kept hidden. (Doonian had been furious. Though he'd once paid his slaves, sharing the profits from the jobs they did with them, as he'd started drinking more and seeing his little empire starting to collapse, he'd stopped paying them, then even denied them the right to keep any money themselves ever. One of his last, best slaves buying herself out had been humiliating because it meant she had tricked him.)\n\nThat was five years ago.\n\nThe comfortable suite of rooms on the Guildhall that Doonian had barely been holding on to when he bought you is a distant memory, even if it's one of the earliest ones you have. Now you're standing on the streets of Makarzia, a city world in a tech-rich but morally poor dimension, getting rained on. Practically everything you're wearing was either a gift from someone other than your owner or something you picked up on a mission... the cheap old bastard has repeatedly refused to buy you anything approaching proper merc wear, even if he did have the money for it. Though your long, red-lined black coat has two hoods, one for 'fashion' and one for inclement weather, you're still only bothering with the fashion hood, your long red hair spilling out of it as you lean against a wall, the hood's ring-pierced cat ears on display. The cold doesn't make the simple tie-in-front top and shiny black short-shorts particularly comfortable, but you're used to it... you've been in way worse wearing them. At least your legs are a bit warmer with the high-end black thigh-highs you stole during a job about a year back, and the brown boots on your feet are practically new even if they came off a corpse. You notice a group of cybangers approaching, laughing and jeering among themselves, and you notice their HUD visors lighting up as they get closer, target reticles shifting in your direction. Fortunately a 'just try it' look from your red eyes and tilting the red-wrapped handle of the katana you're holding is enough to convince them to keep walking and jeering rather than bothering you.\n\n<img src="images/Kai1.jpg">\n\n'Wouldn't have to carry this around constantly if the old bastard would let me carry so much as a stun blaster on planet,' you think sourly, leaning back a bit more against the wall once you're alone again. Doonian's gotten pretty paranoid ever since he realized his slaves could plot their way around his orders, and has forbidden you from bringing any guns back from the vault on the Guildhall, only grudgingly allowing you the sword for self defense from the locals. 'Dunno why he thinks I couldn't kill him with it just as easily as a gun if I decided to figure out how.'\n\nYou soak in such bitter thoughts a bit longer before sighing and giving in to the inevitable... time to go home. Keeping one hand in your jacket pocket and the sheathed sword displayed in the other, you turn and make your way down the block, headed for the glorious planetside mansion you're sure Doonian always dreamed of when he hit it big.\n\nMeaning, it's a half-floor 'town home' apartment on the bottom floor of a six story building full of them. You have to admit that at least it's not a shoebox, but the condition it's in still goes to explaining how Doonian always seems to have money for booze and other intoxicants despite complaining about having to pay rent. You and your fellow slave do the best you can to keep it up (mostly her since you're there less), but there's only so much to be done when Doonian will give you barely anything to spend on upkeep. Once inside the building, you stop to flap off your coat, not wanting to soak any more water than necessary into the threadbare, partly gone carpet, and head inside. You quickly spot your fellow slave, currently sitting against the edge of a worn, almost polished-through countertop, probably in the middle of looking for something that she can actually do to improve the shabby little area. Her mildly worried expression turns into a tired smile as she sees you, blue eyes warming some, silver hair swaying in the uneven parts that she can't fit into the long braid she wears. You're glad you were able to badger Doonian into buying her some decent clothes, or at least decent shirts, though she seems to be wearing most of them at once at the moment, with the long, loose black one on top, her only other visible clothing the small black ribbon choker that was also a gift from one of your departed seniors. "Kai, you're home," she says in her gentle, sweet voice.\n\n<img src="images/Zee.jpg">\n\n"Hey, Zee." You give her a tired smile of your own as you set your katana down to lean against the wall beside the door. As if her attire wasn't clue enough, the complete lack of change in temperature from the hall outside (or the actual outside for that matter) makes you sigh. "Heat out again?"\n\nHer smile crumbles a little, but she struggles to maintain some of it as she nods. Her eyes flick to the doorway nearby as she murmurs, "Doonian's been calling for you."\n\nBefore you can say anything to that, there's a bellow from the next room. "Is that Kai?! KAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIII!"\n\n"Shit," you huff under your breath, before giving Zee a wan smile of your own just to assure her you're not cursing at her. Your expression turns flat and cold, both hands tucking into your jacket pockets as you make your way to stand in the doorframe, staring at the back of the easy chair silhouetted by the viewscreen. "Yeah, yeah, I'm here," you declare at normal volume.\n\n"Where the hell were you?" comes the slightly gurgling snarl from the other side of the chair.\n\n"Out, taking a walk, like every night," you say with a shrug. "Since that's usually when you tell me to get the hell out anyway."\n\n"Yeah well I needed you!"\n\n"Then maybe get me a comm like I keep asking for and you can call me when you need me."\n\n"Ain't spending money on a comm for the likes of you," your owner grumbles, no doubt not even breaking eye contact with the porn playing on the screen, moans and bad dialogue coming out unevenly and with light crackles through the failing speakers. "Speakin' of which, account's gettin' low, and the fuckers at the utility company are lyin' sayin' they didn't get their transfer. Go out and make some creds."\n\nYou can't help but roll your eyes. "Crystal Dragon, old man, I just gave you the money I earned from a C-rank job three days ago, where'd it all go?" You ask this, despite knowing that he spent the entire day after getting the money in a pleasure spa in one of the better parts of the city sector, drinking and fucking it away. Still, it helps you a little to remind him of his failures, and gives you time to brace so you don't flinch when the liquor bottle slams into the wall a few feet from your head, cracking and splitting into a handful of pieces once it hits the floor.\n\n"YOU DIDN'T GIVE ME SHIT! That was my money! I earned it! I own you, I own your effort, I own your jobs, I'll spend <i>my</i> money how <i>I</i> want! Now you can either get the hell out or actually make yourself useful around the house for once by hacking the heater!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Go out and earn.|Kai1x1]]\n\n[[Stay in.|Kai]]

Enh... you don't want to be hooking for a few nights in a row just to make utility money and maybe enough that the old man will spend it on food instead of liquids. Better to make one or two quick pops in the Drips to get the heat back on, you think as you adjust course.\n\nThe Drips were set up because the blatantly nonhuman-types who like human girls were A Thing that needed to be addressed. Before the Drips, they'd wander all over the city sector, having to hit up every working girl they came across (or they thought was one) trying to find one that was up for it. It was disruptive for the girls, and frustrating for the aliens. So someone, probably from one of the local sex worker guilds, came up with the idea of setting up an area where instead, aliens looking for sex with human girls could wait, and girls that were up for it could go to them. The fact that the aliens have to rent kiosks this way, and also wind up renting the nearby rooms that were set up, probably had something to do with the magnanimousness of the mastermind behind it.\n\nYou hit the downward slope to the street and here the soft plinking, plopping noises that tell you you're almost there. The charitable reason it's called the Drips is because it's built a bit lower down than most of the sector, and the way the highrise buildings' drainage are set up and the flow of air means that it's almost always got moisture falling off of the edges of buildings and hitting a particular kind of pavement that was used, making the loud, wet dripping noises that can be heard along the entire block. Less charitably it's called the Drips because of the stereotype that aliens are all slimy, gooey things that will drip their skin-jizz all over you.\n\nSoon you arrive in the Drips proper, marked by the spaced-out waiting stations lining the sidewalks. They're set up sort of like transit stops... transparent sides and back, sloping rooftops, even little benches inside. Lining the street behind are rows of what look like storage units, the sort people might shove old furniture and boxes of no longer fashionable clothes in with the idea that throwing them out would be a waste, much better to pay to house them for awhile until you forget and the locker owner sells them off to someone else. Except most of these have probably been converted into hour-rate flops with basic beds and maybe, if you're lucky, washup facilities.\n\nThe lights in a handful of the visible waiting stations are switched to purple, indicating they're occupied. Let's see... you've got a squat, sort of squishy-looking alien [[with a long thick tail|KaiTwinStart]] sitting on one of the benches, not sure what his deal is but he looks relatively harmless. There's another that the thing waiting in it seems to be just... well, a [[big pile of goo|Kai]], that's kind of wild. You also see a guy who looks like some sort of [[upright wolf|Kai]] sitting around... odd, that type of nonhuman usually doesn't have enough trouble finding willing girls that they have to come to the Drips. Further down it gets a bit harder to see, but you're fairly sure you see several more humanoid forms, one wreathed in shapes and motion that says [[tentacles|Kai]], another that's [[hooded|Kai]], and the last one, far down on the street, is [[horned and big|Kai]] but you can't make out much more than that.\n\nWell. You came down here to do dirty deeds with aliens, time to pick an alien.

Once more into the breach, dear friends, you think as you crawl forward silently and into the escape tunnel. At least now you know that's actually what they are so it shouldn't lead you to somewhere <i>too</i> dangerous. 'Actually, what does that phrase even mean, once more into the breach? I heard Mom say it once or twice,' you muse as you crawl along. Though half the time you asked her what those terms meant she didn't know either, she just said they were phrases from back home. They seemed pretty common all over the place too, so you guess you never really thought about it. Hm, wasn't there something else you'd been meaning to think about in this situation before? ... Eh.\n\nBy now you know a bit better what to expect, so when you see the light ahead you try to slow down... unfortunately it appears this tunnel also incorporates some sort of a water feature, and you find your hands slipping out from under you, unable to help giving a squawk of surprise as you go shooting down the decline like it was an actual waterslide and shooting out of the other end. You overshoot the opening of the tunnel and fly forward, hitting something that feels like cloth, but yields and then tears underneath you, tumbling you down to land on what feels suspiciously like a mattress.\n\n"Nyooohohohoho~... I know a royal's life is privileged, but having naked men just drop right into my bed is a fresh new service!"\n\n'I should've known,' you think bitterly, staring up at the stone ceiling through the rent in the bed canopy for a moment before sitting up. Looks like Lokieth's room has been made up in a bit of 'subterranean splendor' style... most of the lighting is provided by artistically crafted 'natural'-shaped crystals, there are no windows, and even the furniture mostly seems to be carved of stone, albeit with heavy and comfortable-looking red and purple padding. The bratty little royal herself is standing beside the bed, wearing a very short purple silk robe, as well as apparently a purple garter belt, coltish legs sheathed in sheer purple fabric on display and fists on her hips as she leers at you. "Your Highness," you say calmly. "Let me explain..." Oh right, that's what you'd been meaning to do while crawling through the tunnel.\n\n"Oh, no need, no need, I think I have a grasp on it. You were trysting with dear eldest sister when Father came in and... ohoooo, but <i>that</i> tunnel comes from Juri's room, not dear Amani's," she continues, smug purple eyes sparkling as her smirk grows wider. "So let me amend, let me amend... you were trysting with sweet Amani who does so cravy adventure, when Father came to check on her like the doting dutiful daddy he is, so you crawled through the convenient tunnel you discovered! Wound up splashing down on sweet battlebrained Juri's balcony, and, well, since I can still smell what the two of you were doing, you must have convinced her to give taking a tumble a try! My my, very good, human, <i>very</i> good! I was starting to think her virginity would be taken by a sword handle!" Lokieth snickers impishly while your expression grows dangerously close to a glare, but just cocks a hip, seeming utterly unperturbed as she continues. "But then I'm betting Mommy Dearest came in to check on her since she <i>does</i> seem the type who'd wind up being noisy, and off you went again, and now here you are! Am I right, hmmmm, am I riiiight?"\n\nSighing heavily, you lean back on your hands some. "Yeah, honestly, that's about the size of it." At this point it seems a little past trying to get creative about it.\n\n"Nyeheh, foolish human, if you'd just taken some light with you, you might have noticed the tunnel branches that lead off to safe rooms... but then they are meant to be hard to navigate for non-elves, poooor thiiing," she coos in mocking sympathy, making you give up and just outright glare at her. If anything she seems even more delighted, continuing unfazed as she says, "But you're in luck now, because Mother and Father know I like my privacy and neeeever come down here. And there's a much nicer passage from this room to a safe room where you can get some clothing and even get back to Amani's room."\n\n"Ah... really?" You blink a few times, actually surprised by her generosity, before your flat expression returns. Yeah, no, you know the sort you're dealing with. "What do you want in return, Princess?" you ask as you scoot over to sit on the side of the bed.\n\n"Oh I'll have what they're having," she answers immediately, eyes gleaming wickedly. "I know you've probably already have a <i>busy</i> night, so I won't be tooooo demanding... just let me suck a load out of you and then pump another into me after giving me a good hard fucking, and I'll open that safe room right up for you!"\n\nYou huff out a sigh, feeling immensely tired all of a sudden. Trying to do your best to not be aggravated even if you can't really manage royalty-level cordiality anymore, you lift your hands. "Listen, no offense, Princess, but you're definitely on the young side for me, I don't think that's a good idea."\n\n"Oh young isn't the only thing I am that I doubt you care for," she says with a smirk as she gives the belt of her robe a tug and brushes it open with her hands, resting them on her hips again.\n\n... Yeaaah that is true apparently. Because unlike Amanielle, looks like Lokieth is in fact wearing panties... skimpy little purple satin panties that hug up against a distinct bulge that leaves very little doubt about what it is. Not to mention the completely flat chest, now devoid of the angles of the faux corset and dress that gave the vague hint of budding breasts. You suddenly recall that Amanielle introduced her 'siblings', not her 'sisters', and that no one at any point actually said 'Princess Lokieth'. "Uh, yeah, that's... that's true, I'm only really into girls, sorry," you stammer, leaning back a little.\n\n"Sounds like a personal problem," Lokieth chirps in reply, smirking wide enough now that he's showing off one of the little fangs at one side of his mouth. "I don't recall asking you what <i>you</i> wanted, after all! I'm telling you what I'll give you, and what I'm demanding in payment! You can take it or leave it, human, but ah..." He makes a show of taking a look around the room, yellow gaze lingering on the double doors that no doubt lead out to the hall before sliding back to you. "You don't have a very good bargaining position, do you, hmmmmm?"\n\nNo. No you do not, you think sourly. Yeah, you knew this one was trouble, and you're really not sure that trouble will be over if you play along. After all, Lokieth might be satisfied with getting this out of you... and he might not, if you've judged him correctly. It might just be the start of him toying with you. ... But like he said, what else are you going to do?\n\n<hr>\n[[Agree.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Refuse.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Plead for another option.|LeoAma]]

"I... think I need a little time to wrap my head around this, Orrin," you answer. "Sort of let it become real. I mean... obviously we should probably have at least a few dates before, y'know..."\n\n"But not tonight?" He smiles a little wanly, but bobs his head. "Yeah, no, I understand. Um, just give me a call when you're ready, yeah? Otherwise, I'll call you next week just to check in on how you're doing."\n\n"Sure. I'll talk to you later," you add, waving a bit before turning to go.\n\nAll of what you said is true... you do need some time to sort of come to terms with the fact that you're now engaged. But you've also got the worst case of 'kid with a new toy' you've ever had in your life, and are desperate to get home so you can decide what to do with the Mythril. You offer to tip your Uber driver 100% if they'll speed all the way back to your place, and soon you're tucked into your room and going through your tome.\n\nYou're not terribly surprised that it has some new offerings for you, ones specifically to do with using Moonforged Mythril. Between the acquisition of the wire and your magically bonded engagement, today has been a significant stepping stone for you as a witch... the book has obviously responded and is offering you up appropriate options for things to craft with it.\n\nOne of the offerings is an [[Amulet of Change|ValNA2x5]], which would grant you incredible control over your own form and the forms of others. Right now you can only change the forms of others if they're particularly weak, or give you permission, and even then your range is a bit limited and it takes a lot of your energy. Changing your own form is also a bit of a pain, requiring preparation, concentration, and effectively being stuck that way for awhile until your magic fully recharges. But this... you could change yourself and others almost at will, it sounds like.\n\nIt also talks about making a [[Tiara of Charisma|ValNA]], which would massively boost the force of your personality. You've seen this crafting guide before, but the previous version always led you to believe that the increase would probably be just enough that people wouldn't make fun of you for wearing a tiara. But by incorporating Moonforged Mythril, it looks like you could make one that would basically let you do 'Because I say so' to other people at will.\n\nYou're a bit surprised that there's also instructions for making a [[Mythril weapon|ValNA]]... you couldn't possibly have enough for that, could you? But a glance over it shows that you might... the amount of mythril necessary to convert a normal knife the size of, say, your own ritual knife into an actual mythril weapon is fairly negligible, it turns out. It would turn the blade into an extremely powerful magical weapon, with abilities that would grow over time.

You can see a lot of uses for the Amulet of Change... among them if you ever need to flee the county, state, or country for some reason or another. (Hey, considering such needs is an occupational hazard of being a witch.) You begin the process of setting up materials and ritually preparing the Mythril wire to charge it up with the proper energies. It's almost midnight before you drop it into the dish with the rest of the metal for the amulet and watch it slide down and flow together, turning the rest of the metal the same white-shine color as it was. You pour it into the round mold and whisper a few more parts of the spell over it, cutting a finger to add a drop of your own blood, which quickly disappears into the metal. Less than a minute later you turn the mold over, and hear a satisfying <i>tink</i> as the amulet falls out. When you move the mold away, you find that the amulet's taken the shape of a wolf's head rather than the simple circular mold you used. Not unexpected... apparently it will look like something different every day.\n\nGrinning, you slip a length of ribbon through the top and tie it around your neck, feeling the faint tingle of its enchantments against your skin. Wondering what to do with it first, you stand and turn towards your door, only to yelp and stumble back a few steps at the silhouette of someone that's definitely not your landlady there. The black-clad woman steps forward, a long, curved blade in her hand, eyes narrowed and pointed ears almost twitching a bit as she looks at you.\n\n"That was lucky... I thought I was going to have to play an extended game of cat and mouse tracking down that mythril, but then you went and started preparing it for enchantment and sent out a signal clear as day." The elf looks you up and down with an expression you can only call 'polite contempt'. "I see you've used it already, but I doubt you can even control such an artifact. So let me make it clear... that mythril, and the thing you made from it, is leaving here with me one way or the other. You can either surrender and be alive once I leave here, or I can easily slip it off your newly shortened and thus more accessible neck. Your choice."\n\n<hr>\n[[Surrender.|ValNA]]\n\n[[... Cat and mouse, huh?|ValNA2x6]]

You don't bother with a quip, a misdirection, or any attempts at pleading, you just instantly channel as much power as you can through the amulet and at the elf. Her sword's already swinging towards your neck even before you push the power out, but drops from a hand that's no longer large enough to hold it without quite touching your shoulder. The regal-looking elf woman gives a rather undignified squeak as she finds herself shrinking so rapidly that her forward movement drops her to the ground, pointy ears expanding and face stretching as fur sprouts from her body. But the amount of power you put into the spell hastens the change and she disappears into her own top before you can see too much more, within only a second or two turning into a wriggling little lump in the black cloth... which you quickly seize up, hauling up the holed bits of the elf's clothing to turn it into an impromptu sack.\n\n"Let me out! Undo this at once!" comes a tiny, squeaking voice of pure outrage. You blink a little... she can still talk? But after a few more outbursts you realize she really is squeaking... a side effect of the amulet must mean you can understand animals. Or at least animals that you've changed someone into, or that used to be some variety of person.\n\n"That's pretty haughty talk from someone that was giving me the old 'submit or die' not too long ago," you note dryly.\n\nThere's a brief pause in the scratching and wriggling inside the cloth, before a rather more subdued squeak replies. "I... I'm... I... s-sorry? P.. puuuuuhlease change me back, I'll go away, you can keep the mythril."\n\nYeah right. You may have changed her into a mouse but does she think you've changed yourself into a chump? If you turned her back, the moment she got within touching distance of that sword your head would go flying higher than Elon Musk. Just letting her go really isn't an option... even as a mouse she'd be likely to get a message to some other elf and then you'd be right back in this situation, just more likely to get stabbed in your sleep. So really it's a question of whether you lock her up or... do away with her.\n\n<hr>\n[[Cage.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Permanent solution.|ValNA2x7]]

Of course generally seduction isn't something you could apply a 'quick' modifier to... unless, of course, you've just so happened to recently discover that a particular race has a 'Please Fuck Me' button.\n\nYou rush up behind Jurielith and slip your hands around her middle, hugging her to stop her from moving forward. You can feel her shifting your weight and grabbing for one of your upper arms, preparing to throw you (you're actually pretty impressed by how good the motion is)... right up until your lips come down on the top of one of her ears. She lets out a truly shocked squeak, and almost immediately that grip on your upper arm seems more like she's trying to hold herself up as her weight sags some against you, legs twitching. You can feel her starting to wriggle and writhe against you as you begin kissing and licking at her ear, lipping along the upper lobe of it until you can flick your tongue around the tip, then moving over to the other to nuzzle in her hair as you kiss at the base of it.\n\n"W-what are you... h-hey, that's... oh... ohhhhh," Jurielith moans, her hands sinking down to rest on your arms where they're hugging around her belly instead, baring those perky torpedo tits of hers and the dark brown nipples capping them, puffy and stiff in the dim lighting of her room. The reserved princess actually whimpers as you drag your tongue along the back of her ear and then blow softly on the dampened skin, her hips bucking a few times instinctively and rubbing her pert ass against your once more thoroughly stiffened cock. "This... this is... I don't..." she gasps softly, sucking in a sharp breath and trembling as you give one ear a light nip. You slip a hand down and between her legs, stroking her through her panties, feeling the cloth almost instantly become soaked and start sticking to the plumped, hot flesh beneath. Oh yeah, this was definitely the best idea ever!\n\nYou bend a bit and scoop up the now unprotesting princess in your arms, Jurielith panting and looking up at you with lust-glazed purple eyes not altogether dissimilar to her sister's, in this state. Grinning back at her, you give her a short toss onto the bed which makes her squeak again, and haul her lower body over to the side of it. Taking just a moment to admire your work, and the way the white panties are clinging in thoroughly transparent fashion to her brown pussylips and pink slit, you then quickly untie them and peel them off, before replacing the thin layer of cloth with your mouth. Jurielith quickly jerks somewhat upright, crying out in surprise and pleasure as she grips your hair with both hands as your tongue goes to work on her folds, stroking over those plump pussylips and sliding inside her, stroking, teasing the cute little stiffened nub you could actually see through her panties by the end. It doesn't hurt that she's actually amazingly tasty... come to think of it, even Amanielle's sweat was kinda delicious. Man, elves really are the best.\n\n"Oh... oh gods, oh gods, oh my gods," Jurielle gasps out. Her actual pleasure seems much more intense than when you were licking her ears, but she seems in better control over it, actually able to drape her legs over your shoulders and around your head a bit, the motions of her hips towards your licking more deliberate than the twitches and shudders of before. She tosses her head, messy white hair flicking here and there where it's not stuck to her skin with sweat, giving another little cry as you kiss her clit and swirl your tongue around it a few times. "P-please... please... do it..." she gasps out.\n\n"Hmmm?" Unable to help teasing her just a little now that this situation's turned around so delightfully for you, you grin up at her and place a kiss on one plump vulva. "Do what?"\n\n"Do... w-whatever it is that comes next!" she blurts out, purple eyes almost desperate with need. "Please!"\n\n'Psh, this battle maniac really had nothing on her mind but learning to fight,' you think as you climb up onto the bed, snagging Jurielith's hips and hauling her around again into position, the princess giving a soft 'oof' as she flumps back onto the sheets. Maybe her bratty little snot of a sister had a point that it'll do her good to get some experience with a 'weapon that shoots'. Speaking of which, you rub the tip of your cock between her slick pussylips, parting them a few times with it, while she stares down her body at you doing so, expression somewhere between awe, lust, and trepidation. Doesn't exactly hurt your ego that you're pretty certain she cums the moment you push into her, her back arching and hips jerking, her thoroughly tight virgin pussy trembling around you in eagerness as you sheath yourself inside her. Leaning down and letting those firm torpedo tits squash against your chest, you slip your arms under her lower back to hold her in a bit of that arch as you start thrusting, feeling her legs wrap around you and her hands press to your back, her body moving against yours on pure needful instinct.\n\nJurielith's manner is decidedly inexperienced and less verbal compared to her sister's, but if anything her lust and passion are greater, her body moving more eagerly beneath you, hips showing the fruits of her training as she finds the best angles and ways to move them to increase her pleasure as you fuck her against the bed... not that they aren't doing amazing things for you too. You kiss and lick at the side of her neck, feeling her hot breath washing over your own neck and ear, soft little sounds that keep almost turning into 'please' or 'more' escaping from her lips. When you finally do give one of her ears even a soft kiss again, it's apparently too much and she lets out an almost feral yowl, nails pressing into your back as her body bucks up against yours hard, her pussy squeezing down on you with enough strength and quivering need that it's effectively impossible for you not to spill your load inside her. Both of you are left sweaty and trembling a little in the aftermath.\n\n"I... I think I have an idea of why you were naked in the escape tunnels, now," Jurielith murmurs after a moment, her voice still breathless and shuddery.\n\n"Eheh... ah, yeah, about that, so-"\n\n<i>Click.</i>\n\n'Oh you have got to be <i>fucking</i> kidding me!' you hiss internally even as you shove yourself up and fling yourself over the side of the bed. Again. You saw Jurielith's brief look of confusion turning into understanding as she made a grab for a sheet as you went over, so it looks like at least she's a fast learner.\n\n"Dear? Are you alright?" the Queen's voice says.\n\n"Yes... yes, fine," Jurielith replies airily, in the most 'I just had sex' voice you have ever heard.\n\n"Hmm... I just wanted to check because someone said they thought they might have heard yelling."\n\n"Ah... no, it's just me... alone... in bed."\n\n'Admitting to masturbating instead of sex is one way to go about it,' you think a bit wryly as you look around... and give the rather familiar-looking square tunnel in front of you a flat look. Oh joy. Other than that, though, you're not sure what your options are... well, you could actually stay put this time, and hope that maybe Mamilith is too embarrassed by her daughter's half-admission to stick around. Or maybe you could make it back out onto the balcony and hide there...\n\n<hr>\n[[Here we go again...|LeoAma1x7]]\n\n[[Stay put.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Make for the balcony.|LeoAma]]

"I mean, let's just... say, as a hypothetical, that I did consent," you say slowly, turning your glass around in your hands. "What would that... entail?"\n\n"Oh?" The edges of Pulsar's beak turn up in a bit of a smirk... just a bit of one, though his eyes are dancing. "Is that something you're likely to do?"\n\n"Well. Let's... let's say I'm <i>curious</i>," you admit, shifting a little in place.\n\n"Curious what it would mean to be treated like a slutty little girl, you mean. By me."\n\nYou take a deep breath through your nose, and a mouthful of the Aphidiny, only savoring its sort of honey-wood-jam taste for a moment before swallowing. "Yeah," you say, voice coming out as a bit of a rasp. "Let's just say, hypothetically, that I was curious about that. What... would it involve?"\n\n"Mm." Pulsar swirls his Aphidiny around in his glass, eyeing the slightly viscous fluid for a moment before raising his eyes back up to you, still smiling knowingly. "That depends, I suppose. It's rather a broad range of things, to treat you that way. Since we're sitting here talking about it, if you were really just curious, the first time I fuck you I'll probably take it a little gently. Be very direct, use a lighter touch than I might otherwise. But I'll still fuck you very long, and thoroughly, and all night, and you won't forget it ever."\n\n"... I see," you murmur, squirming in your chair, your cock suddenly very stiff in your pants.\n\n"Of course, the very first thing I'd do in any event is make you say it."\n\n"Er, say what?"\n\n"That I'm going to fuck you." The faint smile on his beak is playful now, those dancing eyes fixed on you, and though there's cheer in his voice there's also a certain intensity to it. "So say it, Leo. Say that I'm going to fuck you like a girl tonight."\n\nYou shift your shoulders, your ass gyrating a little on the cushion of the chair, your glass shaking just a little as you bring it up and take another gulp. "... You're going to fuck me like a girl tonight."\n\n"Yes. Yes I am." He chuckles, taking another light sip of his own drink before setting it aside and lifting his hips, sliding his underwear off and down in a smooth, practiced motion before taking a seated position more like the chair was a throne, legs lightly spread. You now have an unhindered view of his large, down-covered balls and the thick, half-hard pink cock flopping over his thigh, and are filled with a strange mixture of anticipation and fear at the realization it's going to be buried deep in your ass before the night is over. "Now. That said. I can just fuck you... satisfy that curiosity of yours... or we can do a bit more of the 'full experience'."\n\n"... Full experience?" you echo faintly, unable to take your eyes off his prick, watching it slowly getting harder, and thicker, and longer, gradually edging up his hip and along his belly.\n\n"Mmhmmm. That would probably involve a bit of roleplay... or cosplay, depending on how you want to interpret it. By the way, take off your clothes," he adds casually, smiling wickedly before adding a firm, "<i>Now</i>."\n\nAlmost before you realize you're doing it you've set down your glass and are unzipping your top, shrugging out of it and dropping it beside the chair, toeing out of your boots at the same time. Shivering a little and biting your lower lip as you watch him watching you with lazy confidence, you undo your pants and slide them and your underwear down, your achingly stiff prick springing free and slapping against your belly, leaving a light smear of pre on the toned muscle as you slide out of it and settle back naked in the chair, bared for his viewing pleasure.\n\n"Very good. Now, as I was saying, that will involve taking you down the hall to the room I keep as a playroom. It's stocked with all sorts of fun costumes and toys I've accumulated over the years, so there, I'd dress you as a girl... what type, well, we'll figure out when we get there," he allows with a chuckle. "If we get there. You see, Leo, if you want the full experience, I'm most likely going to keep it going for... at least several days, until we arrive at our destination. I may or may not even make you keep it up in front of the others on some level, if that's how my mood takes me. So tell me... are you just curious? Or are you <i>very</i> curious?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Just curious.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[... Very curious.|LeoNova5x2]]

"But of course I'm here to see you and your wares, Orrin!" you declare in a mock-scandalized tone, putting a hand to your chest. "Why, the very idea that I'd come here just for the latest clued-in gossip!"\n\nBoth of you have a little chuckle over that, before Orrin moves over to the divider and lifts it up, allowing you to walk around the counter and follow him into the back area of the shop. It's almost as large as the front, albeit not as prettied-up as the other part, mostly consisting of file cabinets, a handful of safes of various sizes, boxes, and tables, as well as an area that's obviously Orrin's office. "I got in some interesting stuff since your last visit. I'm not entirely sure about some of it... I don't always have access to the resources some of my customers have for research," he notes as he starts collecting some boxes and setting them out. "So I don't even necessarily pull these out for everybody. But I can rely on you to not cheat me, so you get all access."\n\nGrinning at him, you cross over to the table he's at as he sets down a plastic tub filled with vacuum-sealed plastic bags. "So what have you got here?"\n\n"Guy came in and said he was a specialist in hunting down cryptids and mythologicals. Apparently knew that some parts of them are useful for spellcasters but wasn't otherwise a practitioner himself, so he sold 'em to me for a batch price. I'm not 100% sure what all of them are, but they're definitely not just normal animal parts."\n\n"Hunh." You follow him as he moves a bit over and sets down a wooden box. "What's this?"\n\n"Mythril."\n\nYou blink at that, staring at him in disbelief. "You're shitting me."\n\n"Nope, tested it myself. It's a wire, less than a gram of the stuff, but it's the purest, most reactive mythril I've ever seen."\n\n"Shit, Orrin, an elf finds out you have that, they'd have your head off your shoulders before you could say 'fudge cookie'."\n\n"Which is one reason I'm willing to part with it for slightly less than would beggar a nation." He sets out a handful of bottles and vials next. "I've also gotten in some fairly rare spell and potion components, stuff I don't get in very often."\n\n"Mm. And... what about herbal components?" you ask with a grin.\n\nOrrin chuckles at that, crossing over to a cabinet and opening it to reveal rows of vacuum-seal glass jars lining it. "Yup. Various of the regular, and also a few new strains that I haven't even tried myself yet. My supplier assures me they're fantastic, though, they've been cultivated and grown with magical talent after all. Anyway, what are you actually interested in today?"\n\n<hr>\n[[The creature parts.|ValNA]]\n\n[[The mythril.|ValNA2x2]]\n\n[[Rare components.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Herbs.|ValNA]]

Your eyes shift slightly back towards the box, as do Orrin's. Everything else since he mentioned the Mythril wire has just been largely pointless chatting, both of you trying to act like that's not the only thing out there worth considering. Your eyes wander back to his face and lock with his, and after a moment the small talk faces and tones drop. "Alright. So you acknowledged that you're motivated to sell. What do you want for it?"\n\nOrrin hesitates a little, glancing at the box again, then at you. His pale cheeks color, and you can tell that he almost blurts something out before clearing his throat and managing to say it calmly instead. "Marry me."\n\n"..." You open and close your mouth a few times, before giving your head a small shake. "I'm... sorry, I think I blacked out for a second there, you didn't actually say-"\n\n"Once you graduate. Marry me." Orrin rolls his shoulders and folds his arms over his chest. "I'm serious, Val. I mean, for practitioners, this is how marriages are made a lot of times. We fit together perfectly. I have the connections for components and rare items, you have the knowledge to use or appraise them. You can grow your skills and I can grow my business, which will also be your business. There's no way in which this isn't a win for you."\n\nYou're left staring at him, flabberghasted. Of course, nothing that he said is actually false, you knew that witches and mages marry for purely practical alliance purposes as often as they do for love, you just somehow never thought <i>you'd</i> get an offer like that. And it's not as if you dislike Orrin himself... you've already considered asking him out before. So it's not like any part of it necessarily repulses you, other than the idea of getting engaged at nineteen. It's just so... sudden.\n\nBut... if he's telling the truth about the wire, and Orrin's never lied to you before, it's not just Mythril, but likely Moonforged Mythril, even more powerful and rare than the normal stuff, which is already "you're not likely to ever touch a piece of it even if you live to be 500" rare. The things you could do with even less than a gram of Moonforged Mythril are almost absurd. And the deal itself is not only benefiting you almost more than him, and you have almost three years before you'd have to make good on it.\n\nStill. Marriage. If you accept his deal on this, it will be magically binding, you'd have a hell of a time getting out of it if you changed your mind later. Oh geez, what are you going to do?\n\n<hr>\n[[Accept.|ValNA2x3]]\n\n[[Refuse.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Get pissed.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Yoink.|ValNA]]

You stare at him, feeling that same sort of fearful excitement when standing on the edge of a cliff and thinking for just a moment how thrilling and insane it would be to jump off. Then you jump. "... I'm very curious. Sir," you add, your voice a trembling whisper.\n\n"Mm, I'm glad to hear that." He stands up, fully hard and truly impressive cock jutting directly at you as he does. "Now, girl, let's go."\n\nYou hesitate only the briefest of moments before obeying, standing up and walking a little stiffly to the door. You have the feeling if he meant you to get dressed, he would have said it. He rests a hand on your shoulder to guide you ahead of him as the two of you step out into the hall, naked and with stiff pricks waving in the air ahead of you, Pulsar enforcing a slow, unhurried gait that essentially displays you to the empty but very public space. You feel flushed, ashamed, and yet so excited as he shows you all the way to the end of the hall and guides you into one of the lifts, the several second trip in it feeling like an eternity before you step out into another hallway. He urges you down it, moving almost as long as you did down the first one before being guided to a set of doors. This looks like some sort of storage space... larger than the crew quarters, but not quite a full cargo area. It's been done up with mostly cabinets, storage bins, and a number of pieces of generic furniture... though you notice in the high corners, there are holoprojectors, the kind that can create environments but generally need solid objects to project over for some things, explaining why the furniture seems so generic.\n\n"Alright, girl, now let's decide how to dress you up. I've accumulated things from all sorts of different cultures and different entertainment medias, so we've got lots and lots of options," Pulsar says cheerfully as he reaches around, gripping your chin in his powerful hand and gently but firmly turning your head towards various of the storage compartments. "Over there is where I keep the 'Full-Blown Slut' outfits. That's the 'Roleplay' wardrobe... moreso than we are already, of course, lots of the more frivolous and amusing options there. Then we have the 'Cute Youth' section... something for you to feel all pretty and sweet as you call me Daddy," he chuckles, giving your ass a light swat and making you jump. "And, hmmm... that's riiight, I haven't used those in awhile, but I do have an amusing collection of 'Baby Play' outfits and accessories. The mood doesn't take me very often, but there is just something sublime about stripping away the entirety of a man's dignity and pride... hard for him to see himself as a man when he's sucking a pacifier and getting fucked in the ass through his diaper, after all," Pulsar chuckles. "Soooo... what will it be, my little fucktoy, hmmm?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Full-Blown Slut|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Roleplay|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Cute Youth|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Baby Play|LeoNova]]

Your finger twitches just a little on the trigger, before you slide it away to rest on the trigger guard instead, huffing in annoyance and lowering the rifle as the starfighter recedes into a dot. "Dammit."\n\nYou hear a clatter of small rocks nearby, and look over just in time to see Nova obviously relaxing, blue eyes closing briefly before he opens them and meets your own eyes, nodding once. "Don't worry, we'll still get him. A fast takeoff like that means he won't be able to shield his vents until he's back in atmosphere... he'll leave a nice bright trail for us to follow."\n\n"How did he know we were coming so precisely?" Gem asks with a frown as she walks over, slinging her staff-rifle behind her again.\n\nYou consider as you return the HW111 to its own position and pick up the MK-99, then make a face. "We forgot to set our weapons and gear to power-as-needed. Two of us might not have alerted whatever low-power sensor he had set up, but I bet all three of us walking around with fully-charged weapons and protection fields lit it up like a candle in the night."\n\nNova shakes his head as he holsters his pistol. "No use fretting about a mistake, we just won't make that one again." He walks over to you and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Listen, the offer to stick with us until we bring Comet in still stands. Why don't you come back to our ship with us, and stick around until we can track him down? There's plenty of empty rooms and, hey, if there's time I can always teach you to pilot a starfighter yourself."\n\nYou hesitate briefly, but frankly it's a good deal... going back to the Guildhall and then deploying again later is just going to cost more in fees, and if Comet sticks to ships and smaller stations in space you might be screwed on tracking him anyway. Man you <i>really</i> need your own ship if you're gonna keep doing this. But for now it's best to give Nova a smile and say, "I appreciate it, think I'll take you up on that."\n\n"Loathe as I am to give him the extra time to flee, I doubt we'll make it back to our own fighters before nightfall, and we do not want to be traversing Teng-infested territory with scattered feral Skahlehs survivors after sundown," Gem speaks up. "Besides, that way we can search it for any potential clues, he obviously left in a hurry."\n\nUnfortunately, not so much of a hurry that he didn't put a blaster pistol shot into his computer. Still, you and Nova are able to open it up and piece together a few bits of data that might make more sense once you're able to follow Comet's vent trail. Sleeping in shifts and using a stone floor for a bed isn't exactly fun, but it's also not new to you. In the morning the three of you set out back the way you came, albeit much faster since stealth isn't really required... according to Gem, if either Teng or Skahlehs are actually looking for you, moving stealthily won't help much, speed and keeping your weapons displayed and ready to use is more of a deterrant.\n\nThe sun is almost directly overhead when you spot the pair of parked starfighters. Defenders, you think with admiration, fairly recent models to judge by the profile and the angle of the back fins, and they're even the variable wing models since the usually forward-angled wings are currently slid in to line up against the sides of the ships, taking up less space in the clearing they've been parked in. Not hard to tell whose is whose, since one is orange with tiger stripes and the other's a pearlescent purple-blue... they must have a really good paint artist on their crew, or have paid a lot. "VW-15s?" you ask, unable to keep some of the excitement out of your voice.\n\nNova grins indulgently at you, though his blue eyes are sparkling happily as he says, "VW-11s, actually, our engineer is just very good at upgrading them. Plus that way we paid 20,000 credits for the latest drive fin system for the 11s rather than spending 200,000,000 plus on surplus 15s."\n\nCan't beat a deal like that, you think as you follow Nova to the striped starfighter. Luckily the VW-11s have a navigator seat as well, if a slightly cramped one, so you're able to settle in as he goes through the proper startup sequence. "Gem, once we leave orbit, you call up the Stellar Body and have them meet us, I'll scan for the vent trail," Nova says once he's settled on the flight helmet designed to fit his more animalistic features.\n\n"Copy," Gem's voice comes back over the comm.\n\nSoon the jungle is dropping away beneath you, the blue sky darkening to black and the stars losing their twinkle. 'Yeah I gotta get me one of these,' you think as you look out the canopy, grinning. Might even have to swallow your oh-so-natural modesty and start wearing a flight suit. You settle in to just watch the stars or the planet orbiting distantly below, idly listening to Nova and Gem comming back and forth every so often, until there's a flash in the distance that gets your attention. An object 'stretching' in before rejoining normal space appears, drifting closer, its grey, shiny surface picking up every bit of ambient light to display it despite the darkness of space, showing off the sleek lines of the rounded 'head' at the front and the tapering neck, growing out into a round midship with the broad 'ring' at the center, the tips of it splayed out for the fighter bay below, the drive section sticking out behind, the dipped section on the upper part of the ship glistening with flashing blue lights playing across its shiny black surface, like its own display of the night sky as it would be seen from the ground.\n\n<img src="images/NovaCarrier.jpg">\n\n"Oh nice," you can't help but breathe, before clearing your throat a bit and saying in a more dignified tone, "That's an old Void Force Nova-class light carrier, isn't it?"\n\n"Yup, that's my namesake there, originally the VFS Nova. My dad was the last to command it, when they announced they were going to retire it, he... well, it's a long story, but he was able to take command of it as a licensed civilian instead. Couldn't keep the name due to regulations, so he said he compromised by giving the name to his son instead," Nova says with a chuckle. Then he shifts his tone of voice to a lightly professional one as he says, "Stellar Body, this is Brightstar One and Brightstar Two, requesting permission to dock."\n\n"Permission granted, Brightstar One and Two," answers the sort of deep, smooth voice that you've often envied for its observed ability to make females' (and some males') clothes fall off. "Welcome back."\n\n"Stellar Body we are heavy one passenger, so why don't you come to meet our guest when we land? Brightstar One out," Nova continues, glancing over his shoulder to flash you a grin as well as the cockpit arrangement will allow. "Time to meet the family."\n\nAs the two starfighters make their way into the bay, which has at least a dozen other similar fighters in it (only two of them with noticeable paintjobs), you do see two figures of very different sizes standing and waiting. The big one looks like he's almost seven feet tall, with an avian-like head including beak, white feathers long and backswept enough at the top to simulate a hairstyle, tips dyed red, though the tail poking out the back of his red flightsuit is thin and golden with a tufted tip, and while the look of the fingers bared by the gloves of his flightsuit are covered with yellow 'scales' and tipped with claws like a raptor bird's feet, the ends of his digigrade feet are also somewhat feline. The other figure might not even hit five feet, with thick black hair, equine features, and a pair of very tall ears, that add at least a foot to his height, wearing fairly plain grey overalls that almost match his brown-grey fur. As the three of you climb down from the cockpits, both salute, though the tall one's is crisp and immediate, the short man's awkward and obviously a hurried afterthought.\n\n"Sir, welcome back," the red-clad alien declares.\n\n"At ease, Pulse, as always," Nova says genially. "Leo, I'd like you to meet Pulsar Griffon... he's our flight deck commander, tactical advisor, our second-best fighter pilot, and, well, just about everything we need him to be that one of us isn't. And this engineering genius with the long face is Lunar Donkey, and the reason we can maintain a light carrier with a crew of four."\n\n"Call me Lu!" the short man chirps, before grinning sheepishly and letting his ears flop as Pulsar shoots him a quick, hawkish glare.\n\n"Ah, wait... four? This is seriously it for this whole ship?" you ask, glancing around.\n\n"Told you we had a few empty rooms," Nova answers dryly, clapping you on the back. "Now, let's head to the war room so we can discuss what we've found."\n\nShortly after the five of you are sitting around a table, discussing both Gem's findings and the scans Lu conducted with the Stellar Body's sensors following up on her work. "So on this course, I don't see much option other than that he was heading for the Domiana Region," Pulsar says, gesturing to the map displayed on the nearby wallscreen. "The Alakan System is in the Domian Region, and that <i>is</i> one of the preferred shipyards of the Celestial Body."\n\n"Do you really think he'd go back to it?" Nova says with a frown, though it seems more like he's turning over the idea in his head rather than sincerely questioning it. "He'd get the entire crew disavowed at the least, if he took command again."\n\n"It's true, I'd usually credit Comet with more concern for his people than to risk losing all of them their Guild certification, or possibly having bounties put on their own heads," Pulsar allows, bobbing his own head. "But seeing you nipping on his heels in concert with one of the Guild's up-and-coming young bucks might have made him desperate."\n\n"And desperation, as we've seen time and again, can strip principles out of many or most sentients," Gem notes rather darkly, her multiple tails giving a visible twitch through the open area in her chair. "We've seen it happen to Comet himself before... is it not how he put himself in this position?"\n\n"True enough," Nova admits with a sigh and a bob of his own head. \n\n"I mean, Alakan isn't home to just the docking facilities, the shipyards also <i>makes</i> ships for three different designers," Lu pipes up. "If he decided his starfighter wasn't going to cut it, instead of meeting up with the Celestial Body he might be going there to buy or steal a new ship."\n\n"And if it's a production shipyards, that means it's on a shipping lane," you speak up as well, pointing to an area on the map between two nebulas. "Probably right there, yeah? Whether he was going to steal a ship or cargo, that'd be one spot to do it."\n\n"Good eye, Leo," Pulsar agrees, beak curling up a bit in an approving smile. (You wonder how it does that?) "You're right, and it wouldn't be the first time Comet's indulged in piracy. I think at this rate we can confidently set course for the Domiana Region, and make our way towards the Alakan System from there, unless something turns up to point us in another direction."\n\n"Alright, gang, let's set course and then everyone grab some rest, I want this crew on top of its game in case the Celestial Body is there waiting for us," Nova announces, standing. "Meeting adjourned."\n\nYou're shown the way to your own quarters, and despite being shipboard they're definitely way nicer than your room at the Guildhall. Probably officer's quarters, you think with satisfaction as you emerge from the shower and step into the fur dryer... you don't have fur, but the all-over blow drying is hard to beat. Leaving 'blasted by warm air' as your hairstyle, you exit to the room proper and pull on your thoroughly clean shirt and pants, admiring the work the wall unit did. This ship is probably a good 150 years old, albeit it was bleeding edge when it was first put into service, and you'd bet most of the rest of the machinery can't be younger than fifty or sixty years, but it's all clean, shiny, and works flawlessly. Lu must really know his stuff and have the automation running like a dream. You flop on the remarkably comfortable bed, closing your eyes and tucking your hands under your head... then peeking an eye open.\n\n... Hm. Bored. You're not used to turning in so promptly... generally you're either hanging out in the public areas of the Guildhall, or researching, or training until you're too tired to do anything but sleep. The fact that your room there <i>is</i> so small and your bed so marginal might have something to do with that, it's basically a closet to keep your sleeping body in after all. (It's cheap, and you want every credit you can to put towards your ship.) Just being in a comfy private room when you've still got energy to spare is something that hasn't happened in years. Maybe you should go see if anyone wants to hang out, or find the ship's training facilities, or something.\n\n<hr>\n[[Go see Nova and Gem.|LeoNova1x6]]\n\n[[Go see Pulsar.|LeoNova2x1]]\n\n[[Go see Lu.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Look for the training facility.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Just kill time in your room.|LeoNova]]

"Oh, sure, what's up?" you ask with a blink, seriousing up a little and setting your drink down.\n\nStarielle starts to open her mouth, pauses, then smiles and offers her hand. "Why don't we go upstairs?" She leans in and adds in a whisper, "Don't worry, I won't charge you if we don't wind up doing anything."\n\n... Yeah you're not really gonna argue with that. You accept her hand, trying to keep your grin from turning too silly and happy as she draws you along with her towards the stairs, giving you quite the amazing view as she walks up ahead of you, her full, round ass as completely on display as the brown elf outside's. She shows you the way to a room, and... yeah it really is pretty nice, you think, glancing around. A lot better than some of the rooms you've stayed in on worlds like this before, including a larger and comfier bed... part of you winces a little at the hit to your finances this stay might wind up being, but Starielle is sitting on the side of the bed and watching you expectantly so you walk over and settle down beside her.\n\n"The organization you're with... the Guild, is that what it's called?" she asks, her expression now serious as well.\n\n"Yeah, the Guild of Interdimensional Professionals, Specialists, and Enforcers. GIPSE for short, but you're right, pretty much everyone calls it the Guild," you answer with a nod. You pause, then gesture at your jacket. "By the way, mind if I?"\n\n"Oh, I'm sorry, please, get comfortable." She watches as you unzip your jacket and start wiggling out of it, then laughs. "I really am sorry... it's not often I bring someone to a room and forget that we're supposed to undress."\n\n"Nah, it's just warm in here, it's fine." You give her a grin again, casually shifting in place in hopes of settling your growing hardon. "But yeah, the Guild, they're... well, it's not <i>quite</i> right to say they're who I work for, but I work pretty much exclusively through them."\n\n"I see." Starielle nods once. "There must be a number of benefits."\n\n"Yeah, aside from being able to take jobs and travel to them, the biggest one is probably access to the Guildhall," you acknowledge. "It has a ton of services, provided either by the Guild itself or third parties who operate there, they have cheap housing for Guild members... I mean, even if it's nowhere as nice as this," you add, glancing around and grinning a bit ruefully. "Ah, cheap food, lots of other stuff."\n\nThen you blush as Starielle leans in closer, her gaze more intense now as she asks, "And how does one join?"\n\n"Ah, well, I mean... besides knowing about them, you have to either be able to contact them or be introduced, take a test to prove you have at least some basic combat abilities and preferably other skills, enough money for three months' dues up front, plus money to buy at least one of what we call a 'beacon' and proof you have enough for four uses of the portals. I mean, there's other ways, but that's the usual one."\n\n"I see, I see," she murmurs to herself, cupping her chin and gazing towards the floor.\n\n"Uh, are you... thinking of joining the Guild?" you ask, unable to keep the dubious tone out of your voice.\n\nShe looks back at you and smiles wryly again. "I actually used to be a soldier, before circumstances required me to make this my profession." She hesitates, as if waiting for you to ask, but her smile turns rather grateful when you just nod in acknowledgement. "My circumstances have made it virtually impossible to resume anything resembling a martial profession... I've been having difficulty even finding an expedition heading for unexplored regions that would accept me. But if this Guild goes to many other worlds... then yes, that would be ideal. I'm very much interested in joining." She hesitates only briefly, before leaning in again. "Sir..."\n\n"Leo," you provide, blushing some again.\n\n"Si-... ah, just Leo," she amends, apparently having picked it up in your face, her smile growing. "Leo, could you help me join the Guild?"\n\nYou hesitate a little. You actually have a spare emergency beacon and a guest pass in your jacket... pretty much any way to send her to the Guildhall (other than just telling her how she could contact them herself) would require the use of the guest pass, which automatically 'tears' it in the system and then buys you a fresh one, since a merc at your ranking is required to have at least one on every mission. They're <i>not</i> cheap... neither are the emergency beacons, which you'd also lose if you just gave them both to her, which would be the method that would give her the most freedom (and admittedly you the least accountability). You could just take her there yourself and show her the ropes, but then that's sort of attaching her to you at least a little bit, her reputation and yours would become linked to a certain extent. Or you could assume the fullest responsibility you could... you could effectively take her as an apprentice, giving her the easiest path to full membership while also making sure that she doesn't stumble too badly along the way. And, well... if she really is a competent fighter already, it's not like it'd be too terrible to have a pretty elf woman accompanying you on your missions.\n\nOf course, a very insistent part of your anatomy has to get its bit in... c'mon, you're here in a brothel inn room with a hot, barely-dressed elf, she's basically telling you that she'll do <i>anything</i> for that guest pass, why not make use of that before taking her along with you in the morning?\n\n<hr>\n[[Tell her a contact method.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Just give her the beacon and pass.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Take her to the Guildhall with you.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Take her as an apprentice.|LeoAma2x3]]\n\n[[Trade the pass for a night of wild sex.|LeoSon1x1]]

"Okay, so... there's a way of getting you Guild membership that lets you skip <i>most</i> of that," you say slowly, squirming a little at the way Starielle's eyes light up. God she's pretty. "If you're the servant of a Guild mercenary and go with them on jobs, really quickly you can earn an 'attached license'... and it's a lot easier to get an attached license promoted to a full one after awhile."\n\n"Like an apprenticeship?" At your nod, she looks thoughtful, before smiling brightly. "Are you suggesting we do that? You'd do that for me?"\n\n"I mean, having some help would let me take even bigger missions and let me bump up my rank, so it'd be good for me too," you allow, before asking, "Do you know what a contract of indenture is?"\n\nShe frowns thoughtfully for a moment. "I think so. It's sort of like... becoming a slave, but only temporarily?"\n\nYou wince a little. "Ah, yeah, I guess it kinda is, though I'd rather not think of it <i>quite</i> like that. Thing is, it's a solid way to show that you're... well, my servant, I guess, but the Guild wants at least something like that."\n\n"I see, I think, it's so that two people don't just go up and register someone as a servant to get one of these 'attached licenses' but in actuality they don't work together at all."\n\n"Pretty much. If we did a two year contract... and put in that you could buy out for a small amount after a year, if you wanted to... that should be enough to get you an attached license almost immediately."\n\n"I see, I see." Starielle looks thoughtful again, before asking, "May I have a little time to think about this?"\n\n"Sure. I could even come back in a day or two if you'd rather..."\n\n"No, I certainly won't need that long," she says quickly, grinning ruefully and shaking her head. "More like just a few minutes. I just want to think it all over and make sure this is what I want to do. If I leave here I'm probably not coming back to the world of my birth again, after all."\n\n"Ah... yeah, I can see how that'd be rough." You nod slowly. "Take your time."\n\nYou watch her clearly considering the angles, blue eyes narrowed slightly as she looks down at the floor, and you try not to focus too much on her beautiful body and how this is certainly not what you expected to be doing with her when she walked up to your table and flashed her panties at you. But finally she looks up at you and nods. "Yes, I would very much appreciate such an arrangement. I'll be forever grateful. When do we leave?"\n\nYou grin. "We can right now, if you want. Want to get your stuff together?"\n\n"Yes!" She smiles brightly and throws her arms around you, and you try not to do any stupid laughing at the feel of her tits against you because oh lord they are amazing. Starielle stands up and says, "I'll be right back, five minutes at most," she says before hurrying up, flashing her nearly bare ass at you again.\n\nYou sigh, flumping back on the bed. What are you dooooing? Oh well, you always wanted to start building a Mercenary Company eventually, guess this is one way to do it. Well, assuming she wants to stick around once she gets her full license.\n\nA bit under five minutes later, which you do feel speaks well to her organizational abilities, Starielle walks back in, now wearing a green silk tunic... ah, it's really more of a tabard, the flaps belted together at the waist and therefore showing off a generous amount of both hip and sideboob... and boots, carrying a squarish bound-up package in one hand and a less even but not much larger bag in the other. She's also got your sword and rifle slung over her back, you note with relief as you get up, pulling your jacket back on. "Alright, I'm ready."\n\n"Okay," you answer, stepping up, then giving her a grin as you step in and slip an arm around her middle. "Pardon, gotta be in close contact if we both want to get on one ride." Fishing your beacon out of your pocket with your other hand, you hit the button to activate the transfer. You both wind up stumbling more than is strictly dignified coming out of the portal, but oh well, not much way to avoid that. You almost immediately see a Guild-armored guard coming towards you, but you hold up a hand. "This is a new servant I picked up, we're on our way to the contract office to do the contract of indenture."\n\nThe guard's helmeted head nods, and they follow along after you as you head for the level above the job desks. Less than an hour later you and Starielle are walking back out, her looking at her copy of the contract. "That's it?"\n\n"That's it," you agree with a nod. "Contracts of indenture don't require slave chips or anything like that... they're considered 100% voluntary on both parts. I mean, if someone breaks it and runs off, they can be found in breach of contract and depending on the ruling of the person that officiated the contract... the Guild in this case... can be forced to serve it out, maybe even with some extra, but I don't figure we need to worry about that, huh?"\n\n"No, I don't think so," she says agreeably as she folds the paper up and tucks it into the bundle that apparently contains her physical effects. After that the two of you head to get her the necessary medical checkup, which she passes with flying colors, though the medtech does inform you that the small magical tattoo that Starielle was apparently using for birth control is 'not compatible' with Guild tech, so you pay a small amount to have it removed and for Starielle to get a more standard implant, the blonde elf woman looking a bit sheepish as she follows the tech into the private room. Unfortunately one of the other medtechs badgers you into getting your own checkup while you're there, which already feels exhausting even before you have to do the stand, turn, blink, stare into this, get prodded, to the point that by the time Starielle and the female tech emerge, you're bordering on grumpy. At least your new companion's smile is a bit mentally refreshing.\n\nYou're starting to feel the day wear on you though, so deciding to finish the little details of getting your last job wrapped up after you catch some sleep you sort of autopilot yourself back to your apartment. It's not until you actually open the door to the small interior that doesn't have a lot more room than for the single bed and chair with small terminal station that you actually remember you've got an elf following you around. "Ah, right, so... this is pretty much home, like, for now," you admit, stepping back to let her go in first. "There's a refresher room every fourth door, that's got all the basic facilities you need, worst case scenario you might have to walk a ways down the hall but since everyone's usually working and here at different times that's pretty rare."\n\n"I've certainly slept in worse places," Starielle says brightly, setting her things on the built-in footlocker at the foot of the bed and then bending over to smooth out the sheets a bit, leaving you to blush and glance away as she displays the little white panties hugging up against her pussylips.\n\n"Yeah, yeah... ah, why don't you go ahead and grab some sleep, then," you say, starting to turn.\n\n"Hm?" Starielle stands and turns, looking confused. "What about you?"\n\n"I've got some things to take care of, and then I can just kick around for awhile."\n\n"You seem rather tired though, Leo, if you don't mind my saying," Starielle notes, frowning just a bit. "It's probably not my place to say, but I think we should go to bed."\n\n"... 'We'?" You blink, pointing at her and yourself, then towards the bed. "... We go?"\n\n"... Yes?" She blinks... then you actually see her blush. "Oh, um, I just sort of... assumed... that was going to be the situation, that during my apprenticeship we'd... I'm sorry, I assumed, did you actually not want-"\n\n<hr>\n[[You should keep it professional.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Well... if <i>she</i> wants to.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[... This deal just got considerably better.|LeoAma]]

You really need to get the heat back on, preferably tonight, which means the fastest and most reliable way of earning some creds, and with the least chance of winding up in a cell (because the cops around here care fuckall about prostitution). Even as you're turning it over in your head, the rain stops and dries up, leaving the air merely cold and moist and the streets damp. Well, if that isn't sign enough, you don't know what is. You head back inside, utilizing a small hiding spot you half discovered, half manufactured in the lobby to slip your sword inside... you don't like leaving it, but you also know from experience that johns tend to be driven off by the sight of large, obvious weapons. It's not like you're entirely unarmed without it, and even if you were you're still fairly confident in your ability to take care of yourself.\n\nYou set off down the sidewalk, hands in your jacket pockets as you turn over the possibilities. Let's see... well, you could just [[roam around nearby|Kai3x1]], you're likely to pick up at least a couple of offers that way, even if it takes awhile. Or you could head towards the nearest "[[warm corners|Kai]]" areas that are more well-known to be a place to get picked up, though you'd have to deal with competition. The last place on the streets would be what other street girls call "[[The Drips|Kai2x2]]"... it's where the less humanlike aliens with a fetish for human girls hang out. Some of that can get kind of weird, or extreme, but they also pay a lot more.\n\nOff the streets... enh, there's a few options there, but the only one you'd be up for is doing a stint over at [[Shining Glory|Kai]]. It's definitely the easiest and least work way to make the creds, if not exactly possessed of the most dignity.

"I'm sorry, Princess, while I wish I could stay, I've got some matters to attend to back at the Guildhall." Which is kinda-sorta bullshit... your dues get automatically subtracted from your primary Guild account which you made sure has enough in it. But it's a better excuse than 'I don't want to lose out on a ton of money because we fucked'. "I need to get back as soon as I can."\n\n"Ah... I understand." She does indeed look disappointed, but the princess smiles after a moment. "Perhaps we'll meet again."\n\n"I'll look forward to it, Princess." You give her a bow, then depart. You're actually going to go rustle up the caravan leader and tell him you don't need to go all the way back to the Duke... once you're back on the Guildhall, you can contact him from there to confirm the job's done and get paid, without having to take the slow way back to see him face-to-face. It's sliiiightly less professional that way but it means not spending another week here, much of it in a wheeled vehicle with no shock absorbers traveling on an unpaved road.\n\nStill, that doesn't mean you have to leave <i>right</i> away. You can afford at least a few hours to walk around, take a look at things, enjoy the sights both architectural and... biological. ... They're pretty trees! Haha yeah right you're totally peoplewatching, taking a look around at the various different elves and the rarer but still present non-elves... there's enough of them that you don't attract too many glances yourself. It's a really nice place, beautiful, cultured, classy-\n\n"Holy shit," you murmur to yourself, jerking to a halt. "Seriously?"\n\nIn front of one of the more traditional sorts of buildings are a pair of elf women, holding signs written in what's presumably the local language and a few others, one or two of them being close enough to languages you speak for you to make out 'Special Offer!'. From what the girls are calling to passers-by, said special offer is a big discount for first-time customers. As to what sort of customers... that's pretty obvious, too, since both women are gorgeous and wearing different variations on very skimpy... oh let's just say it, slutty... maid uniforms. In fact even as you watch, the tan-skinned of the pair turns to call to one of the other people passing by and shake her sign... and similarly shake her practically bare ass, nothing but a white string protecting any remaining modesty she might have.\n\nSeriously? Seriously? ... Yup, seriously. Drawn as if by gravity, you make your way across the street, both girls cooing and winking at you as you pass through, returning their winks and a roguish grin as you do because fuuuuuuuuuuck they are hot. Inside is something that looks a lot like ye olde taverne if it were trying to be classy but not too classy, and you're quickly approached by a more mature looking elf woman in a full-length, non-sexy maid outfit, her hair even done up in a bun and spectacles on her nose. "Good evening, sir, and welcome to the Blushing Elf Maiden Inn. This is your first time with us, so there will be a discount on all our services and items."\n\n"Oh? You know right away it's my first time?" you ask with a grin, tilting your head.\n\n"I know everyone that has ever been in my establishment, sir, and also have a perfect memory of their preferences and a keen eye for determining them in the first place. As for you..." She glances you up and down, before her lips curl up in a small smile. "No offense, but I can smell the youth on you. This might not be your first time in such a place, but you're hardly an experienced pro at it, are you?" Your blush must answer her all she needs, since that smile grows by the tiniest amount. "No worries, this is a no-pressure establishment. Would you like to spend the night?"\n\nYou're not exactly eager to get back to your closet of an apartment on the Guildhall, so you nod. "Yeah, sure."\n\n"Excellent, you'll enjoy our rooms, they are immaculately clean compared to similar establishments on this world run by humans, I'm sure you'll find. If you like, why don't you have a seat at that table there, I'll have a complimentary drink sent over to you with something else I think you might like. If you decide you do, that is fine, if you would rather have something to drink and eat and retire, that is fine as well."\n\nYou do have to admit this might be the first low-pressure brothel you've visited, you think as you move over to settle at the suggested table, after passing your weapons to the check girl with assurances you'll get them back. (You're not too worried, you locked down the rifle with biometrics before handing it over and it's got a tracker, and you're not <i>too</i> attached to the sword.) You settle in, just taking a look around, though there's not much to be seen at the moment... apparently the girls don't just lounge around on display all the time. You can hear the occasional giggle, moan, or rhythmic thumping from somewhere above, but only faintly... the wood they use must be decently soundproof. You glance aside as someone sets a glass full of amber liquid on the table, then wind up staring.\n\nAdmittedly, when you were picturing 'elf princess' in your mind, Amanielle wasn't quite the exact image you had... if you were really honest, the hair was more golden, longer, and fuller, the ears more slender, the eyes more blue, and... well, frankly, the boobs bigger. This elf girl... elf woman... though, she looks like she stepped directly out of your imaginings back when you took the job. She has all of that and it's all wrapped in a very naughty maid outfit, the white of the top hugging her large breasts and leaving a fairly generous amount of the underside bare. The lower part of the outfit hugs around her middle, turning into something that might be a skirt in the most very technical of definitions, barely coming down over the very top of her curvy hips, and otherwise turning into a frilly white drape over the front in imitation of an apron.\n\n"Hello, sir, welcome," she says in a voice like a beautiful song out of a clear blue sky. "I'm Starielle, and the mistress thought you might like it if I sat with you for a bit. And if you like, perhaps now or a bit later, you'd also like to sample some other wares?" At which, she uses her white-gloved hands to daintily lift up the front of the 'apron', displaying the small string panties tied at the sides that she's wearing.\n\n<img src="images/Starielle.jpg">\n\n"Ah... sure, have a seat," you manage, your brain defaulting to politeness since it's struggling to catch up to the rest of you after that brief stopping of your heart and your breath being taken away.\n\n"Thank you." She curtsies almost as well as Amanielle does, then draws a chair over beside yours and slips into it, giving you another sunny smile. "You're a soldier, yes?"\n\n"Well, sort of... more soldier for hire," you admit, managing to get back on your feet and give her a warm smile now.\n\n"Ah, I see, I see. Actually... would you perhaps be the man from beyond this world that was hired to escort the princess?" Your surprise must show on your face, since she hurries to add, "Rumors spread quickly once soldiers get back to the city. Especially, you know..." Her pretty smile actually turns a bit wry as she lifts her hands to indicate where the two of you are sitting.\n\n"Guess that makes sense." Chuckling a little, you shake your head, then thumb at yourself. "Yup, that's me."\n\n"There was..." Starielle hesitates, then glances over her shoulder before looking back at you and lowering her voice. "There was something I wanted to ask you about. If you don't mind. If you don't want to, I understand, too, of course."\n\n<hr>\n[[No, go ahead.|LeoAma2x2]]\n\n[[Mm, let's keep it professional.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[You're really just here to relax.|LeoAma]]

You hesitate. Ah... that's right, didn't the Witch Princess always go by, well, 'the Witch Princess'? Since you only read half the book or so you hadn't found out whether there was a specific reason for that or if the author just considered the character's role and name the same thing. Still, may as well keep up adhering to the narrative, it's gotten you this far... which is out of the tower and not splatted, so hey. "I'm the Witch Princess," you answer, winding up turning it into a bit of a declaration.\n\n"Ohhh? Yes, I do believe you are," the dragon says agreeably, glancing you up and down as if just to confirm. "Well then. Witch Princess, I am Blue Dragon, and I am for the moment at your service." The dragon bows elegantly again, before rising, slender fingers giving curly bangs a flick, pretty lips curled in a gregarious smile. "Your declaration caught my attention... certainly that's the way a dragon prefers to live too, after all. How came you to be in such a place, however, that you'd rather try to fly when you can't than see it out?"\n\n"The demon lord Thule kidnapped me and tried to make me marry one of his sons," you explain, simply enough, since the book wasn't particularly long on elaborating either. Still, you're not going to try to read it like a script, even if you remember it. Sighing, you fold your arms under your newly generous chest, trying to ignore how you wind up pressing your boobs up and together. "Apparently it was either that or become his sex toy. Neither was a terribly attractive idea, so, out the window I went. Thanks for catching me, by the way."\n\n"Of course." Those silver eyes sparkle again, but at least this time the dragon neglects to bow. "But my, how interesting! Something is sure to come of this, especially since I doubt Lord Thule will just call it a bad day when he finds you gone. You'll have to continue trying to escape for some time, I fear. Still, if you'd like, I can help you. You can certainly go a bit further with flying through the sky than running about on foot. My suggestion would be that we head for the Crystal Hills... well known as a place to go if you're not sure where to go, since supposedly you will always find something to set you on the right path there."\n\nAnd there it is, the plot hook that begins they whole adventure of roaming around and collecting traveling companions. Of course in the book the Witch Princess agrees immediately, knowing that she'll find the next point on her destiny in the Crystal Hills (and where you know the next member of her group is). So here's your chance (again) to either keep going with the story, at least for now, or to diverge.\n\n<hr>\n[[Don't go with Blue Dragon.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Go with Blue Dragon, but somewhere other than the Crystal Hills.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Go with Blue Dragon to the Crystal Hills.|ValWP]]

If you're really gonna take a header out the window and trust to the narrative to save you, you better stick to the narrative. Besides... you have to admit, as much as your jaded brain insisted you snort some at the Witch Princess's declaration, your heart did a little 'squeeee!' and you can't help but get a bit excited to be melodramatic too. You clear your throat, lift your chin, and address the rising sun.\n\n"I would rather die at my own bidding than live only to do the bidding of another!"\n\nThere, that didn't make you feel nearly as silly as you thought it would. Actually, you're feeling pretty good about yourself, even as you lean forward, forcing yourself not to flail or panic as you feel gravity taking hold of you and hauling you the rest of the way over the ledge and sending you hurtling downward. It takes a bit more of an effort not to scream, since you're pretty sure that would ruin this nice dramatic moment you've made for yourself, and you try to yank your head up to watch the sunrise instead of at the ground getting closer very fast.\n\nThen in the distance there's a flash of pale blue and a flicker of motion, and something's whipping out and around beneath you, leaving you to thump on something soft and just slightly yielding, instinctively sinking your fingers in and gripping fistfuls of the fur(?) as the thing beneath you writhes and almost vibrates beneath you. It takes a moment for your head to stop spinning, but when you lift it you look ahead to the long, sinuous body with the almost diamond-shaped head and long, curled ram-like horns. Shimmery saphire-like scales cover most of its body and its long, slender wings, and white fur... actually now you think it might be some sort of down... runs down the center of its back, which you're currently on.\n\n"I hope you don't mind the interruption," comes a surprisingly smooth, pleasant voice from ahead of you. (The book only described the dragon's voice as 'pleasing', you still somehow expected it to be deep and booming at full size.) "But I overheard your declaration and thought I'd come have a chat with you about it."\n\n"No," you say, letting out a long breath and thumping your face forward, rubbing it in the soft down. ... It sounds like a cliche, but the dragon really does smell like fresh water and sunshine. "No, I'm good with this, thank you."\n\nThere's silence from ahead, and maybe it's your imagination, but it feels like the already warm dragon heats a little further. Then there's a soft laugh, before the motion of its body alters. "Alright then! But let's have a bit of a chat face-to-face, then, shall we?"\n\nThe dragon descends into a forest of very tall trees, spaced just enough to allow its long, slender body to slip between them back and forth, before it curls around one repeatedly to land on the forest floor. You shift a little awkwardly, finally just sliding down its side and landing a little unsteadily on your feet. The dragon's long, sleek body gives a gentle writhe, then retracts and pulls in close, changing so fast you can't catch many details. Instead a human form is soon standing in front of you, bowing at the waist with one hand outswept, while you stare. \n\nOnce again the book's description failed to prepare you for the reality in front of you. There was something about 'slender and beautiful, as when a dragon', but... yow. You just weren't prepared for the dragon to be <i>so</i> pretty as a human, and to have such a winning smile. Androgynous, sure... you're not entirely sure whether the dragon is a handsome female or a beautiful male, the book was always vague on that count. But yes, very tall, and lean, and striking, wearing blue silk blouse and pants in a dashing cut, with wings stretched out from the back and horns still curling around the ears from the side of the forehead, and a thick, manelike mop of soft white hair. The dragon reaches out to take your hand, pressing lips to your fingers as you blush some, the gesture so smooth and unaffected that the sincerity hits you right in the... ... heart. Silver eyes twinkle as they fix on your face.\n\n"So. Before we begin our discussion, I do believe introductions are in order," the dragon practically purrs, thumb rubbing briefly over your fingers before your hand is released. "It might be polite if I went first, since I'm asking for them... but then you did come hurtling out of the sky, so perhaps that extraordinary circumstance makes up for asking you to speak first."\n\n"Ah," you murmur, trying to get your head back in the game. "Right. I'm..."\n\n<hr>\n[["Valerie."|ValWP]]\n\n[["The Witch Princess."|ValWP3x3]]

Well. No real help for it. Taking a deep breath, you move over to the window and clamber up to stand on the sill, which is broad enough to allow your feet ample purchase. Balancing yourself with a hand on the side, you look out towards the rising sun, and then down... way, way, way down... at the garden courtyard that's slowly being illuminated below. It's not quite 'greasy stain' distance, you figure, but it's definitely 'splatter' distance, which is enough to make you swallow hard. ... Still, it's okay. You can do this. You too are a strong, independent woman who don't need no demonic marriage contract. \n\nYou take a few deep breaths again to steel yourself. Okay, you can do this. You can do this. You... are forgetting something? You frown a little. What are you forgetting? Oh, right. The Witch Princess had a dramatic declaration before she jumped. ... Maybe more melodramatic than anything else. It was very inspiring and a little silly. Still, do you really have to obey every little bit of the book's storyline? You don't actually have to declare your inspiring thoughts to the sunrise, do you?\n\n<hr>\n[[Skip it.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Better safe than sorry.|ValWP3x2]]

You make yourself consider the options... but in your heart you already know there's only one choice. "Is there anyone here that isn't willing to risk their lives to make sure Zee is safe?" you ask out loud.\n\nAurora quickly shakes her head, and Ico simply gives you a small smile. Niobe is quiet for a moment, before snorting and smirking a bit. "Shit, it's your money, I'll risk my life how you tell me. Alright, from what I heard, Underfoot's probably bein' held in a shut-down apartment building towards the edge of the sector. It's undergoing redistricting so officially everyone's supposed to be out... makes it good for flops and safe houses for shit like hostages. It's a decent clip away so we'll take my car."\n\nSoon the four of you are in the sleek four seater vehicle, the lights of the city flicking past on the almost canopy-like windows and top. The safest configuration seemed to be Aurora and Ico in the back, with you in the front passenger seat and Niobe driving since, y'know, her car. The silence is a little awkward since this doesn't exactly seem like one of those 'radio' drives, Aurora eventually clearing her throat. "This is a really nice car, Niobe."\n\n"Yeah, I like it," the gene-soldier replies briskly.\n\n"Ah... honestly I sort of considered buying one just like this, but... I... don't drive in cities very much, so it seemed like a... waste of money," the bounty hunter murmurs, trailing off.\n\n"Yeah, was 'spensive," Niobe agrees airily, before the awkward silence closes back in.\n\nYou fiddle with the feathers of your earring for a minute, before you're unable to help giving a soft 'heh'. "Man, 'Underfoot', it's been forever since I heard Zee called that, you know?"\n\n"Huh, you don't call her that anymore?" Niobe asks, sparing a slight glance at you with obvious surprise.\n\nYou snort at that. "You were the only one who ever called her 'Underfoot', Niobe."\n\n"What? No, everyone called her that," the cat-eared woman protests with a bit of a frown. "Right?"\n\n"That was just you," Ico affirms in a lyrical tone.\n\n"Shit, seriously? I mean, what the hell else would you call her?" Niobe huffs, with an almost chortle. "She was always, <i>constantly</i> right-"\n\n"Underfoot, yeah," you say along with Niobe, both of you chuckling and even Ico giving a soft laugh as she looks out the window.\n\n"She was always trying to clean the dojo right while you and Kai were doing grappling practice," Ico murmurs, glancing down and at her hands clasped in her lap, a smile on her lips.\n\n"Man I remember the first time I called her that, too, she was doing that shit and actually trying to sweep the mat while we were using it, and I almost stepped on her again and I was <i>so mad</i>-"\n\n"But you never would yell at her or curse at her," you interject, feeling your grin stretch your cheeks.\n\n"Shit I guess so but I had like a dozen profanities all lined up there to go in front of callin' her always underfoot, but man you're right I guess 'cause none of 'em would come out and all I could do was go 'You, you, you-!'"\n\n"Underfoot!" the three of you complete together, before sharing a laugh.\n\n"Yeah," you murmur, glancing down and plucking at your seatbelt. "... She did that 'cause she liked you, y'know."\n\n"No shit?" Niobe murmurs, giving you another side glance.\n\n"Yeah, you were her favorite."\n\n"Uh, what? Zee's always thought <i>you</i> ignited the reactor cores, kid."\n\n"Favorite adult, I mean," you correct softly, feeling your chest tighten as you wonder if Zee's hoping you'll come and save her right now.\n\n"... Yeah?" Niobe's expression is that of someone who feels lost for a moment, before she murmurs, "Yeah, well, she was a good kid. ... Is."\n\nThere's a moment of silence, before Ico speaks up, a tiny, rueful smile on her lips as she keeps her gaze down. "It must be nice, being someone's favorite."\n\n"Uhhhhh, what the fuck're you talkin' about?" Niobe asks in an annoyed and bewildered tone, actually tossing a glance briefly over her shoulder towards her former fellow slave. "You were the kid's favorite from day one."\n\n"Stop, you don't need to be nice," Ico murmurs, directing her gaze out the window again.\n\n"Have you fuckin' met me, what in our twenty years of nearly dyin' together makes you think I'd ever be fuckin' nice to you? You're the kid's favorite, you dumb bitch."\n\n"Oh do be quiet, look at her, she's still wearing your old jacket."\n\n"Uh, <i>yeah</i>, it's a nice fuckin' jacket, you know how much I paid for that thing? Meanwhile she's still carrying around that old fuckall katana you gave her, she could've traded up to a vibroblade or a crystalslicer or damn near anything else that'd be better if you weren't her favorite."\n\n"That's nonsense, the sword is a work of art, you're just-"\n\n"Guys," you cut in, your throat a little tight. Both of them go silent, giving you the moment you need to find the strength to say, "I couldn't even start to choose between you."\n\nThere's quiet for a few moments. Then it's Aurora who breaks it. "I'm kind of jealous," she admits. "I always sort of wanted sisters."\n\nFrom the glances exchanged between the three of you, none of you quite knows what to say to that.\n\nLuckily soon you're pulling up to the curb, and Niobe leans over the wheel a bit to point. "That one there. According to my guy, that's where they're holding her. We get a little closer I'll probably be able to sniff them out."\n\n"Tactically it's probably somewhere on the middle floors, since they probably feel that way it's easier to see anyone coming," Aurora pipes up. "In about seventy percent of bounties where criminals are hiding out in abandoned buildings, they're somewhere in the middle range of floors."\n\n"What's the other thirty percent?" Niobe grunts.\n\n"Rooftop."\n\n"The ratio is roughly the same for hostage-takers," Ico adds, giving Aurora an approving look before looking at the building as well. "Mm. Twenty story building, power is out for four blocks around which means that getting power back to the elevator without lighting up the rest of the building would take some delicate hacking <i>and</i> hardware work-"\n\n"And they're on the tenth or eleventh floor, yeah," you pick up, feeling more than seeing Ico nod approvingly at you picking up her prompt. "Figure there's probably at least five of them since Horace likes to be thorough, they had to take Zee up with them, most likely tenth floor, west side since they'd be expecting anyone coming from the sector to approach from there, s'why Niobe did that detour."\n\n"Smart kid, you noticed. 'Kay, we'll confirm once we're inside, but it's good to narrow it down. So, like I said, you're the one in charge of piling the pig shit, kid, what's the plan?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Hit them hard and fast.|Kai]]\n\n[[Enclose them.|Kai]]

You lean in a bit towards Sakai, whispering to him, "You need to do something, you can't just let him drive her out like that or you'll look weak."\n\n"What?" Sakai turns his head just slightly towards you, his lips pressed into a thin frown as he whispers back.\n\n"Aer was Niobe's slave name," you murmur back, seeing comprehension almost immediately dawn in his eye. "Dunno how Horace found that out, but he threw the biggest insult he could in her face at the first opportunity as part of his power play. You've gotta-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-leave too."|Kai]]\n\n[["-take him to task."|Kai1x10]]

Nova's tall, chiseled form is completely on display... apparently his fur conforms closely enough to his skin that it doesn't hinder showing the contours of muscle on his stomach, chest, arms, and legs, because all of them are quite obviously toned. And that fur is all he's clad in, the pale vanilla white running down his front and along the insides of his thighs, the orangey-red and black stripes along his sides and back. Of their own accord your eyes flick down, catching a glimpse of his crotch... and the sheath and balls also covered in white fur, the tip of an ink-black cock just barely poking out of the opening of the sheath.\n\n"Evening, Leo," he says in a warm, casual tone, as if it were no nevermind to him that you'd walked up on him naked.\n\n"Ah, hey, Nova," you answer, yanking your eyes back up to his face and keeping them there. You try to pick your next words carefully...\n\n<hr>\n[["Am I interrupting anything?"|LeoNova]]\n\n[["So, flying solo tonight?"|LeoNova1x8]]\n\n[["Waiting for somebody?"|LeoNova]]

Enh. You'll grab something to eat while you're on the job... possibly literally, being in another dimension is a pretty decent excuse to just steal whatever the fuck you want, in your experience. (Though of course there's a time and place for everything.)\n\nYou head to one of the lobby kiosks and get a job board from one of the clerks, then head to a nearby chair and flop down, sprawling as you start scrolling through it. Some other mercs have their jobs divided into categories for easier browsing of whatever they feel like, but for you personally you don't really care about the type... a job's a job. No, you've got yours set up to highlight two things and two things only, the job's rank and how much it pays. How much it pays, well, obvious why you want that, the rank thing is a little more complicated.\n\nGuild jobs are ranked according to the Guild's appraisal of their difficulty... not just difficulty for physicality and skill, but for things like navigating tricky situations and causing blowback, potentially even impacting the Guild itself's reputation since you're its representative (to a certain extent). And since you're a slave, your Guild certification is tied to Doonian's. You're allowed to take anything up to a C-rank mission on your own, but if you take B- and A- rank missions, you're effectively serving as Doonian's proxy. Meaning that if you screw up those jobs, he's the one that gets dinged, or fined, or even potentially ejected from the Guild. Which would probably mean very bad things for you. So you have to be a little bit careful with those sorts of jobs.\n\nSo let's see, let's see... [[B-rank job, 'Royal Bodyguarding'|KaiGuild]]. Yeah, that figures, even simple bodyguarding jobs tend to bump up above C if they involve sufficiently important royals like princes, princesses, kings, and queens. (Dukes and duchesses usually hover around C-rank. Then you've got your lesser nobility like Viscounts that can get ranked as newbie quest level depending on the difficulty, but a lot of thirsty female mercs still take them hoping to wind up as the Viscountess. Or whatever it's called.) Apparently this is in fact bodyguard duty primarily for a princess, and pays quite well. Still, you'd have to be careful not to fuck it up... if you did you might be lucky to get off with Doonian tazing you to the floor repeatedly.\n\nA [[C-rank retrieval job|KaiGuild]], going to a savage world and picking up some artifacts that have already been marked on a map. A quick glance at the basic appraisal of the place says it's pretty light on the megafauna, so you should be able to handle it even with the basic weaponry available to you. Pay's decent, worst aspect of it would be slogging across a lot of hostile country.\n\nThere's also a [[C-rank assassination job|KaiGuild]]. Well, you're assuming, it doesn't use the word 'assassination' since most of them don't, but it involves planting multiple time bombs in different locations. Kind of on the messier end of things, but it pays even better than the retrieval job and should only take you a day or so, if you decide you're up for that kind of thing.\n\n... Now here's a weird one. You've never seen a listing for a [[Scapegoat|KaiGuild2x2]] before. It's only an F-rank, the second-lowest there is, but the pay's on the higher end for a C-rank job, which is definitely odd. The description says that it involves 'assisting in the resolution of a minor succession crisis' and that it's likely to be rough physically and involve some public speaking and possibly even playacting, but doesn't go into a lot of detail. Still, must be legit or the Guild wouldn't have put it up. It also has a strictly defined duration of four days, so taking into account Guildhall time wonkiness and the shifts from dimension hopping and you'd probably only be gone... what, thirty-six hours or so, Makarzia-side?

"Yeah. Yeah, I know a few people we could ask," you say slowly. "I'd have to look up where they're working out of now, but they're both Guildcerts, so shouldn't be too hard. But we get even one of them on board, we can consider Zee as being good as safe in a crashpad bed and Horace in his crypt."\n\n"Really?" Aurora can't help but perk up with obvious curiosity.\n\n"Yeah. Just got one question for you, though..."\n\n<hr>\n[["How much money can you put together on the quick?"|Kai6x4]]\n\n[["What's your tolerance for bitchiness?"|Kai]]

"It's an assistance contract. I'm gonna be right in the thick of this."\n\n"Alright." Vima types a little more, and tosses you a last lingering glance, silently asking one more time. At your small nod, she hits a single keystroke. "Your job is listed."\n\n"Thanks, Vima." You nod again, suddenly feeling tired. "See you around," you add as you turn and walk away.\n\n"Oh! Kai!" the clerk calls before you've gotten more than ten steps away. "Wait!"\n\nSighing, you turn and walk back. "Look, I told you, yes, I'm su-"\n\n"Oh, um, no, it's not that." She points at her screen. "It's that someone already accepted your job."\n\nYou blink. "Wait... seriously?"\n\n"Yes, you've been asked to meet them in Special Vault Prep Area Three."\n\n"... Great, thanks." Okay, that's... weird. Having your job listing accepted before you even had time to wash your hands has jarred you enough that everything is starting to feel a little unreal. You make your way across the lobby and into a lift, standing there silently for a good ten seconds before you remember you need to tell it where to go. "Lift, special vault prep. Uh, three." The doors quickly slide closed and you're immediately being rushed off towards the nearest lift exit to your stated destination in the area where the larger weapon vaults can be brought up and people can work on or prepare their contents before heading to a portal.\n\nYou walk into the prep area labeled '3', looking around for who seems likely to be the one who accepted your job. It's not hard to guess... for one thing, there's only a single person here, sitting on the side of one of the long, sturdy metal tables, and she's sliding off of it even as you walk in. For another, you know exactly who it is, from the shortish silver hair with a side-ponytail and a fall on the other side, the tactical webbing that clips around her breasts which are partly displayed by the purple one-piece that makes up the main part of her garment, the long black coat, and the black shorts, all of it expensive and in perfectly maintained condition. "Aurora," you murmur, with an air of 'I should have known'. You're familiar enough with each other... she's got a huge hero complex, and has specifically stated she wants to free you and any other slaves she can a number of times. You guess you shouldn't be surprised she pounced on your listing... although maybe you are, a little, you always kind of thought she was all talk and no action.\n\n<img src="images/Aurora.png">\n\n"Kai," she says softly, walking over to you. She lifts her arms as if intending to give you a hug, hesitates, then puts her hands on your forearms instead, gently lifting your hands up as she looks down at them. "... Is this Doonian's blood?" she asks in a whisper.\n\n"Yeah. You heard?" you ask, hearing your voice go flat even as you can feel something in you bottoming out.\n\n"I saw the notification of his will going into effect go across the merc boards, so I set a priority flag on any job or news about you hoping you'd turn up." She raises her head, a slightly pained look in her eyes. "Oh Kai, I wish you'd at least taken the time to wash his blood off before you'd done something so reckless."\n\nYou yank your arms out of her hands and turn away. "There <i>isn't</i> any time, Zee is out there, being held captive by a monster!" you snarl, though even to yourself your words sound faltering, forceless, exhausted. \n\n"... I promise you that we will get her back," Aurora says after a moment, her tone careful. "And soonest. I won't say another word about how you should have come to me for help first... ... except that, sorry," she adds with a soft huff at herself. She gingerly rests a hand on your shoulder. "But you can't push yourself in this state. How long since you slept?"\n\nYou want to snarl at her, but you're feeling all airy and weird, and find yourself just answering instead. "I don't know, maybe... probably night before last."\n\n"Since you ate?" she prompts gently.\n\n"Longer, I guess?" you reply, wondering why she's asking, wondering why you're answering, wondering what any of this even is.\n\n"Kai. Kai. <i>Kai</i>." You suddenly find your thoughts a little clearer as you feel gloved hands on your cheeks and realize you're staring at a pair of intense, concerned blue-purple eye. "Kai. You are exhausted, you are hungry, you're probably dehydrated, and you're starting to dissociate from the shock."\n\n"Oh." You blink, realizing all of that is very true. "Oh. Shit."\n\n"So what I need you to do is drink some water, take a quick shower, eat something, and then spend at least an hour sleeping in a detox tube. Absolute minimum, or you won't be able to stay on your feet long enough to help me get Zee back. That's the important thing, getting Zee back, right?"\n\nYou want to be angry at her, yell that she's condescending to you and treating you like a child, that she's not your mother or your sister or your savior or whatever the hell she thinks she is that she can tell you to hydrate and take a nap so you won't be grumpy. But all of a sudden you're just so, so tired. You're so tired and you let your head hang and you whisper, "Alright."\n\n"Okay. The facilities are over this way, come on."\n\nYou remember the facilities in the really nice prep rooms like this one. You've been in them before. It's pretty great, nice little cylinder shower stalls that close up and the glass goes frosted in a neat shimmery way, the water temperature's always perfectly controlled, the stuff from the vending machines even tastes better than the stuff in the lobby or at least it seemed like it. You remember Ico giving in to your pleading and buying you an actual candy bar from one of the vending machines that Aurora is buying a bottle of water from now, Niobe laughing at her for being such a sucker. The pop of the cap sounds like the door closing behind Ico the day she was sold, the clatter of it into the recycle bin like the ornament Niobe threw down the garbage chute during her shouting match with Doonian the day she bought her freedom. The cold of the bottle in your hands and the water spreading through your mouth and throat reminds you how cold the shower was that first day in the little rundown apartment on Makarzia after moving there from the beautiful Guildhall suite that had been the only good thing about living with Doonian once the others were gone. The sound of the shower starting and gentle hands helping you out of your clothing reminds you of all the times Zee had to do the same for you after you came home, bleeding and hurting, turning over the money you'd bled and hurt to earn to a man whose only response was a grunt.\n\n"Kai." Aurora's voice pulls you back to the present, at least somewhat, and you look over at her. She's standing in the doorway of the refresher area, obviously intending to give you privacy, that pained look in her eyes again. "I'm sorry."\n\nSearching for yourself and finding at least a little scrap, you snort and manage a slight eyeroll. "What, about Doonian? Don't be. I mean..." You shrug a little as you look away. "Sure... it's my fault. But it's not like he ever treated me worth a damn anyway."\n\nAurora nods slowly, acknowledging at least Doonian's treatment of you. "I more meant..." She hesitates, then adds quietly, "I'm sorry this happened to you. ... All of it." Then she steps outside, the door sliding closed behind her. \n\nYou stare at the closed door for a moment, then step into the shower cylinder and hit the button to close it. You just stand there, arms limp at your sides, watching the water sliding down your body and across the floor of the shower flicker with brown, then red. You lift your hands, looking at them, the drying blood turning brighter as the outer layers are washed off. Your hands are already trembling as you slowly clench your fingers into fists, and then you're pounding one against the wall, not a punch, just a downward slam like you wanted to break the wall down, striking again, and again, watching the splatters of blood fly, a noise building in your throat until you're screaming constantly while beating your fist against the metal. Then the scream turns to sobs as you slowly sag down to your knees and slump against the wall.\n\nYou always thought Doonian would be the one to put the last nail in the coffin of the three of you's relatively stable life. But it was you. You did it. You destroyed it. You.\n\nIt's your fault.\n\nYou just feel numb and empty by the time you step out of the shower, somewhat mechanically eating the foodbars the silent Aurora hands you before letting her guide you into one of the detox tubes. She must have paid to turn on the somnic inducer because you just stop remembering, and there's just blissful nonbeing for awhile. By the time light hits your eyelids again and you're gently nudged out of the tube by the motors beneath the padding, you feel vaguely like a sentient being again.\n\n"How do you feel?" Aurora asks as she hands you a folded set of clothes.\n\nYou realize they aren't your clothes, but rather closer to being a copy of her own outfit, albeit with a red one-piece instead of purple. Momentary resentment at her trying to remake you in her own image bubbles up, before you realize the red has the telltale signs of an additive color layer... she actually recolored some of her spares to make it more suited for you. 'Probably slugproof and particle-resistant, anyway,' you think as you start to pull the garments on. "Better," you allow. "Maybe not 100% but I'm combat ready."\n\n"Alright. So we need to decide our next move."\n\n"... Hey, before we do, there's something I want to ask you." You turn to her as you pull your coat down from the peg it's hung on and shrug into it. Zee is still the most important thing, but now that you feel like yourself again you realize that plunging in headlong isn't the best idea, and there's at least time for a question or two. "You've always said you wanted to free me, so what about the job? At the least we're talking a thirty year indenture, you just gonna claim it?"\n\n"I might," she answers, raising her eyebrows slightly, and actually giving you a small smile. "Maybe I'd finally be able to keep you out of trouble that way." At your dismissive but amused snort, she smiles a little more, obviously satisfied that you aren't going to break on her. "We'll deal with that when the time comes. For now, we need to decide how to proceed. Do you think we should call in some of my friends? I have a few favors I'm owed, and on top of that, people that will just come help me if necessary," she adds.\n\n'Must be nice,' you can't help but think a little wistfully. "I dunno about bringing in a lot more people, Aurora. This guy we're going up against is nasty. He did all of this like a lightning strike because I didn't kill someone after we shook on it. Anyone we bring into it is going to risk getting that same attention turned on them."\n\nShe bobs her head a little, at least acknowledging the point. "What about you, is there anyone you can call on that wouldn't mind that level of heat?"\n\nYou open your mouth to say no, then close it. Do you? You can think of at least two people who might, theoretically at least, step up on this issue. It wouldn't be easy, and might take precious time away from rescuing Zee, but either one of them would probably be worth any random twenty mercs you cared to put together.\n\n<hr>\n[[Ask Aurora's friends for help.|Kai]]\n\n[[Go to your friends for help.|Kai6x3]]\n\n[[Go it solo. Er, duo.|Kai]]

"Me," you answer evenly. "I'm the payment. Thirty year contract of indenture for primary completion, lifetime slave contract for both primary and secondary. Feel free to link my Guild record under the payment area."\n\nThat makes her suck in a breath, and she actually stops typing, turning to look at you full-on, her face full of sympathy now. "Ma'am, are you <i>sure</i> you want to do that?"\n\nYou frown at her. "Hey. The Guild doesn't judge. That's what's on the table, put it down."\n\n"... The Guild might not judge, and I'm not judging you," she says quietly, this time not flinching as she looks you in the eyes. "But I can't help but see someone in front of me who's in a lot of pain and is very desperate, and in that sort of circumstance I can't live with myself if I don't at least ask, <i>are you sure</i>?"\n\nHer sincere worry softens you a little, and you briefly glance down at her ID badge. "Listen... Vima... I've been a slave literally as long as I can remember. I made my peace with the fact that I was probably going to live and die a slave a long time ago. Nothing's changed for me... except that someone's taken the one person in this universe I care about hostage and destroyed everything I know because I wouldn't kill an innocent man at his say-so. Thirty years is nothing to get her back... and I'd spend the rest of my life trying to make him pay anyway." You give your head a slight shake, eyes not leaving hers. "This is not a big deal for me. List it."\n\n"Alright," she says softly, turning her eyes back to the screen and typing in the code. "Ah... assistance contract, or bounty?"\n\nMeaning, do you want the person who's likely to be your new owner to fight beside you as you try to get Zee back and put Horace in a crypt, or do you just want to sit back and enjoy whatever short amount of freedom you have before they get back from the job?\n\n<hr>\n[[Assistance contract.|Kai6x2]]\n\n[[Bounty.|Kai]]

"Now you get to see why your uncle hired me," you reply with a grin, shifting your rifle to a better position as you stand, undoing the lock on the hatch at the top of the carriage before shoving it open and climbing through.\n\nYou clamber up smoothly atop the roof of the carriage and steady your stance, confirming your expectation of how many orcs are charging... hm, maybe another six than you thought? Yup, nice long distance, plenty of time for them to show off, let their targets get intimidated, and also hopefully goad the guards into clustering around the real prize. (Which you notice they have... not quite as badly as they would have if they hadn't been told not to, you expect, but the line of guards forming along the road is all hunched a bit closer together and further back in front of your carriage.) Little further away than you thought... you calmly flick down the back physical sight as you draw the fast-adjust video sight out of your coat and fasten it onto the rail over the other, powering it on as you bring the rifle up to your shoulder and start sighting one of the leading orcs. Hm, headshot? No, drop it down a little, just below the throat, try to catch a bit of the collarbone for more impressive knockback, dropping him too smoothly won't be as demoralizing for the orcs or as heartening for the elves.\n\n"Peace and love, motherfuckers," you whisper in amusement to yourself before squeezing the trigger.\n\nThe orcs are worked up into enough of a lather that they don't really flinch at the thunderous report of the ultra-high speed round, nor do most of them even seem to notice as one of their leaders lurches backward dramatically as an explosion of gore flies out of the barn door you just created between his shoulderblades, except for maybe the ones who go stumbling over his body as it's almost flung into them. More of them notice the second one that does the same though, more of them staggering aside and starting to look around in a bit of a panic. They'd apparently been mostly ignoring the elven arrows fired from a similar distance, so you pick one that's got at least half a dozen feathered shafts emerging from his shoulders and chest, and this time you do go for the headshot, aiming just above the nose so that the entire upper half of his cranium turns into a nice energetic slurry of gore flying through the air.\n\n"Take the hint and fuck off, dickwavers," you mutter under your breath, finger lifting slightly off the trigger as the charge at least slows if not halts. Then several of the larger ones give a fresh howl, the war cry picked up by the rest as they renew their vigorous charge, waving their clubs, axes, and crude swords enthusiastically in the air despite some of them having taken them off the fallen. "Fine, have it your way, it's your ceremonyless mass grave." You flick a switch on the side of the rifle, one of its small speakers barking out a sound clip of someone gloating <i>'Welcome to the party, pal!'</i>\n\nThey're getting closer by now without you having fired in a few seconds, which seems to have heartened them to judge by the... visible excitement indicators. Not that they'll ever get to do anything with it, you think to yourself, unable to help sending just a bit of sympathy their way as you squeeze the trigger and hold it.\n\nYou're guessing no one in this world's history has ever heard a train derail, but it's certainly the closest thing to a fully automatic shotgun firing solid slugs that you could think of. The crashing, shrieking cacophony of explosions overlapping each other staggers more than a few of the elves standing below it, let alone the orcs charging towards it. Not to mention the effect it has on the bodies of those you're actually hitting... the ultrasonic rifle rounds may have made relatively small entry wounds and big gaping exit wounds, but this range the places the slugs hit on the orcs' bodies just sort of go away in big wet bursts of green and purplish-red, limbs ceasing to exist, torsos blown away, heads disappearing off of shoulders. You rake your arc of fire back and forth over the line of them, the gun's high-end autostabilizer and the kinetic absorber built into the stock meaning that to you, you might as well be firing BBs even as the massive monster men in front of you are chewed up like so much meat being fed into a sausage grinder.\n\nYou ease off the trigger as you see some of the live and whole ones turning tail, scrambling and even clawing at the ground as they stumble from whipping about so fast, frantic to reverse course and get away. You aim a few more short, chattering bursts over the heads of the ones who don't seem to have made up their minds entirely and send them scampering as well. Satisfied, you keep them in your scope until you're satisfied they've all actually gone and aren't coming back out of the trees. Doing a more thoughtful check of the readout, you decide to go ahead and swap out the matter cartridge... still plenty in there, but best to have a full one in case you need to do that again any time soon.\n\n"What..." Most of the elven guards nearest the carriage still seem rather rattled, despite the cheers and jeering they rallied enough to do as the orcs fled. This one seems to be the only one that's recovered their wits enough to actually address you directly, though her blue eyes are wide and her voice has definitely lost any of its high-handed quality. "What <i>was</i> that?"\n\n"Asymmetric warfare," you answer casually as you click the fresh module into the top of the stock. "Doesn't always work out in favor of the lower end."\n\nWhen you climb back into the carriage and sit back down, Amanielle looks a bit rattled too... she's staring at you wide-eyed with an expression that you can only conclude is equal parts fear, awe, and naked lust. Fortunately the former disappears quickly, unfortunately the latter does too, leaving mostly the middle as she politely and repeatedly thanks you for saving both her and the caravan, and you try not to too blatantly 'aw shucks' your way through it. Sadly, although you'd expect that explicit invitation would be most likely tonight, the caravan doubletimes it along the road, and just before the sun begins to set you approach the capital. It's pretty interesting, you have to admit... you'd always pictured elves living in the woods, and they kind of are here, but it's more like they made some woods for themselves... by having a bunch of trees grow to huge proportions to form what has to be one of the most eco-friendly city walls you've ever seen. The heavy gate at the front leads to a long tunnel going through one of the trunks and into the city within... there's a lot more 'we turned plants into buildings' type structures, but just as many more standard structures, and the castle at the center of it all is a more typical stone edifice that you'd expect to see in a human society of this level of development... though you notice that the stone doesn't seem to have any, well, seams, making it look a bit more like it was sculpted out of one titanic block of marble than built stone by stone.\n\nAs the caravan stops inside the castle gates and everyone begins to disembark, Amanielle turns towards you. She seems a little hesitant, as if uncertain she should speak, before finally saying, "You know, I know that my uncle expects you to return with the caravan so you can confirm my safety and be paid, but... I'm sure my family would like to meet you. Ah... you're such a competent warrior, after all, I'm sure they wouldn't mind retaining you for at least awhile longer, for an additional fee of course. There is a growing danger, I could certainly use a bodyguard."\n\nIf you're reading between the lines right, she's basically saying: Stick around, that way we can get a chance to actually be properly alone together, instead of in a carriage surrounded by sharp-eared guards. Which is definitely a really compelling thought, the extra pay aside. ... On the other hand you're also being given a chance to walk away before you get yourself in trouble. Which if you do it now, will be with her <i>parents</i> around to decide how to deal with said trouble, not just a protective uncle. Your wallet and your dick are saying 'Staaaay!' and your brain is going 'Out out out out!'\n\n<hr>\n[[Stick around.|LeoAma1x3]]\n\n[[Politely decline.|LeoAma2x1]]

You don't have to say anything, just hesitate to speak long enough that Ico steps forward. You can see just the merest instant of something almost like fear in Niobe's eyes as the other woman steps up to her, before she covers it with a smirk again. "Oh, what, you gonna go on or something? About how I owe you, or what a sweet guy the old fucker actually was, we should do it for the memory of who he used to be? Gotta tell you, was never a fan of him even when he was at his best, really."\n\nIco is silent for long seconds, just staring down at the cat-eared woman. When she does speak, though, it's with such conviction that it feels like it fills the entire building. "You were trash before you met him."\n\nNiobe's smirk instantly vanishes, replaced by a scowl and a steadily rising boil of fury in her eyes. "Fuck you."\n\nIco, normally so reserved, her face a steel mask ever since Niobe said she was glad Doonian was dead, pulls her lips back from her teeth as she speaks again. "You. Were literally. Trash."\n\nNiobe bolts to her feet, flinging the candy aside, the discarded hat going tumbling off the seat as she leans in, shouting at Ico's face from inches away. "FUCK you! You don't get to bring that up! You don't get to try and make him some sort of hero!"\n\n"Nobody wanted you before him!" Ico shouts back now, gloved hands clenching as she leans in as well. "Nobody cared about you, nobody tried to help you, nobody bothered! <i><b>He literally pulled you out of the fucking garbage where you'd been thrown away, Aer!!</b></i>"\n\n"<i><b>DON'T YOU CALL ME THAT!</b></i>" the cat-eared woman roars, her pupils blazing red as she turns and grabs the nearest table, effortlessly yanking it free from where it's bolted to the floor and hurling it over Ico's head as if it weighed no more than a baseball, both you and Aurora ducking reflexively while Ico stands tall and unflinching. Niobe's lips are pulled back from her teeth, lungs working like a bellows and making her mostly-bare breasts heave, fingers curling into claws as if she wanted to rip something else apart as she glares at the other woman. "Don't. <b>Ever</b>. Say. That. Name." It looks like it's taking everything she has not to launch herself at the black-haired woman, her hair even sticking out slightly.\n\n"Am. I. Wrong?" Ico replies in the same cadence, her voice liquid ice.\n\nNiobe's lips press together, twisting as if there were something vile on her tongue and she were forbidden to spit it out and trying to resist swallowing it. Her hands fully clench into fists as she straightens up. "... Yeah. Yeah. He pulled me out of the fucking trash. Then he shoved a slave chip in my neck. Big hero."\n\nIco hisses out a noise of frustration, head jerking to one side as her eyes roll before fixing her glare on the other woman again. "You were a discarded gene-soldier with <i>rage issues</i>, what was he supposed to do?! For the first few years he needed the chip just to keep you from assaulting anyone you bumped into in the Guildhall! Forget your Guild certification, which being his slave allowed you to receive practically automatically, without it you'd probably have been in jail! Or worse!"\n\n"Funny, it felt a lot like bein' in fuckin' jail anyway," Niobe literally growls back, eyes narrowing. Slowly the glow goes out of her pupils, her hair laying flat again as she straightens her back and shifts her shoulders. "Fuck Doonian. Fuck the Guild. And fuck you," she adds, jabbing a finger at Ico. "I'm done with all your shit. Get the fuck out of my place before I decide calling the cops on you is fuckin' funny," she snorts, flapping a hand dismissively as she turns her back on all of you, folding her arms. "There's not a fucking thing in the multiverse that you could say to drag me back into this stupid shit."\n\nYou and Aurora exchange a glance, then both look over at Ico, whose face has gone unreadable again and is just standing there silently. And who, after a moment, speaks up again. "I'll pay you."\n\nNiobe's ears twitch, and she turns her head slightly to look over her shoulder. "How much?"\n\n"Twenty million."\n\n"... Owed?" Niobe asks, turning around fully.\n\n"Liquid and immediate transfer."\n\n"I'll get my shit," Niobe declares breezily, taking a moment to fasten her belt before heading for the bar.\n\n"... Did this just... get resolved and she's coming with us?" Aurora murmurs, eyes a bit wide.\n\n"Not sure about resolved but yeah, sounds like the other thing." You look over at Ico. "Where are you gonna get twenty million credits?"\n\n"My account," Ico answers placidly, returning your look. At your dumbfounded expression, she raises her eyebrows slightly. "My owners were very insistent and very generous despite the fact that I never touched it."\n\n"Crystal Dragon was <i>every</i> slave but me getting paid?" you groan, dragging a hand down your face.\n\n"By the way," Niobe announces as she walks back over, still shoving various pill containers and syringes into pockets both obvious and concealed on her jacket. "I won't take cred cards or a bank transfer."\n\n"I see. And how would you like your payment?" Ico asks placidly, as if it were no nevermind to her despite the likely setup for something.\n\n"We go to the Guildhall and do a notarized transfer via official payment document," the other woman replies as she finishes her preparations and tugs the jacket forward into place, smirking. "Oh, and you have to make it out to 'Niobe'."\n\nIco looks at her for a long moment, then simply gives a single nod. "Most certainly, I'd be happy too."\n\n"Damn right you would be. Alright, kid, looks like you're the one lighting this trash fire, so what's our next move?" Niobe asks as she turns to you, resting a hand on her hip. "And yeah, yeah, I know, you wanna save Underfoot, but before we go chargin' off to where they're probably holding 'er I want you to think about it." She tilts her head a bit, ears twitching. "We rescue her first, it'll probably go nice and smooth... but Horace'll know we're coming and he's gonna lock his shit up tighter than the asshole of a Guild loan agent. We try to get him after that, decent chance all of us don't make it out alive. We go right at Horace, yeah, there's a chance he might hurt our girl, but just as good a chance his boys will hold on to her to buy their own lives with if their boss goes down. It's risky either way, not gonna lie, just depends what you wanna risk."\n\n<hr>\n[[Get Zee first.|Kai6x8]]\n\n[[Kill Horace first.|Kai]]

Ico looks for a moment, then sighs. "Oh, Kai, surely you don't mean...?"\n\n"Look, I'm pretty sure we can get her to agree to it now that you're with us," you urge. "You were always good at getting her where she needs to go." You can see the dubious look in Ico's eyes, so you push a bit more. "Besides, she's already on Makarzia, turns out, in the same city sector even, I just never knew it until I looked her up. Even if she won't help, it won't lose us that much time."\n\n"... Very well." Ico nods once, then turns and strides back out of the room. "Come along, it's rude to portal from inside someone else's home."\n\n"Who's this we're going to see?" Aurora asks as the two of you follow after the older mercenary.\n\n"The other woman who raised me while the old man sat on his ass, pretty much," you murmur back, keeping your voice low even though you're still a little back from Ico. "Niobe. She's a little, uh... well, basically she's really into doing her own thing and I wasn't sure she'd help if we didn't have Ico to work on convincing her."\n\n"Oh, are they close?"\n\n"Uh... kinda," you murmur, rubbing the back of your neck. "... Look stick close to me and watch out for thrown things. Or debris."\n\nSoon enough the three of you are back on Makarzia, standing in a stripclub nee whorehouse that's been cleared out for the moment. The person you've come to see is currently lounging back in a comfy red open booth-style seat intended for VIP clients (or in this case the owner) to receive near-constant lapdances in, currently toying with the hat she took off the slender (and rather young-looking) male stripper with mouse ears and a tail before shooing him out with the rest. Her big, boulder-firm breasts are almost as on much display as the feline ears atop her head, both lifted proudly as if daring anyone to comment on them, the former covered by a scant black bikini top. Her shortish, iridescent purple hair matches the one-piece she's wearing that has the chest cut out to allow for such a display, yellow-lined black jacket shrugged off her shoulders and fur-lined hood back, her tiny black cutoffs currently undone and open, yellow belt flopped apart as if to display just how close she was to chucking them altogether. She tucks one white sneaker under a muscular thigh as she looks at the three of you, smirking around the steaming blue sucker in her mouth.\n\n<img src="images/Niobe.jpg">\n\n"Well well well, been awhile, kid," Niobe chirps, slipping the sucker out enough to lick it as she grins at you.\n\n"I see you're still indulging in the most vile sort of chemicals," Ico cuts in primly before you can respond, freshly gloved hands clasped in front of her.\n\nNiobe's smile turns into a frown for just the briefest of moments, before twisting into a sneer. "And I see you're still going around doing everything you can to scream 'I'm a servant, I'm a servant, I live to do menial bullshit!', Ikes," she responds, doing her best to make the nickname sound like 'yikes'. "What, you come to clean off the tables?"\n\n"Mm, at least something in this establishment would be clean, then," Ico bats back smoothly, letting her eyes sweep back and forth in obvious appraisal.\n\n"Listen, Niobe, I'm sorry I never came to see you before now," you try to cut back in. "I didn't even know you were in the city."\n\n"Well, didn't know you were here either, kid, should've made sense though... Makarzia's where everyone who's bailing out of the Guildhall 'cause of brokeness winds up, seems like." Niobe shrugs, then smirks again and pops the sucker back into her mouth, letting it bulge out one cheek and slightly muffle her speech as she says, "Fortunately not all of us <i>stay</i> broke, eh? Smug all you want, but this is only one of my places, and that ain't near all I got goin' on. Guess I just wasn't destined to fail like the old man, eh?"\n\n"Doonian's dead," Ico replies simply, red eyes boring into the other woman.\n\n"..." Niobe sits up, body language shifting as her eyes narrow slightly and the smirk turns into a light frown. "Yeah. Yeah, I heard," she continues after slipping the sucker out of her mouth, the thing steaming in the slightly stale, overwarm air of the club as if it were a hot coffee carried out into a winter night. "And you know what I say? About. Fuckin'. Time." She punctuates each word with a poke of her finger at the air in Ico's direction, the maid-clad woman's face a stony mask. "Should've happened about six years ago, whole lot of shit would have been better if he'd cacked it then. ... But boy, you really fucked up this time, kid," she continues, head turning towards you again.\n\n"Yeah. Yeah, I know," you murmur, bobbing your head. "This is all on me. I fucked this up, Niobe, I know. There are parts of it I'll never un-fuck, either, but first things first, we've got to find Zee."\n\n"... Yeah, well, might be I know something about that," Niobe allows, sitting back even as your eyes widen a little. She wiggles her fogging candy in the air as she continues. "Heard a few things through the grapevine as to where she's bein' kept. Seein' as we go way back, I'll just go ahead and tell ya... but don't tell a soul, 'kay? I got a reputation to protect these days, and givin' out free info doesn't figure into it."\n\n"Thank you, thank you, Niobe." You let out a rush of breath, then give her a somewhat wan smile. "I mean, I was still kinda hoping you'd come along."\n\n"Sorry, kid. I'm done with everything to do with that old bastard, and sorry to say that includes you." Niobe raises her hands as if to indicate that they're not touching the situation. "You've got a non-Guild bounty on your head high enough to have everyone in the hemisphere looking to collect, and the most I can do is tell my people they can say goodbye to their genitals if they so much as think about it. S'all I can do for you, my little up-and-coming band of badass motherfuckers may be made of some real mean assholes, but we are not ready to go to war with the Allfather's syndicate."\n\n<hr>\n[[Try to convince her.|Kai]]\n\n[[Let Ico convince her.|Kai6x7]]

The teapot crashes down amidst the cups, sending exquisitely-painted shards of shattered China skittering across the surface of the bureau ahead of the tea that quickly overflows the tray and starts seeping over the edges.\n\n"... What?" Ico asks without turning, her voice having turned to a hoarse rasp.\n\nYour jaw works a little as you feel the bile rise in your throat, pushed there by the hatred you have for yourself at hurting her like this, telling her like this so that she'll help you. But it's too late to rethink it now. "He's dead. When they came to take Zee, they beat him almost to death and left him laying on the floor for me to find."\n\nYou see her head slowly raise, her jaw work a little, the delicate shift of her throat as she swallows hard. "... Why... why would they do that?" she whispers.\n\n"Maybe because he fought back. Maybe because they thought it would hurt me. Maybe just to send a message," you say, staring at her, watching her hurt and watching her heart break. "... But I know it's my fault. I did this to... us. It's because of me. And I wish I could take it back, but I can't. All I can do is try to get Zee back and punish the people that have done this."\n\nYou watch as Ico's hands move to rest on the edge of the bureau, see them actually shaking a little in that brief shift. Her graceful, spry manner seems to have left her, and for a moment all you can see is a grieving middle-aged woman who is desperately trying not to cry. "If the two of you would... excuse me... and wait in the library next door instead," she says after a long moment, obviously struggling with everything she has to keep her voice from breaking. "I need... a few moments."\n\nOnce you and Aurora have moved to the small library in the next room and closed the door, Aurora spends several moments looking towards the sun room before looking over at you. "She... <i>really</i> loved Doonian, didn't she?"\n\n"Yeah," you say in an exhausted tone, flopping into a stiff leather chair and slumping. "Like I don't think romantically, maybe, but she loved the hell out of him."\n\n"It's hard to understand, someone like her... and him, with everything I've heard, let alone everything you've told me," Aurora notes as she wanders over to lean against the back of the chair.\n\n"Yeah well Ico's weird anyway but also I guess that's not the old man she knew," you say with another sigh, leaning your head back and closing your eyes. "She was one of the first slaves he bought when he started hitting it big, back when he was damn near King of GIPSE. He wasn't a booze-sweating tub of lard then, I guess, he was the guy who could do any job and do it with class. She told me when he bought her she was a scrawny kid who was billed as never gonna be good for anything but scrubbing floors and maybe using in bed if you didn't mind 'em skinny. And he turned her into someone who can do shit with a sword that most people think only works in movies. I guess that's the guy she still sees when she hears the name, or something, despite having to put up with the end product just as long as I did. Y'know... to me he was never anything but a mean, miserly, lazy old goat. She probably still saw her hero who made her everything she was underneath that or some crap."\n\n"... So what happens now?" Aurora asks after a few awkward moments of silence.\n\n"Well." You shift a bit and thunk an elbow on the arm of the chair, propping your cheek against your palm and curled fingers. "Either she'll decide to join us after all, orrrr she'll come back in here and cut my head off since it's my fault the old bastard's dead."\n\n"Eheh. ... Wait you're not serious are you?" Aurora peeks around the chair at you, her cute face crinkled a bit in anxiety.\n\n"If she does, I can guarantee you it will be with absolute trace amount blood splatter mess, she's a fuckin' artist at minimizing cleanup," you reply, waggling your eyebrows.\n\nBoth of you jerk a little as the double doors at the hallway side of the library open up, Ico striding in purposefully, dry-eyed and face composed. "Very well then, let's be off."\n\n"So you're coming?" You stand up, the weight off your shoulders so intense it feels like it might drop back down on you and crush you. "Do we need to try and buy you from your owners? Aurora managed to put together some cr-"\n\n"That won't be necessary. I've tendered my resignation, and as my current owners have long insisted they would do if I ever decided to leave, I was immediately granted my freedom." At your slightly slack-jawed look, she raises her own eyebrows slightly. "Yes, I am very well aware you think I'm insane for preferring to be a slave, you are hardly the only one, we can discuss this matter once Zee is safe and the man responsible for Doonian's death is dead."\n\n"It's not going to be easy," you admit. "His name's Horace Allfather, he has a ton of killers on his payroll and most are armed and armored with the best crap that a metric fuckton of money can buy. Pardon," you add in a little murmur, glancing down quickly and scuffing a foot when Ico shoots you a look. You look up to find Aurora staring at you, and find yourself resisting the urge to stick your tongue out at her. You're glad to see Ico again, but you admit to it being weird feeling like you're eleven years old again around her.\n\n"If he prefers to go the hard way, I am very much for that," Ico says evenly with such cheery calm that it might freeze even Horace's blood if he was there to hear it. "Be that as it may, do we have a plan?"\n\n<hr>\n[["Find Zee, kill Horace, get dinner, that's the plan."|Kai]]\n\n[["Well, now we go pick up our fourth."|Kai6x6]]

"Um?" Aurora blinks at that. "What do you... you mean like just for a normal purchase, or weapons, or-"\n\n"I mean, within the next twelve hours, literally what is the highest dollar amount you can have ready to hand over to another person?" you press.\n\n"I... well, I mean, with what's in my accounts, and if I call in a few IOUs and cash in some-" At your stare growing more intense, she almost starts to stammer. "And I suppose if I call my parents, I... I... twelve hours?" she asks faintly, and at your serious nod she says a bit shakily, "Fifteen million, I suppose?"\n\n"That might just barely be enough, so be ready to do it," you explain as you turn and head for the door.\n\n"Kai!" Aurora blurts, before hurrying after you. "What in the world would I need fifteen million credits for?! That's enough for a quality starfighter!"\n\n"Or one really high-quality slave."\n\nLuckily the Guildcert you're looking for is still on file and publicly tracked, even if it hasn't been used in years. You and Aurora step out into the sunlight just outside of a gated community of tall, opulent homes, most of them gleaming white in the atmospheric field filtered sun. The gate guards look a bit startled and obviously edgy as you walk up, and dubious when you ask them to call the head maid at one particular address and tell her that Kai needs to see her. He looks just as shocked when he apparently gets an affirmative, but apparently that means he has to be polite as he opens the gate and shows you the way to that particular house. The door is answered by a very chipper, very cute young woman about your own age who's wearing her hair in twintails, her maid uniform accessorized with pink, and moves like a trained killer as she invites you in and asks you to wait in the sun room. The two of you settle in the beautiful, meticulously tidy, and yet still obviously used and lived-in room and wait. Eventually a somewhat older maid with long black hair enters, moving with a serene grace that speaks of absolute perfection of both manners and the ability to kill anyone in the room at need. If not for the slit in the side of her skirt that shows off almost all of one leg and the katana holstered at her back, she'd look like the very image of the stereotypical head maid.\n\n"Kai," she says as she approaches you, her smile soft and reserved even as her red eyes shimmer warmly. As she enfolds you in a hug and you hug her back, you can't escape the emotional rawness that reminds you of how you used to look in the mirror at your similar red eyes and try to figure out how she might actually be your mom. Perhaps she notices something in how hard you squeeze her in the hug, because when she draws back she rests her hands on your shoulders, face concerned. "Kai, what's wrong, what's happened?" \n\nYou swallow hard, looking up a bit at her face. All this time and you've never gotten as tall as she is. "I screwed up. I screwed up really bad, Ico, and we need your help." At her glance towards the other mercenary, you say, "This is Aurora, she's... she's helping me."\n\n"It's nice to meet you, Aurora," Ico says primly, before drawing back and smoothing out her apron. "Why don't I make all of us some tea, that helps just about everything," she says smoothly as she crosses to a nearby chest of drawers, the top indeed set up for prepping a tea service, which she begins to use with such precision and smoothness that you'd think the weapon she was wearing was some odd decoration and she'd instead spent her entire life studying to be a domestic servant.\n\n"... I got involved with something way over my head," you admit as you sit back down beside Aurora on a backless love seat. "On Makarzia... where we moved to awhile after you were sold... I got sent out to make some money. I was gonna just do a quick job for one of the crime bosses there, but he was always asking me to let him buy me out, and I thought maybe this time I could get Zee out too, and I know, I know how you feel about that Ico and I'm sorry but-"\n\n"Kai, it's alright," the maid says gently, even as Aurora puts a hand on your back and rubs a little to try and calm you down. "I accepted long ago that you didn't share my views about our lives, and I don't expect you to. The contention was always with Aer, not with you."\n\n"Her name's Niobe now," you murmur, fighting to keep your voice steady. God you hate being so... raw, like this, like an open nerve inside a chipped tooth.\n\nIco's hands pause in their prepwork for just the barest second, before she resumes. "Niobe, then. Just because I take pride and am content in my status doesn't mean I think everyone has to be. Or should. If you felt it was better for yourself and Zee to find a way out, I'm not going to argue."\n\n"... Yeah, but like I said, I screwed up. Real bad," you continue, slumping forward and resting your forearms on your thighs. "I went to entirely the wrong person. A monster. He said he'd get us both free, and he'd make sure Zee was taken care of and comfortable, and I'd just have to work for him for twelve years. Then he sent me to kill a guy. ... Just a guy. Some government worker, hadn't done anything to anybody, and... I almost went through with it, but-"\n\n"But you didn't," Ico interrupts smoothly, punctuated by the very soft clink of a silver spoon against a silver infuser.\n\n"... No. I mean, I guess I wouldn't be here if I had, but..." You trail off.\n\n"Oh, killing him could certainly cause trouble that would bring you here. I just knew from looking at you. And hugging you." She glances over her shoulder, giving you a small smile as she pours hot water into the teapot. "I still see the girl I trained in the woman before me, Kai. And she wouldn't kill a man for a reason like that."\n\n"... They took her, Ico," you say, voice shaking as turns back to her work. "They took Zee."\n\n"... I'm very sorry to hear that," Ico says softly as she places the lid carefully on the teapot.\n\nYou honestly feel like you've been slapped. You can almost feel the sting in your cheek as you stare at her back. "That's... that's all you can say?"\n\n"Kai, I am <i>very</i> fond of Zee, even if she wasn't my apprentice like you were," Ico says primly as she keeps her eyes on the teapot. "And I understand why you would think that I might leave my duties here to rescue her. And perhaps under normal circumstances, I would do so. But my owners have received several credible threats recently... specifically, against the lives of their children. Children I have sworn to protect on my honor and my life, whom have known me as being as much of a constant in their lives as you did. I cannot walk away from that obligation for the sake of an adult woman who I have made no oaths to, as much as it pains me to admit."\n\n"... So that's it?" you ask quietly.\n\n"That's not it, obviously, I will still do what I can to help," she answers primly as she picks up the teapot and angles it precisely to start pouring a cup. "I cannot go myself, but I can ask my owners if they can spare one or two of the other maids I've trained. Likely they could use the combat experience, most of them haven't drawn their blades in anger, it will be good for them."\n\n"Is this where we buy her anyway?" Aurora asks you in a low whisper.\n\n"... If it's like she said, that'd never work, her owners would never sell her right now, not for what we can pay," you murmur back, before turning your gaze back to Ico's back, trying to think of what you can say to give her a push.\n\n<hr>\n[["This is the right thing to do."|Kai]]\n\n[["They killed Doonian."|Kai6x5]]

'Urban Fantasy' sounds interesting. You head over towards that section, blushing at the feeling of arousal trickling down your thighs at walking around such a realistically rendered and 'normal' public place in the nude. Ahhh, this game is already really good! As soon as you step over a faintly glowing line around the bats-and-wolves themed carpeting of the section, there's a flicker of purple sparkles and a tiny woman flits into being in front of you... brown-skinned, pale purple hair with a 'crown' braid tied with a pink bow, sparkling blue quad-wings and wearing an outfit on her luscious little body that can best be described as 'two large squares of blue cloth tied on by more pink ribbons'... well, that, and matching leg-sheaths.\n\n<img src="images/Moonsugar.jpg">\n\n"Hiiiii! Moonsugar the helper fairy here!" she chirps happily. "Since this is your first time in this section I thought I'd give you a heads-up! 'Urban Fantasy' is where we put all the stuff that has magical and fantastical elements but in a modern Earth setting... well, not that modern, we actually set everything about a century ago! Makes things simpler for writing when not everyone has an intercranial comm implant that gets at least four bars wherever you are on the planet, y'know?"\n\n"Ah, so it's not set in modern times? And it's not just, like... vampire and werewolf politics?" you ask the little AI.\n\n"Nope! In Devious Dive, Urban Fantasy covers not just your hatless wizards with hero complexes and your sex addict necromancer sociopaths, but also magical girls, anti-demon ninjas, and ongoing apocalypse scenarios! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, I'll be hovering unobtrusively nearby."\n\nNodding and resisting the urge to give the fairy AI a pat on the head (she's sort of technically an employee you guess and that seems mildly too forward), you take a look around at some of the outfits, things that could happen to you while wearing them (or the tattered shreds of them) flitting through your head.\n\n<hr>\n[[Flannel shirt, jeans, and long coat.|YamiUF]]\n\n[[One-piece and short skirt.|YamiMG]]\n\n[[Body stocking.|YamiDN]]\n\n[[Tattered and stained clothes.|YamiZA]]

"Look, you said it yourself, you really don't understand why Luna dumped you so suddenly, right?" you ask. At his forlorn nod, you slip out of the booth and beckon for him to join you. As the two of you start walking along, you slip an arm around his shoulders, which makes him jump a little at the unexpected contact (or possibly unexpected affection). "So it's simple. We'll help you understand girls better! Then maybe you can get inside her head better and figure out the path to getting back together with her!"\n\n"I... guess that makes sense, yeah," Kyle agrees after a moment, bobbing his head. "I was never really great with girls anyway," he admits sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "I was always kinda surprised that I even got together with Luna."\n\n"Well don't worry, after this, I think you'll understand girls a loooot better," you assure him, grinning as you pat his shoulder.\n\n"Okay. Um, where are we going?" he asks.\n\n"Back to my place, there's something there we need."\n\nYou and Kyle walk back to the house where you're renting a small handful of rooms, and you show him into your workroom. Settling to your knees, you open your magic item storage footlocker and start rummaging through it. "Now, let's see, where is it, where is it... ah, here it is!" You come up with a black leather choker, working the clasp a few times to make sure it hasn't gotten bunged up on you, then stand and hold it out to him. "Here, put this on."\n\n"... Uh?" He blinks curiously, but takes it. "I... how is this gonna help me get Lu-" He stops as you make a 'tsk' noise and ducks his head sheepishly. "Um, right, no questioning it, gotcha. Okay." \n\nHe hesitates just a moment more, then brings the choker up and fastens it on, the clasp giving a little 'click' as he manages to get it together. His blue eyes go wide as he rather abruptly loses several inches of height, dropping him down to at least half a head shorter than you. His jeans and boxers drop to the ground around his now too-large shoes, hips having turned too slender to keep them up, as his baggy blue long-sleeved shirt falls to drape off of one side of his slendered shoulders, covering down to just below the hips, leaving pretty coltish legs bare. And as if to put a cherry on top, his hair abruptly gives a <i>flmp</i> as it puffs out and drapes to the small of the back, still black and rather tousled.\n\n"W-w-wha?!" Kyle squeaks, then grabs at a more slender throat with both hands at the higher pitch. "I... wha?!" Kyle looks down and cups at the front of the shirt, outlining a pair of barely-a-B-cup boobs, then yanks up the front of the shirt as well, baring a sleek flat tummy and a lightly-furred pussy. "You... you turned me into a girl!" she almost shrieks, dropping the shirt to clutch at the sides of her head.\n\n"Well sure," you answer reasonably, while internally you're rolling around laughing harder than you ever have in your life. You shrug with a light spread of the hands, smiling placidly at him. "Like I said, you need to learn to understand girls. The best way to do that is to be a girl for a little while, don't you think?"\n\n"But... but... I didn't think...!" Kyle frets and squirms, looking on the verge of tears. It's even more adorable now, and you can't help but scoot over and wrap an arm around her shoulders again, because it seems better than giving into the feline urge to pounce and start batting her around.\n\n"I'm sure it must be a shock to realize that I'm the real thing, but since I <i>am</i> a real witch, obviously I know what I'm doing, right?" you assure her, while she squirms a bit more, but eventually nods. "That's right! Listen, the clasp is magically sealed, but once you've experienced being a girl and learned more of our mindset, I'll undo it and you can go back to being a guy, now with the key to Luna's heart!"\n\n"I... w-well, but... my classes," Kyle murmurs, glancing down and pushing the front of the shirt down, blushing a little... likely at remembering flashing you earlier, though you doubt she realizes she's now unintentionally giving you a peek at her pert little butt.\n\n"You said you could barely go to those and concentrate as it is," you point out. "Besides, you can still go to any of them you can manage, you just won't get attendance credit, but hardly any of the teachers here count that."\n\n"I... guess that's true. And... my dorm's coed with private rooms, so." Kyle finally sighs. "If you think this will really help me get Luna back!"\n\nAw, his and/or her devotion and/or desperation is so adorable. You can't help but grin and ruffle her hair, making her squeak and duck her head slightly. "It will, it will, for sure. Don't worry, Kylie..." And here you can't help but have a bit of a gigglefit. "We'll get started right away!"\n\n"... Okay." Another brief fit of squirming, before Kylie asks, "So, um, how do we start?"\n\n<hr>\n[[By getting dressed.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[By getting naked.|ValJobs]]

"Ooo, let's send her to a roomful of orcs!" you chirp, clapping just your fingertips together excitedly. "I always like that one!"\n\n"It is a classic in its simplicity, my queen," Xenith agrees happily.\n\nIn the crystal, Tifa rounds a bend in the tunnel and pauses briefly at the sight of a heavy, roughly-hewn wooden door. Since the tunnel leaves her no option but to approach, she eventually steps forward and opens it, not seeming terribly cautious... you suppose she comes from a world without mimics or terribly many trapped doors.\n\nTifa lets out a yelp as multiple large, green hands immediately reach out to grab her and haul her forward. You suppose to her credit she does manage to quickly shake them off, dealing a hard uppercut jab to the massive jaw of one of the orcs, whirling to smash her fist into the chest of another. But the entire room is full of them, and they're all at least head and shoulders bigger than she is. Even as she's still twisting and punching, one of them moves up behind and grabs her hips, thrusting his huge green prick up under her skirt, her panties twisting and tearing as he shoves his cock into her ass along with them. Even then she tries to swing her arms and knock the others back, but the sudden fucking up the ass has thrown her too badly, and it's barely half a heartbeat before one of the orcs has grabbed her hair and shoved her head down, forcing his own throbbing, oily monster dick past her lips and is bulging her throat out with it. Her flailing arms are caught, her fists soon forced to wrap around a pair of orcish members and start stroking as she's spitroasted, her defiant battlecries turning to muffled grunts and moans as she's raped from both ends.\n\n"You know, I almost feel a little bad about how hard we go on immediately deluging them with orcs," you muse aloud, even as you're stroking your pussy lightly through your panties. "Maybe one of these days we ought to give one of them a chance to fight back. Just for fun."\n\n"A most amusing idea, O cruelly kind one," Xenith purrs, having manifested a slender red cock to stroke as she watches as well. "Perhaps an arena of some sort, where the more monsters the victim defeats, the bigger the one that eventually fucks them is."\n\n"Interesting idea! Make a note of it, Xenith."\n\n"Of course, my queen!"\n\nOn the crystal, the orc fucking Tifa's ass has buried himself deep inside her to spill his load, soaking the scraps of her panties that he's fucked deep into her hole. The one in her mouth has pulled out, however, spurting his yellowish seed all over her face as she gasps and sputters, the ones she's being forced to jerk off adding their loads to her face and hair, soon coating her in a liberal amount of the viscous monster jizz from the neck up. Then she's being hauled upward, big clawed hands tearing away her top, large breasts jiggling as they're abruptly freed, others yanking off her belt and skirt, leaving her in nothing but her gloves and boots. An orc puts her in a full nelson, muscular arms hauling her legs up and big hands tucking behind her head, before shoving her already abused ass down on his cock and starting to pump her over it like an onahole. Tifa groans and grits her teeth, struggling in vain to get free... only for her eyes to widen as another orc, stroking his cock and smirking lewdly, steps in at her front. However his fat green cockhead passes right over her bared and vulnerable pussy without so much as brushing against it, instead pressing it up against her already widely-spread pucker, rubbing against the shaft of the other orc. He pushes forward, Tifa crying out loudly as she's spread twice as wide, her eyes rolling and drool running down her chin as she's double-stuffed, the orc's stomach and crotch rubbing against her steadily more sodden virgin pussy as he fucks her along with the other, until both simultaneously spill their loads deep inside, the double-gaping enough that a large amount of thick orc cum spurts and dribbles out of her stretched hole even before they pull out.\n\n"This batch of orcs is quite creative, I'll have to keep how I made them in mind," you muse aloud, now pumping two fingers into your pussy with your panties pulled aside. Indeed the orcs seem intent on breaking Tifa by completely and utterly destroying her ass. Several more pairs of them double-stuff her, fucking her two at a time and pumping more and more simultaneous dual loads into her ass. Then one of them shifts a bit more to the side, a third orc moving in, Tifa's body twitching and shuddering, her cry all the louder as the duo of dicks stretching her once tight and pristine pucker turns into a trio, all three fondling and squeezing her body, making it clear she's their plaything as they pump her up and down over all three monstrous green fucksticks. Then four, then five... finally six fat orc cocks are pumping up into Tifa at a time, which is obviously the point at which her mind completely snaps, her lips curling up in a brainless smile and her tongue lolling out, her cries of anger and pleas for mercy turning into slutty yowls and hysterical giggles. She squeals in joy as all six shove up deep and cum at once, her flat belly that had already bulged up with multiple dick outlines swelling further outward at the sheer amount of monster jizz being pumped into her ass.\n\nThey drop her onto her back on the floor, letting her lay sprawled there with her legs spread, her tits heaving and glistening with a mixture of sweat and cum. She shows not the slightest sign of resistance when an orc moves in to fold her legs forward and finally rub the tip of his prick against her virgin pussy where it's dripping above her gaping, utterly destroyed asshole. "Yes, yes, do it, fuck me," she pleads, her eyes glassy and empty in her lewdly pleading face. She moans like a whore as the orc thrusts in, his massive, muscular body moving into a full mating press as he tries to drive her into the stone floor while breeding her. Tifa's pleas for more cock and more cum and to be fucked harder gradually turn into wordless, animalistic mewls and whimpers and squeals as orc after orc takes his turn at breeding her, pressing atop her body and pumping into her, leathery green balls slapping against her permagaped asshole until they're emptied into her steadily messier and more churned-up cunt.\n\nBy the time the full 100 of them have each had at least two turns, and Tifa is pulled up to her knees, she obediently leans forward and starts eagerly sucking one of those fat, green pricks, lips dragging along it and cheeks hollowed as she sucks, her eyes somehow both dead and worshipful as she looks up at the orcs surrounding her, reaching up to stroke two more of them, getting them ready for the next round of using her however they please, her tits wobbling with the motions of bobbing her head.\n\n"There, she's good and squared away," you coo, tugging your panties back into place and sitting up in your throne, taking just a moment to remove the door and thereby permanently seal Tifa in the room with her orc playmates, then clearing the view in the crystal. "Let's move on, shall we?"\n<<set $activetifa to false>><<set $orctifa to true>>\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|MaxThroneRoomRepeat]]

"... You're really gonna go?" you ask quietly.\n\n"Yes. I think it's for the best. I'm... actually quite content. I got to see you again, to tell you I regret what I did and that I was wrong... and I got to love, even if it wasn't always wisely or well. That's enough for anyone, I think," the spirit adds in a contented tone before it dissipates into the air, spreading out through the shrine, some of the nearby plants taking on a deeper green and several flower blossoms opening.\n\n"..." You stare at the empty spot where the spirit was for long moments, finding it hard to think. Finally, you turn and leave, actually brooding a bit on those words as you walk along.\n\n"Hey. Tsubasa. What is love?"\n\n"Hm?" The only god you've ever been able to stand, even a little, looks up from her book and over at you. Gorgeous, with iridescent golden hair braided into a 'crown' atop her head, she looks every inch a goddess with her sea-colored eyes and spotless white wings. Of course she also looks a bit of a nerd with those glasses on, and you're still annoyed with her for biting your style and wearing a just a hoodie even if hers is white. At least the glasses and thin black choker show she's mixing it up a bit, the style-biter. She's currently sitting on a couch in the reading room of her mansion situated in her godly realm, visible out the window behind her as a bunch of floating islands and fluffy clouds. She also has a black cat settled in her bare lap... a black cat with wings, the smarmy showoff. Tsubasa-no-Arumono-no-Kami may be the god of all winged things but really the winged cat is a bit much! It must be new too, since it wasn't here the last time you barged through the the torii of her shrine and came here to visit her. "I thought you said 'rickrolling' was tired, it would still be tired if you used a different song, you know."\n\n<img src="images/TsubasaKami.jpg">\n\n"First of all, that is <i>exactly</i> what I'd tell you so that you were thrown off when I came up with a brilliant new way to rickroll you!" you declare smugly, tail swishing as you fold your arms over your chest, eyes closed and chest puffed out. Then you exhale and peek an eye open. "Secondly no, I'm seriously asking, what the heck is 'love', really?"\n\n"Mm. It's sort of refreshing that you'd come to me with such a big question instead of the usual silly ones you read on the headscratchers pages of TV Tropes," Tsubasa muses aloud, setting her book aside and stroking her cat's back, its wings settling and eyes closing. "After all, people have been asking some variation on that question for almost as long as there have been people. On the other hand, it shouldn't really be starting from nothing for you to figure it out, you're as capable of it as anyone."\n\n"Uh, no?" you snort derisively, rolling your eyes. "I'm a mischief deity, I wasn't made to feel stupid things like 'love'!"\n\n"I'll allow that you certainly experience emotions a little differently than some of your fellow spirits or gods," the iridescent blonde allows, quirking a thin gold chrome eyebrow. "But that's more of a question of personality, I think. Your mother created you as being just as <i>capable</i> of love as any of her other children."\n\n"Agree to disagree!" you bellow enthusiastically, causing the cat's fur to fluff up and wings to lift again.\n\nTsubasa sighs, now using her other head to rub the winged feline's head soothingly. "Alright, alright, for now we'll set that aside. Perhaps I can answer you better if you explain exactly why you're asking?"\n\n"Hm. Well." You shift a bit from one foot to the other. "Today I met a spirit... a faded spirit, but one I used to know. In fact someone that participated in my sealing ritual... even though she used to be my best friend."\n\n"I think I recall of whom you speak. That must have been very difficult for you," Tsubasa answers, her tone gentle.\n\n"I mean... I guess it wasn't great, no," you allow, your shoulders sagging a little. "But she said some stuff that confused me. Like... she regretted sealing me, but that she couldn't apologize because she did it for love. And in the end she even said she was okay with fading away and dying, because at least she'd felt love before she did. I don't... get... how love is something that could do that."\n\n"All those contradictions, and even being content with dying?" At your nod, Tsubasa smiles a bit, gently lifting her cat onto the cushion beside her before standing up and walking over to you. "Hm. Alright, let's see, how best to explain it." She cups her chin with one hand, the other hand on her elbow as she considers. "What was the most satisfying prank you ever pulled?"\n\n"Oh, don't even have to think about it, that's easy," you answer, puffing out your chest in pride as you recall the tale. "It was this silly little minor lord, who had no ambitions or desires, until I started poking at his ego. Careful and subtle little nudges over <i>years</i>, turning him into a status climber that worked his way up, putting himself through all sorts of stuff, draining his finances, all so he could become the lord in charge of the entire area. The exact day he was declared lord, a warlord from the next province over rode in and conquered his domain, sending him fleeing for his life into the wilderness wearing drag and geisha makeup." You giggle heartily to yourself. "<i>Fifteen years</i>, that one took!"\n\n"And how did you feel watching it all come to fruition?"\n\n"Besides laughing until I would have peed myself if I was mortal? I dunno, I guess sorta..." You glance upwards, trying to recall the particulars of that day. "I guess really happy, and maybe sort of content, like everything was brighter and more colorful than usual, like maybe the world was a better place."\n\n"The objective truth of that aside, hold on to the memory of that feeling. Now, of course you've had sex, right?"\n\n"Uh, duh, <i>lots</i>," you snort with a roll of the eyes.\n\n"With someone you liked? Perhaps quite a lot?" Tsubasa adds.\n\n"... Yeah I guess," you murmur, ears and tail drooping a little, before you shake it off. "So?"\n\n"It was different, wasn't it?"\n\n"Eh, y'know, maybe?" You shrug at that. "Like, maybe it wasn't as fun as a super cool prank, but it was definitely better than just any random sex, sure. We could talk and hang out together and make jokes and stuff before and after, that kind of stuff was good."\n\n"Alright, now, take that happiness, contentment, and feeling that the world was a better place from your best prank, and combine it with the best part of the feeling you get when you're having sex with someone you really like, and stretch it out to last your whole life," Tsubasa says, putting her hands together and then spreading them apart to indicate the immensity of what she's saying. "That's love."\n\nYou stare at her for several seconds, then shake your head. "You lost me."\n\nTsubasa sighs, reaching up to nudge her glasses up on her nose. "What I'm saying is, love is like the joy you get from pranking, but it's all tied up with another person, and you get that joy just from being with them or knowing they're safe and happy."\n\n<hr>\n[["... Huh."|KonFren]]\n\n[["... Oh."|KonFren]]

Perhaps you'll just spend the day with a good book. And you admit, you sort of consider your tome to be the <i>best</i> book. It's more than a collection of leather and paper to you... you know Baal isn't terribly sentimental, but you can't help but feel good that she's trusted you with it, and your years of having it pretty much constantly at hand have left you, well, attached to it.\n\nSettling down in your room, you lean back and start flipping through. Now, where to start? You recall that last time you spent some time with it, you unearthed a [[summoning ritual|ValTome1x1]] for a demon. You kind of get the impression that consorting with demons is something every witch who wants to get some real amount of magical power is going to have to do at some point, and apparently a good time to do so is coming up. You could also research some of the [[item creation|ValTome]] passages... you already know a good handful of charms and potions, but you're always eager to see if you can unlock something a bit more powerful and complex. You could see about [[using some spells you haven't tried before|ValTome3x1]]. Or you could [[just read for awhile|ValTome]]... some passages of the book aren't just specific instructions and spells, but tales of various witches over the years, possibly ones that have owned it before.

Devious Mundanity (alpha 2)

This game takes inspiration from any number of sources. Some are obvious, from large copyright holders. Others are simply responsible for ideas, imagery, inspiration drawn from fanfiction, online videos, art, comics, and other sources. Many of these sources are lost to the void of the internet or to the depths of my brain, forgetting where they came from in the first place. Others, however, are clearer. And so it seems only right to give at least some of them credit where credit is due for where they jumpstarted portions of the game's writing.\n\n[[Rangarig|http://rangarig.net/]] - Influence runs pretty heavily all through the "Isla Sauria" storyline, and anything involving the Raptarrans.\n\n[[Nuku Valente and other Flexible Survival writers|http://blog.flexiblesurvival.com/]] - Lots of the transformation stuff, especially the Animalland scenes.\n\n[[Fenoxo|http://www.fenoxo.com/]] - While he didn't create the concept of naughty, fetishy text games, CoC has certainly catapulted their popularity into the stratosphere.\n\n[[Sebastian Rubbermage|http://www.bastianmage.com/]] - Artist of weird transformations, odd bondage, and squeaky toys.\n\n[[Lily|http://lilysgames.com/wp/]] - Maker of many a Twine/RAGS/etc. game featuring various content like this one. Mostly credited here because her Christmas game [[Better be nice|http://lilysgames.com/wp/?page_id=138]] gave me the idea for Christmasland.\n\nThe team behind [[HentHighSchool|https://www.henthighschool.com/hhsplus/(hhs-1-07)-official-release-thread/]] - A tale of a new principal trying to run an efficient high school... or corrupt it into a modern Sodom. Influenced several of Helen's paths.\n\n[[Ambrosine|https://www.patreon.com/Ambrosine]]'s SFM videos inspired the Space Wolf bit for Cyan reading the "MagiSpace" RP book.\n\nNumerous SFM porn artists who helped influence various things and have had parodies and homages done in some of the paths.\n\n[[Back.|Start]]

Right now you want to be as far away from the old man as you can manage, and in an entirely other dimension on a satellite in deep space is about as far away as you can think of. You hook your katana to your back and then rummage in your coat pockets for a few seconds to find where you put your recall beacon, but pause as you're about to press the button. ... Wait, is the Guildhall a space station? For some reason you always totally assumed it was, but now that you think about it you can't recall ever seeing an actual window, let alone one showing space outside. Huh. That's fucking weird. You always assumed it was because like, it's enclosed and there's teleporters and portals and a bunch of even higher tech stuff than they have on Makarzia, but now you realize there's no reason you couldn't have all of that on like... an asteroid, or moon, or hell just plopped in the middle of some normal city on a planet. The fuck?\n\n... Oh, right, yeah, job, money. You start taking a step forward as you press the button, your foot hitting the floor of the Guildhall portal annex instead of the concrete of the front stoop of the apartment building. You keep up the brisk walk, occasionally diverting or dodging to avoid larger (or ruder) Guild members coming from the portals or looking for someone that is. You wave at a few, even giving a cheerful call of "Hey fucker whassup?" to one familiar black-clad guy, before you're finally out of the portal annex and into the lobby where everyone's a bit more spread out, and you can finally find somewhere to stand and not be run down as you think. \n\nOkay, so you came to do some work. Which obviously means either picking up a [[merc job|KaiGuild2x1]] from the available list, or going down to the [[service areas|KaiGuild]]. Most people aren't aware that the Guildhall even lets you do jobs around the Guildhall itself for money... probably think they're too good to fix an engine or repair a food unit. Alright so actually it probably also has something to do with only paying about the same as low-rank newbie quests for a day's work, but time tends to run a little slower on the Guildhall... you could probably put in a few days' work and return to the old man with enough to shut him up for awhile. (Maybe he'll finally drink himself to death, that'd be nice.)\n\nYou pause as your stomach gives a slightly audible growl. ... Ah. Yeah. You could also pop into the [[cafeteria|KaiGuild1x2]]. Not exactly as fancy as the various restaurants and franchise kiosks dotting the Guildhall, but it's cheap, ready, and you've actually got an account there. Otherwise, you're just gonna have to pick up some food on the job.

Can't hunt bounties (or whatever the fuck you wind up doing) on an empty stomach. Well, you can and have, but this leads to the potential for passing out mid-firefight which is not a good thing. Not that it ever actually happened since, y'know, you're still alive, but it's been a close thing a few times.\n\nYou make your way into the cafeteria, which is honestly about as cafeteria-like as it can get. This is a place to catch a quick bite between arriving and heading out, so while it's not exactly an ugly or utterly utilitarian space, not a ton of effort has been put into making it look as classy and elegant as a lot of other parts of the Guildhall look. You make your way up to the counter, smiling at one of the better-looking parts of the cafeteria... one of the workers, Gloriana, a beautiful and rather maternal-looking woman with long brown hair in a braid. "Hey hey, Glo," you greet as you place your hand on the scan plate. "Whatever today's basic protein meal is, please."\n\n"Hello, Kai, it's nice to see you," she replies, smiling at you brightly and warming your jaded little heart somewhat... before both smile and heart fall. "Oh dear. I'm sorry, Kai, there's... nothing in your allowance account." She looks up at you, lips tightening in sympathy. "It looks like Doonian... forgot... to refill it."\n\nYou grit your teeth as you curl your fingers against your palms, pressing both hands hard against the metal counter in front of you. No he fucking didn't, that account had at least thirty credits in it last time you were here and you didn't buy shit, the old fucker actually, really drained the meager amount he gives you to live off when you're working, probably to pay for one more drink at the whorehouse when he was running out of the creds from the job you'd just done. A curse rises in your throat, before you choke it down, some part of you refusing to do it in front of Gloriana. "... Nothing, huh?" you murmur tightly.\n\n"No, I'm sorry. I wish I could help, but..." Her cheeks actually color. "Um, my supervisor locked me out of the system and I can't buy meals in the cafeteria anymore after I went through a whole paycheck that way. Um, if you can wait around until I'm on break, I can-"\n\n"Thanks, Glo, I'll manage," you interrupt, managing to force a smile of your own for her before quickly pushing off of the counter and wheeling around, walking a short distance away. You worry she's going to take it as you being mad at her somehow, but it's more that you're just pissed and upset in general and want to keep any of it from getting directed at her. You walk a short distance away instead, slightly out of sight behind a vending machine, and shove your hands in your pockets. The smell of food has set off your body's awareness of just how empty your stomach is, and now you're certain you have to eat before heading out. Which means mooching off of someone.\n\nWhatever, you'd feel bad about it, but you're too hungry for pride at the moment. You take a look around, skimming for people you know that might be willing to toss a meal your way. Let's see, let's see... there's [[Grey|KaiGuild1x3]], not a bad guy, wants to fuck you but not like you're horrified by the idea. There's [[Aurora|KaiGuild]], really nice girl, but she's got a serious hero complex. She'd buy you a decent meal in a heartbeat, but she'd also probably want to go on a bit about how she'd love to get you your freedom, and that sort of thing can tend to grate after awhile. You spot [[Markus|KaiGuild]], an experienced older hunter, he's been good to you a time or two. Ah... hard to miss [[Mareza|KaiGuild]], she's a well-known figure on the station (or whatever the fuck it is) for being tough, generous, and having quite possibly the biggest dick in the entire Guild. Aside from them, you spot a [[newbie|KaiGuild]]... kinda cute, kinda runty, probably had his Guildcert for about five minutes, could probably pressure him for a meal pretty easy.\n\nOr... you could <i>really</i> swallow your pride and take [[Gloriana|KaiGuild]] up on her offer. Again. ... Maybe you can ask her if there's something you can do to help her out to pay her back, and hopefully you can manage that and some actual work before heading back.

It's not like Grey's at all bad to look at... though he's just a bit too pretty to be as 'manly' as you suspect he would like to be, looking a bit too much like a handsome girl. The feline ears sticking up from his head are so fluffy that you could almost think they were just an odd styling of his scruffy black hair, and his steel grey eyes are fixed somewhere in the distance as he puffs on a cigarette over his mostly empty meal tray. Like most mercs of almost any age he's gone with the 'cool long coat' aesthetic, his gunsteel blue and white, fastened closed in front over a black turtleneck and standard-looking black pants. His forearms are sheathed in heavy black bracers, hands covered in black gloves. When you approach you see one of his ears twitch and his head turns towards you, and for just a second you get a flash of the cold hate that seems to be his default expression when dealing with a lot of people, before it disappears like ice in a blaster beam, replaced by a smirk and a dancing enthusiasm in his eyes.\n\n"Hey, Kai!" he greets, leaning in. "Come to see me, hm? Brighten my day a little? Let me guess, you want to eat with me, but you're tragically short of credits to actually get some food to do so, right?"\n\n"Something like that, yeah," you answer wryly, giving him a dry smile in return.\n\n"Well if you're gonna eat with me, guess you've gotta eat, huh?" He fishes a credcard out of his pocket and proffers it, his smile somewhere between roguish grin and sneer. "G'wan, grab yourself some protein, girl, and come on back."\n\nAs you head back to the counter to do just that, you consider what you know versus what you've heard about Grey. It's a pretty high ratio... what you know is that he's a skilled fighter and has never had to emergency evac from any mission, and that he's got a reputation as being competent and often even genial and a bit helpful, but that he can also be a huge asshole and has a temper. What you've heard, that's a lot longer of a sheet... you've heard he's a species called 'Faunus' from some deathworld out in the stellar sticks. You've heard he was basically a slave there until a Guild hunter brought him back as an apprentice, but that said hunter disappeared on a mission they were together on, with a <i>lot</i> of rumors about that... the two major ones being that either Grey killed her himself just because he wanted to sever the last ties to his old life, or that losing her is what made him into the maladjusted shit he is now. You've heard he has powers that let him pull off truly insane feats of athletic skill, survive direct strikes from lethal weapons, sense danger, and a bunch of other jazz. You've heard he'd be much higher ranked than he is except that his missions tend to involve a lot of collateral damage, and not of "architecture and property" type, to the point that he's been banned from taking escort missions, but that he's really popular for "clearing" type kill missions. There's also two diametrically opposed rumors, one says that you can't count on him for shit if he goes on a mission with you and will leave you to die at the first opportunity, one says that he'll risk his own life without hesitation for others and won't stop at anything to bring his party members back alive.\n\nAs you walk back to his table with your double patty burger, fried starch strips, and drink, you take a look at him glancing around the room, and how there's just that moment of instinctual anger in his eyes when they settle on you before they clear away and return to that almost impish affection, and you wonder whether maybe both rumors are right... and which missions he was on that he was teamed up with humans and which were with non-humans. Or slaves.\n\nAt least he's good enough not to press until you're almost finished eating. "So, Kai, what's up? You wanted my company, right? Wanna head to my room right now, or shall we get some drinks first?" he suggests in a tone that seems to be (mostly) teasing, shrugging with one hand while using the other to stub out his cigarette on his now completely empty tray.\n\n"Sounds fun," you reply dryly, grinning lopsidedly at him. "But I gotta work. Doonian drank and whored away all the money from my last job, now the heat's off and I've gotta earn some to get it turned back on." \n\nYou can see that fury, that hate, drift back into his eyes for a moment, though this time it's not directed at you... in fact you're 99% certain it's on your behalf instead. But quickly it's swallowed by that slightly smarmy geniality, with him reaching out to lay a hand over yours. "That Doonian truly is a shit of a man. Why don't you let me talk to him, Kai? Maybe I could make him understand the error of his ways."\n\nYou feel a strange mingling of elation and fear at the idea... the offer, combined with that earlier look in his eyes, makes it very clear exactly what he's offering. He's never going to say it in so many words, because it would require at least some plausible deniability to keep himself from getting his license revoked and a Guild bounty on his head, but he's offering to kill Doonian for you. Well... not for you, so much, you suspect, as he's offering to kill Doonian because helping you is a perfect excuse to kill a human slave owner. While you have nothing in your heart but contempt for the old man, you're not quite sure asking someone to kill him is actually what you want.\n\nWhile you're still sort of taking that in and turning over the entire concept in your head, Grey shrugs dramatically. "Eh, but we need not waste time on wastes of space, necessarily. I've got a job waiting for me that I wouldn't mind sharing with you... simple elimination contract, a gang leader on some fallingworld." He twirls a fingertip on the table with his chin propped up in his hand, grinning. "We go in, fight some gang members, slash-squish-fuck-I'm-dead goes the target, I'll split the pay with you sixty-forty. Finder's fee, y'know." He pauses, then his smirk most definitely turns into a leer. "Or we could always go back to my place first. Have a little fun, have a few laughs, put me in a generous mood so I really feel like helping out."\n\nRiiight. Basically, finally give it up, and he'll pay you. You're not gonna bother getting mad at him, since after all you do need the money and like you said earlier, it's not like you've been utterly opposed to fucking him even without profit being involved. It's entirely possible, nay, even plausible that his smarmy asshole demeanor kind of actually revs your engine a bit. So that could just plain be a win-win.\n\n<hr>\n[[Let him "talk" with Doonian.|KaiGuild]]\n\n[[Go on the mission with him.|KaiGuild]]\n\n[[Go back to his place.|KaiGuild]]

"Oooo, a classic, I like classics!" you declare happily, gently clapping your hands together. "Let's summon up a Tifa Lockhart!"\n\n"Very good, your most horny highness," Xenith coos, bowing briefly before turning to the scrying crystal. "We've located a Tifa that was being summoned to join her friends, just one moment and we'll redirect her. If you would care to do the honors of creating a place to put her?"\n\nSmiling, you craft a long, natural-seeming stone hallway, lit by occasional patches and jutting formations of glowing crystal. A moment later the large-chested martial artist steps out of the darkness at one end of the tunnel, which abruptly turns into more, identical tunnel. She pauses a moment, red eyes looking around curiously, and she draws what looks like a cellphone out of the belt holding up her tight little black skirt. She checks the screen, gives it a brief shake, then frowns a bit more deeply, before obviously sighing and continuing ahead.\n\n"Now, my Queen, how would you like to deal with this titsy dispensor of alcohol?"\n<<set $activetifa to true>>\n<hr>\n<<if $cowtifa is false>>[[Let's put her out to pasture!|CowTifa]]<<endif>><<if $cowtifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's been turned into a brainless cow, near-constantly getting fucked and milked. You can have a succubus bring you some of her milk, if you like!<<endif>>\n\n<<if $orctifa is false>>[[Send her to an orc room!|TifaOrcs]]<<endif>><<if $orctifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's being eternally gangbanged by orcs. Wonder how many big green cocks she's got inside of her right now? Well, you can always check the crystal if you want to know!<<endif>>\n\n<<if $titstifa is false>>[[Let's have her set off a booby trap!|TifaHourglass]]<<endif>><<if $titstifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's been turned into little more than a life support system for a pair of tits and a giant ass. She's probably still down there pretty much filling that room, wiggling and orgasming constantly.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $chocotifa is false>>[[Let's give her stable employment!|TifaChocobo]]<<endif>><<if $chocotifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's been turned into a chocobo (breeder). She's no doubt either taking a chocobo dick or laying a nice big egg right about now!<<endif>>\n\nHm... are you having trouble of thinking of something to do? You could always [[release Tifa|MaxTifaRelease]], or [[go do something else|MaxThroneRoomRepeat]].

Oh, a wiseass, huh? Well, just so you know... we came prepared for that! We got stuff for it! So ha, your derailing attempt has failed, player! The GM was ready for you, the tavern had fire extinguishers! ... Ahem.\n\nYeah, fine, okay, so who are you?\n\n[[Exploratory Drone 17H|EdithStart]] - An android sent to Earth by an alien race. Mission: Find out more about these weirdos called "humans" and discovery whether they live in a society.\n\n[[Konko|KonkoStart]] - A futanari fox spirit, released into modern-day Japan to work her mischief on unsuspecting humans.\n\n[[Kiara|KiaraStart]] - A far more experienced, powerful, and thoroughly amoral mercenary, fully capable of and willing to carry out virtually any high-paying job she's offered. Due to a procedure she's undergone, her sex and even her species are "whatever she feels like".

Yeah, it's someone sending a message to the station, alright, looks like it's a-\n\n<hr>\n[[-member of the team!|Cal]]\n\n[[-non-member hero!|Cal]]\n\n[[-world leader!|Cal]]\n\n[[-supervillain?!|Cal2x3]]\n\n[[-Nigerian... prince?|Cal]]

Really, not every prank ever has to be an elaborate web of deception and luring someone into their own fate... though those are a lot of fun! Sometimes it's nice to just go right ahead and pounce someone who's "earned" being at the mercy of a wicked fox spirit! Or, y'know, anyone you feel like. At all. ... Anyway!\n\nYou pop yourself from outside the window to inside, putting your hoodie into a pocket dimension as you do and appearing a bit above him, limbs splayed and both your glorious tits and magnificent cock on display. "SURPRISE!"\n\n"GYAHA?!" the boy flings his doujin in the air, flailing in shock right before you drop onto him. In about a second you've got him flipped around and bent over the side of the bed, poofing his own clothes off so that he's abruptly naked before you, his arms pinned behind his back, forearms wrapped with quality shibari rope (with cute little foxes printed on it, of course). "W-what the heck?!"\n\n"Konkon~, what a bad boy you are, playing hooky to read naughty doujinshi," you coo, putting the fingers of one hand over your mouth... and with the other hand rubbing your stiff prick against his cute pert butt. "Didn't Mommy ever tell you that if you do wicked things like that, a fox spirit will pop up in your room and fuck you in the butt?"\n\n"W-what?! No, she never said anything liGYEEEE!" he squeals as you press the head of your cock forward, spreading open his pucker until it pops inside of him.\n\n"Well she really should have because then you might have had a little warning!" you declare, giggling as you grip his hips with both hands and start lightly rocking your own, gradually working a bit more of your shaft into him each time. Biting your lower lip gently as you grin, you watch him wriggle and writhe in his position, making whimpery noises of protest. Of course, despite that, his cock is still half-hard and wobbling a bit below him with his movements... you do love when a youthful boy's body is all riled up and then gets input it doesn't know how to deal with other than that the friction feels good~!\n\nSoon you're using long, smooth strokes to fuck him, your balls slapping lightly against his on the depth of each thrust, your hips impacting just firmly enough to rock him against the bed. He's still whimpering and groaning, in that delightfully confused way that says he can't help but feel the pleasure beneath the shock and humiliation of being so suddenly violated by a beautiful fox futa. Ah, truly it is good to cherish the little things! You're also enjoying the similarly jumbled and confused torrent of thoughts whirling through his brain, from which you pluck his name.\n\n"You know what I enjoy more than fucking cute boys in the butt, Ryo-chan~?" you coo at him.\n\n"Nnh, ah, p-please..." he moans.\n\n<hr>\n[["Cursing them!"|Konko6x4]]\n\n[["Forcing them to act like lewd girls!"|Konko]]\n\n[["Making them super enjoy it!"|Konko]]\n\n[["Not a lot!"|Konko]]

Hm, why not turn loose a soul? It's not like you actually need that many... even one is enough to tap into the reserves of the previous Dark Monoliths. Just... try not to go below one, you tell yourself as you beckon forth the scroll with the full list of Hero Souls you've collected to date. Now, which one to free back to the ether so that they can be collected again...?\n\n<<if $cowtifa is true>>[[Cow Tifa.|CowTifaRelease]]<br><br><<endif>><<if $orctifa is true>>[[The orcs' Tifa.|TifaOrcsRelease]]<br><br><<endif>><<if $titstifa is true>>[[Megatits Tifa.|TifaTitsRelease]]<br><br><<endif>><<if $chocotifa is true>>[[Chocobo breeder Tifa.|TifaChocoboRelease]]<br><br><<endif>><<if $activetifa is true>>[[The Tifa on hold.|TifaActiveRelease]]<br><br><<endif>><<if $effibus is true>>[[Succubus Effiel.|EffibusRelease]]<br><br><<endif>>\n\n

Doesn't look like you have much choice. You head through the door, still doing your best to be stoic, despite there being <i>way</i> more for everyone to not quite look at as you walk, with lots of jiggling, bouncing, swaying, and in general perfect bodies on display.\n\nThe first hall is a single, straight shot into another room, large enough for everyone to spread out and not be crowded. As the door slides closed behind you, there's a quiet blip from everyone's bracelet but yours, and you can see them checking the numbers. You can see what Deathtrap meant about the orders, too... the opposite wall has a similar double sliding door on it, and large red text reading 'KISS'. So, what, you just have to pick two people to kiss? That's not too bad. ... Hm, well, she's obviously starting you off easy so she can demonstrate how things work, since there weren't even any forks or branches in the hallway.\n\n"Well, I guess I'll make one of the parties me, since that way I know at least only one other person will be embarrassed by my decision," you say with a sigh, folding your arms over your chest. "So I guess... number five kisses the king."\n\n"... Ah," your mother says, raising her hand up to the level of her shoulder. "I'm number five."\n\n... Okay, maybe not. Both of you are blushing fairly heavily, as are several of the others. Clearing her throat in a 'well what can we do?' way, Excalibur places a hand across her breasts, pressing them in and trying to hold them steady as she leans in, obviously wanting to do her best not to let them brush against you as she pecks you on the cheek in a properly motherly fashion. That... is definitely embarrassing, about a step and a half below her licking her thumb and wiping something off the corner of your mouth in a team meeting (which she has never actually done thank God), but at least now it's over.\n\nExcept the door isn't opening.\n\n"Oh, come on, you think I'm gonna accept <i>that</i>?!" Doctor Deathtrap's annoyed voice blurts from hidden speakers. "That's bullshit!"\n\n"The instruction says 'Kiss', I gave him a kiss," Excalibur says stiffly, glowering at a random ceiling corner. "We completed your challenge for this room, now open the door and let us continue."\n\n"Fat chance. Those doors don't just open arbitrarily, I've got control over each one! I thought you might try to pull 'Well TECHNICALLY' crap like this on me, so I wanted to make it clear from the start! Those doors don't open until <i>I'm</i> satisfied you've followed the instruction! You know what sort of kiss this kind of game demands! So it better be at least fifteen seconds long and involve tongue, or that door's never opening!"\n\nYou and your mother exchange a long look, with everyone else sort of glancing away as if not certain if they should turn their backs or something. Well, except Warya, she's just watching the two of you with a bored expression as if wondering what the holdup is. But after that hesitation, Excalibur takes a deep breath. "I... suppose there's nothing to be done. Sorry, Cal."\n\n"Yeah, sorry too," you murmur, your cheeks red as she steps fully in front of you. Her hand comes away from breasts, freeing them with a light jiggle as she instead puts both hands on your shoulders and leans in... which means, of course, that her bare tits wind up pressing against your equally bare chest as she moves her lips in to meet yours. Both of you closing your eyes as much for the sake of lowering the embarrassment as much as possible as it is for making it a proper kiss, you almost instinctively bring your hands up to rest on her waist as the two of you gentle work your lips together. True to Deathtrap's demand, Excalibur slips her tongue into your mouth after a moment, sliding it around yours, and you hesitantly return the favor, although you find yourself responding more naturally by the second because honestly, it turns out your mother is a really fantastic kisser. The realization of which, of course, sends a surge of embarrassment through your body... and makes your cock twitch from where it had already begun to harden slightly. Dammit! No, no, that is a false Go sign, do not launch, do not launch!\n\nExactly fifteen seconds later Excalibur pulls her lip away from yours, a brief strand of saliva briefly connecting the tip of her tongue and your lower lip. She's blushing despite her attempt at a dignified expression as she straightens up and steps back, both of you glancing away from each other.\n\n"Gyaaahahaha! This is just the beginning of the humiliation that awaits you! Payback is sweet!" Doctor Deathtrap's voice declares as the doors slide open. "Continue, my toys, continue!"\n\n"Grrrr, how dare she call me a toy!" Warya snarls, the fur down her back sticking up as she stalks out of the room with the rest of you. "I'll pay that bite-sized intellectual back for this humiliation!" She pauses, and glances towards you. "Oh, and the whole thing of 'making two of my comrades who are blood-related show sexualized affection for each other', apparently that is some sort of Thing on your planet."\n\n"Hey, don't worry about it, man," Trickshot adds more quietly as he claps a hand on your shoulder. "You do what you gotta do to get through a mission sometimes. Besides, the Code of Silence is sacred specifically because of these sorts of situations."\n\n"Yeah, thanks," you say with a sigh, though that does make you glance over at him. "... Kind of makes you wonder how often 'these sorts of situations' actually happen."\n\n"Let's not start thinking about that, better we just focus on getting through," Mazinon cuts in.\n\n"Good point."\n\nYou look along the hallway you're in, featureless and white as seems to be standard for this particular Labyrinth of Doom. King's Labyrinth. Why do supervillains have to give everything at least two names? You notice that there are several branches and other hallways. "So... it's still an actual labyrinth, I guess. We have to pick our way through it and find our way to this final room so that we can complete its task and Deathtrap will let us out."\n\n"Except that besides choosing the right hallways, we also probably have to go through more rooms with tasks to get there," Snow Leopard mutters, still trying to cover herself and now avoiding looking at you and Excalibur so much she's actually having to look at some of the others.\n\n"I think we can assume that there will be at <i>least</i> two more task rooms between us and the goal, even if we choose the optimum paths," Excalibur says, her manner now more like yours and Trickshot's, clearly having become a bit embarrassed by her nudity but doing her best not to show it. "Ade-... Doctor Deathtrap knows all the common tricks and presumed rules of labyrinth construction... whether her idea of 'fairness' means she followed them is far more dubious. I think at best we can try and remember hallways as well as we can so we can tell that we've been in them before. But before we choose a path, there is something we should address."\n\n"Several things, I should think," Marielle murmurs, before clearing her throat. "But I assume among other things you mean the Code of Silence."\n\n"Yes. This mission clearly falls under the unwritten Code of Silence that governs certain superhero matters. We will never discuss what has happened here, and no blame, recriminations, or resentments for what is necessary for this mission shall be carried beyond it. We all agree, here and now, to forgive everyone else involved for our actions in this Labyrinth and not hold them against each other. Agreed?" At the chorus of silent nods (and a grunt from Warya), she continues. "Related to that is the second matter. Specifically, Caliburn, how you choose who is to perform these tasks."\n\n"I mean... I don't see a good way around it," you admit with a sigh.\n\n"Yes, clearly your original thought was to always choose yourself as one of the parties, meaning only one other of us would be forced to participate. I believe you, and I hope everyone else would understand that your idea to do so would not be to take advantage of us." At your eyes widening, she nods. "It hadn't even occurred to you, that's my son. But from now on, I want you to choose without regard for such thoughts."\n\n"But-"\n\n"No buts. Pick as randomly as you can, whether it involves yourself or simply the rest of us. In this situation, the burden must be shared equally. Is everyone else agreed on that?" Nods of differing levels of enthusiasm come back, with Warya's emphatically agreeing one on one end and Snow Leopard's hesitant one on the other. "As agreed, we'll assign you no blame in the matter, whatever your results might yield."\n\nWell. Guess that takes a little of the weight off your shoulders. You know that it's one thing to say 'no blame' and 'no shame' and another to actually carry it forward, but it's about as good an offer as you're going to get. "Alright then. So... I guess let's choose a path." You take a look down the hallway. It's a little difficult... the stark whiteness is obviously designed to keep you from picking out distinguishing features. It looks like this hall ends in a T intersection... ah, no, there are two right hand forks, one about halfway down that you almost couldn't see, so it's more like a T layered on top of an F. Each one will lead to a task room, you suppose, so similarly to picking participants, you may as well pick one.\n\n<hr>\n[[The first right.|CalKLBlowjobRoomFirst]]\n\n[[The second right.|CalKLDirtyFantasyRoomFirst]]\n\n[[The left.|CalKL]]

"So, hey, how about this," you say slowly. "I have a guest pass... it basically lets a non-member visit the Guildhall. This one's good for about a week. That would give you awhile to go through the process of getting tested and everything, if you have the money..."\n\n"I have quite a bit of savings, even if it's not enough I could probably find some way to cover the rest," Starielle says eagerly, eyes glittering.\n\n"Ah, so, I was thinking, why don't the two of us, y'know... have a great night, and in the morning instead of gold I give you the guest pass and we go back to the Guildhall together?"\n\n"Oh?" She looks a bit surprised for a moment... then that glitter turns warmer as she leans in close again, rubbing a hand over her thigh. "I seeee."\n\n"I mean, y'know, they're actually really expensive," you hurry to add, feeling further embarrassed by her seeming willingness somehow. "So, you know, it's just that, if I give it to you then I don't really have any money for... other things..."\n\n"Oh no, I completely understand. I wouldn't want you to be left without 'other things' on my account," she says teasingly, sliding off of the bed and around in front of you to settle on her knees... you wonder if it's elven grace or long practice that makes it look so smooth when she does it. "It's not like I dislike my work, you know, in fact I've rather enjoyed my time here," she continues as she begins to undo your pants, smiling even more as your now thoroughly stiff prick springs free. "I wouldn't be at <i>all</i> opposed to giving it my all one last time. In fact, let's call this... the deluxe service."\n\n'Oh holy crap,' you think, though only a moan comes out as she wraps her lips around the head of your cock and starts using her tongue in an incredibly agile and intuitive way that almost instantly shuts down the part of your brain that would care if it was sincerely enthusiastic or not. How long did Starielle say she'd been working here? Seems like it must be a long time to judge by the absolutely masterful way she's now using her fingers, just the tips of her thumb and fingers of one hand stroking up and down your shaft, the other hand gently working your balls over. It's at once both intense and soothing, a pleasure that it feels like she could draw out for hours without it ever becoming overwhelming in the need to cum.\n\nShe doesn't do it for hours though... just a half hour or so. It actually takes you a few moments to realize she's stopped, slowly coming down from the haze of pleasure and looking down at her to see that she's reaching over for something in the nearby little cabinet and drawers. You take the opportunity to unzip and shrug out of your shirt, tossing it towards a nearby chair along with your coat. When you look back down, you're a little shocked to see what looks like a plastic bottle filled with clear gel that she's undoing the flick cap of. 'Is that an import or are they weirdly advanced in certain areas besides underwear?' you think... before your train of thought is very thoroughly derailed by her smiling up at you as she presses the opening of the bottle to the under-cleavage caused by her outfit and squeezes. Seconds later she's sliding her still-covered tits down over your cock, until it's poking up enough to indent the top of her little maid-styled outfit, Starielle giving her shoulders a light shake to show you how the outfit keeps everything in place before she starts working her tits up and down over you. \n\nOf course with how thoroughly she worked you up before that, you don't last very long before you're moaning and spilling between her tits, the top of her 'blouse' quickly growing even more wet and having several thick white drops well through it. Starielle grins and slips her tits up and off of you, mixed lube and cum dripping from her undercleavage, and then crawls up onto the bed as you watch her in a light daze. She stops on all fours and reaches back, tugging open the side of her panties and letting them drop off and down, revealing an utterly perfect, smooth pussy and, as she lifts her hand and pulls one buttock to the side, an equally lovely and practically pristine pucker. "Please consider tonight an all-you-can-eat buffet, Leo, and do as you like," she coos over her shoulder at you. "Don't worry about getting tired... I have techniques and enhancers that will let us do as we like until dawn."\n\nWell. With that sort of invitation, what else are you going to do? You move up behind her, gripping your cock with one hand and one of her full asscheeks with the other, and push your now thoroughly lube-smeared cock into her ass, hearing her gasp and then let out a soft, cooing moan as you slide inside, gripping her hips at first as you start to pump into them. Then you lean forward, indulging yourself in finally getting hold of those big, luscious, perfect tits, squeezing and kneading them, eventually pulling Starielle's top up to let them spill free so you can toy with them more directly. You moan lowly as you pump into her tight, silky ass, feeling her rocking back against you gently, working her hips to make sure you get the most out of each and every thrust. You're able to last quite a while longer this time, enjoying the feel of your balls slapping against her pussy, reveling in the fact that you can feel some dampness on them when they do, the beautiful elf below you's moans and gentle urgings pushing you on and on until you spill inside her.\n\nAfter pulling out and a brief pause for her to clean you off and for her to undress as well, Starielle lays back and pulls you on top of her this time, your chest pressing against her bare breasts as her legs wrap around you and you slide inside her soft, eager pink pussy this time. Moaning softly, you press your face against her neck as you begin to thrust, nice and slow, taking your time for at least a little while this time. Not sure of her preferences and not wanting to jar the mood to ask, you restrain your kisses to Starielle's neck, throat, and jawline, which at least seems to suit her well enough, the pretty blonde elf giving out soft 'oo' and 'ah' noises as you do. Is it just skilled acting born of long practice? Maybe, but frankly right now you don't care.\n\nThe next spill of your cum is there in her squeezing, quivering cunt, as is the next one since she urges you to relax and lay back while she rides you, Starielle tucking her hands behind her head and lifting her elbows, showing herself off to you completely as she rides you to completion, though it takes quite awhile this time... a long and pleasurable while. After that she starts brewing some tea she promises will rejuvenate for you, but while it's steeping she steps out briefly... and returns with the chocolate-colored elf you saw outside earlier, apparently having called in a favor from one of her coworkers. The two of them put on a show for you while you sip the tea and recuperate, kissing and fondling each other, making all sorts of sweet, excited noises that might have revived your cock all on their own, but apparently the tea helps since you're soon back on the bed with them, thrusting into Starielle's perfect, pale pussy for short bursts before pulling out and sliding into the sweet pinkness tucked between soft brown pussylips of the other elf laying on top of her, both of them moaning dramatically into each other's mouths as you fuck their pussies back and forth as you please. After that it's Starielle riding your face, her surprisingly sweet and actually honey-like arousal coating your lips and tongue as you lick her, the other elf girl bouncing atop your cock energetically enough that it can't be entirely business, or at least so your ego tells you.\n\nAnd so it goes through the rest of the night, until about an hour before sunup your third party exits and you and Starielle both catch a quick nap sprawled on the very messy bed. But soon she's nudging you awake, and you rouse yourself, getting dressed as she excuses herself. When she returns, she's wearing something like a green tabard belted at her waist to serve as both top and skirt, though it still leaves a fair amount of both sideboob and hip visible. She's also wearing boots and carrying a few simple cloth bundles, and after a few pleasantries and you assuring her everything's still on, the two of you head downstairs.\n\n"Good morning, mister customer," the madam from last night greets, approaching the stairs. "Will it be breakfast this morning, perhaps even another night, or will you settle your tab now?"\n\n"He's only going to be paying for staying the night, I'll be paying you both my cut and Kaialith's, ma'am," Starielle says before you can even say anything. \n\n"... I see." The mature-seeming elf reaches up and adjusts her spectacles slightly. "Am I to gather from this, and from your attire combined with your luggage, that you are leaving us?"\n\n"Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry it's so sudden," Starielle says while you stand there in awkward silence, rubbing the back of your head as she bows. "But I've been saying for awhile that if I got an opportunity to return to a martial life, I might need to take it quite suddenly. I hope this won't put you out too much."\n\nThe madam stands there for long moments, not saying anything, before simply nodding once. "No need for your cut or Kaialith's. Please consider them my parting gift to you." Then she turns her eyes to you, tone dropping several degrees in temperature as she says, "Sir, if you will pay the ten gold for your stay, I will then return with your things and you may leave."\n\n"Uh, yeah, sure." You rummage in the pocket where you keep currency for various worlds you might visit, managing to find some of the retro 'hard currency' and jumble through it in your hands. You find five regular-sized gold coins and one large one... you're pretty sure that back where you got it, it's worth ten gold by itself, but since she seems to have focused all her ire at Starielle's departure at you and that is somehow making you <i>really</i> uncomfortable, you proffer both it and the other five. "Would this fit that?"\n\nShe looks over the coins dubiously for a moment, before nodding. "Yes. I will return momentarily." She turns and sweeps off.\n\n"... Kinda ticked at me, huh?" you murmur.\n\n"She's just concerned for me, is all," Starielle says in a placating tone. "I know she's been worried that I'll get myself in trouble with my desire to get back to my roots. We're fairly close, I've been here some time."\n\n"How long?" you can't help but ask, curiosity getting the better of you.\n\n"Oh, let me think." Starielle frowns thoughtfully as she puts a fingertip to her lower lip, gazing down towards the floor. "King Jhad's tenth crowning ceremony was going on, and last year they had... ah, almost fifty years, now," she says with a nod, face clearing.\n\n... Fifty years, huh? Yeah, that seems about right, you think as your head spins just a little. Yikes. Maybe it makes even more sense why she's about had enough of it. You pull your mind back on task as the spectacled elf woman returns with your rifle and sword, handing them to you rather stiffly before giving a short bow and wishing you a good day before walking off. "That's her goodbye?" you ask, glancing at Starielle.\n\n"I understand her feelings alright," the blonde replies with a small, sad smile, before clearing her throat. "Shall we?"\n\n"Oh, right, one sec." You get your weapons situated, then fish out your beacons and step close, slipping an arm around her middle. "Gotta be in close contact for the transit. We're gonna come out of the portal moving forward, so try to start walking a little. Three, two, one-"\n\nAt the click of the button, the two of you half-stumble forward as you exit out of the portal and into the arrival nexus of the Guildhall. Almost immediately a Guild security officer rounds a corner, but when you wave the plastic slip of the guest pass he fades back into the background, albeit not leaving entirely. You show Starielle the way to the interior lobby before proffering it to her. "Ah, here you go, it's good for the week. You can find out pretty much everything you need to know from the clerks here. Or, I mean, I can help you, show you around, maybe, if you'd rather...?"\n\n"I think I have a good grasp on things. Thank you very much, Leo," Starielle replies warmly, offering her hand, which you shake after a brief uncertain second. "Maybe someday we'll bump into each other again, hm? Maybe even on a mission!"\n\n"Maybe so," you say, smiling back at her. "Take care, okay? And have fun."\n\n"I will, thank you. Goodbye!"\n\n"Bye."\n\n<b><i>A bit over ten years later...</i></b>\n\n"Haha, I tooootally got more kills on that mission than you did!"\n\n"More shots fired is not more kills, half the time with you it's the exact opposite."\n\n"Nyeeeeeh! Heheheheh!"\n\n"Very good, keeping up your childish charm, no one will know you're staring down thirty like that."\n\n"Take it back."\n\n"What, take back the temporal fact that you're closer to thirty than you are to twenty?"\n\n"YES!"\n\n"Ah, excuse me?"\n\nYou and the dirty blonde in the loose bodysuit, short white jacket and jump-assist boots both look over, your companion's cybertail perking up curiously. It only takes a second for you to filter out the green weavearmor bodysuit and simple black all-weather combat jacket, as well as the shorter hair, before you're half-smiling in shock. "Whoa, hey... Starielle."\n\n"Oh, you remember me," the elf woman says in a flattered tone, smiling back.\n\n"Yeah, I do, I definitely do. Hi, wow, it's been forever, how have you been?"\n\n"Very well, thank you. And you?"\n\nBefore you can answer, your current companion snorts and punches you on the arm. "I'm gonna go before this turns into anything torrid." She gives Starielle a brief wave before trotting off, calling out behind you as she pumps a fist in the air. "Forever seventeen!"\n\n"That's below Guildhall drinking age," you call after her.\n\n"Forever nineteen!" she shouts, once more pumping a fist in the air.\n\nStarielle gazes after her for a second, before giving you an amused look. "I'm... guessing that's not your wife?"\n\n"Little sister," you chuckle.\n\n"Yes, that does seem about right." You see her hesitate briefly, before she says, "Leo, I know it's been a long time, but there was something I wanted to talk with you about. Would you mind coming back to my room with me so I can tell you something?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Sure.|LeoSon1x2]]\n\n[[Sorry, you're kinda busy...|Leo]]

"Yeah, sure." You smile easily at her, though part of your mind can't help going to the last time she asked you to come up to a room and talk. The memory brings up both warmth and desire as well as a few less positive feelings about yourself, and the two of you head for the lifts... only to see long lines at several of them and holobanners across the others. "Aw damn, what happened?"\n\n"Oh, right, apparently there was some sort of program cascade failure that went through the system and knocked out most of the lifts, they're having to bring them back online one at a time," Starielle says with a sigh of her own. "... We may as well take one of the heavy lifts, it won't be any slower than waiting in these lines."\n\n"Yeah, you're right." And you can't help but realize it also gives more talking time. The two of you make your way over to the quadruple-wide doors and summon one of the lifts used for larger, heavier species or moving large items through the Guildhall and summon it, stepping inside, the doors soon closing and the lift starting its steady crawl to the residential area that Starielle selects. You stand silent for several seconds, hands clasped in front of you, before awkwardly saying, "Huh, wow, it's really been forever. I'd figure we'd have bumped into each other way before now."\n\n"Yes, the Guild is both huge and small at the same time, it seems like... I keep running into the same people, and then there's so many others I meet or see once in passing and then never again," Starielle agrees, glancing aside as if she too were feeling a bit anxious.\n\n"Yeah. Yeah." You rock on the balls of your feet a few times, then sigh and look over at her. "Um, hey. Something I've wanted to say for a lot of years is... I'm sorry. As I got older I realized... I really should've just given you the guest pass for free and brought you over, maybe helped you out a bit more. You were wanting to get out of your situation, and I was a dumb kid who took advantage of that, and... I'm just sorry."\n\nStarielle actually looks shocked for a moment... then lets out a soft laugh. "Has that really been bothering you all this time?" At your sheepish look, she smiles and shakes her head. "Leo, I was a prostitute. Trading sex for things I wanted was what I <i>did</i>, and I don't feel bad about it. In fact once I learned what a week-long guest pass costs at your level, I think you may have gotten a bit of a bargain," she adds wryly, making you snort and look down. Her expression softens as she adds, "I understand where your apology is coming from, though. And I appreciate that. Even if you didn't need to apologize, it actually still makes me glad that you did."\n\n"... Thanks." You nod, letting out a huff of relief, then looking ahead as the lift finally thumps to a stop and the doors slide open. "So was that what you wanted to talk to me about? That night when we met?"\n\n"Ah, well, sort of," Starielle answers with a distinctly airy tone, actually flashing you a nervous grin as she approaches one of the doors, lifting her wrist to the reader beside it. "It's connected and, ah... it was definitely one of those things I didn't feel comfortable sending you an email about."\n\nYou follow her into the comfortable but not luxurious two bedroom apartment, looking at her in confusion... until there's the pounding of feet on the floor and a young boy comes pounding through one of the bedroom doors, already practically leaping at Starielle before he gets there. "Mom!"\n\n"Heeeey!" Starielle coos, grabbing him up from his half-leap and lifting him into a hug, despite the fact that he looks like he has to be at least ten.\n\nWhich is part of the reason you're standing there with a blank face and blank mind. Because even if the age wasn't right... the kid looks like someone took a cutting of you and grew him in a tube. Well, not entirely, there's the slightly pointed ears, not quite as dramatic as Starielle's, and there's a lot more blue in the grey of his eyes, but other than a bit of a difference in the jawline and a more delicate set of the nose, he <i>has your friggin' face</i>. Hell he has your scruffy black hair!\n\n"Hey, who's this?" the kid asks as Starielle sets him down.\n\n"One of Mommy's friends from work, we needed to talk about some stuff. So get back in your room and finish your studies, okay?" At his pout, Starielle gives him a light nudge on the back. "Aiane, go. And close the door."\n\n"Fiiiine," he says with a sigh, trudging back the way he came with much less enthusiasm, the door sliding closed after him.\n\n"Uh." You stand there, still staring at the spot where Aiane was standing in front of her. "Uh."\n\n"Yeeees I really could have handled that a bit more delicately, couldn't I?" Starielle murmurs, tapping her fingertips together as she gives a smile-like grimace. "I sort of forgot how he likes to come charging out like that, I was actually hoping he might be asleep or listening to music."\n\n"Uh." You swallow heavily. "... Uh."\n\n"Breathe, Leo," she says gently. "Just breathe for a few moments."\n\nThat seems like very good advice. You just stand there breathing for a bit. Once it feels like your brain's rebooted, you clear your throat. ... Okay, let's skip asking the really stupid question and just... move on, shall we? "Okay, so... on the one hand, would have appreciated the email. On the other hand... yeah, not the sort of thing an email really works for," you murmur. "... How? I thought... I mean, I had a birth control implant."\n\n"I had a birth control spell too." Starielle says sheepishly. "Remember the little heart, um, here?" She briefly touches her fingertips to one side of her crotch above the material of her bodysuit. "And apparently that was the problem, when I got here the med tech mentioned something about how it wasn't compatible with Guild technology and I needed to have it removed, and that they'd put a new one that would switch on once it determined I wasn't pregnant. Annnnd it never did... apparently the energy from the spell and the battery signature from the implants not only cancel each other out, they cause your fertility to sort of 'reboot' and, well, for females that can apparently put you at either a 'safe' day or..." She trails off, then sighs. "I mean, I'm... sorry, Leo, I kept meaning to get in touch more directly or ask for a meeting, but it just... it was so hard to reach out, and the longer it took and the older he got the harder it seemed, and I just kept talking myself out of it, until I saw you walking through the lobby today and thought 'This is it, no more excuses'."\n\n"... Yeah. Yeah, so... I mean..." Lost and floundering, you look around the room before trying to focus on her. "I mean... okay... I know... now what?" You aren't blowing her... or Aiane, off, you're just so confused and bewildered at this point that you'd sincerely like someone to tell you what to do.\n\n"That's up to you, Leo," Starielle says gently, reaching out a hand to rest on your shoulder. "I didn't bring you here to obligate you, or force you into anything, or make you feel guilty... I've managed just fine with Aiane all these years, and been able to build a good life for us. The Guild has made my current life possible, and you made the Guild possible for me... I'll always be grateful for that." She smiles, and adds, "And for him. You don't have to do anything else you don't want to do."\n\n<hr>\n[[It's too much, you have to go.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[You... could help out with stuff?|LeoSon2x1]]\n\n[[You want to be involved with his life.|LeoSon1x3]]\n\n[[You want to be involved in their lives.|LeoSon]]

"I..." You swallow heavily, but take a deep breath and let it out, then feel a bit nervous again as you look at her. "I think... I think I definitely want to be a part of his life, you know? Like... I want to be there for him as much as I can, I guess. Maybe... do stuff with him or..." You trail off.\n\n"Be a father, maybe?" Starielle asks with a small smile.\n\n"... Yeah, think that's what I'm getting at, yeah," you whisper back.\n\n"I think that would be just perfect." The elf woman crosses over to the closed bedroom door, knocking against it and raising her voice. "Aiane? Could you come out please?"\n\nThe door slides open, and at least Aiane is well-behaved enough not to point out that it's only been a few minutes since she asked him to go in. Instead he lets himself be led over to you, where Starielle kneels down behind him and rests her hands on his shoulders. "Aiane, Mommy finished her talk with her friend from before, so now we need to tell you... this is Leo. He's your Daddy."\n\n"Hey," you murmur, settling down onto one knee as well.\n\n"Hey," he says back, obviously a bit shocked at all this as well. He stares at you for a moment, then glances over his shoulder. "You coulda handled this a bit more delicately, Mom."\n\nThat, and the look on Starielle's face, cut right through everything else and make you burst out laughing. "Oh yeah, kid, you and me are gonna get along great."\n\n<b><i>Just over five years later...</i></b>\n\n"Don't kill him!"\n\n"I'm not going to kill him."\n\n"It counts as killing him if you let him die!"\n\n"I'm <i>not</i> going to kill him!"\n\n"It also counts as killing him if you let him get kidnapped and taken away somewhere!"\n\n"You're over thirty."\n\n"I'll kill you."\n\n"He's going to be fine, he's almost sixteen and it's not even that dangerous of a wilderness planet. I took you there when you were younger than he is."\n\n"And you killed me!"\n\n"No I only thought about it and am starting to regret not following through."\n\n"Nyeeeeh!"\n\nBefore you and your sister's banter can continue, there's a call of "Dad!" and you look over towards where Starielle and Aiane are approaching, grinning and waving at them. You can tell that Aiane wouldn't mind going running and giving a ballistic hug like he used to, but is restraining himself. He does still look a bit younger than his years, you guess as a half-elf his physical development is a little slower, but he's definitely growing up. And still looking a lot like a prettier version of you, scruffy black hair at least a little combed-smooth and tied in a ponytail. He's wearing a green and black patterned armorweave two-piece pants and vest, with a slightly long white jacket, a simple rifle slung over his back. He does give you a hug once he's arrived, which you appreciate... by sixteen you were starting to get awkward about hugging your parents in public, and since you missed out on ten years of them, well. You release him so that he can turn and hug your sister with a warm "Aunt Neo!", Neo's whole body wriggling with delight as her cybertail forms a heart.\n\n"Aaaaa, my nephew's so cute! I'll keep him!"\n\n"No," you say flatly, putting a hand on her face and pushing her back while she flails and reaches for Aiane with 'gimme' hands.\n\n"Now, be sure and take care, Aiane," Starielle says, obviously trying her best to restrain herself from fussing as she nevertheless pets at his hair a bit in an attempt to smooth it out some more. "Listen to your father, be safe, don't do anything reckless... ah... um..." She trails off, borderline squirming in place.\n\n"Mom, I'll be fine," Aiane assures her with a smile that's all her. He did get most of her expressions, it seems like... he's definitely a whole different sort of charmer than you were at his age (and for a good while after), meaning one who's not trying at all. Sigh, shown up by your own kid. "I'm just going hunting with Dad, it's not like there's even any other people or anything where we're going."\n\n"Yes. Well. You've got your emergency beacon?"\n\n"Yes."\n\n"Medkit?"\n\n"Yes, and I did a full weapon maintenance, and I tested it at the range, and I got a med checkup," he answers with a good-natured huff. "Mom!"\n\n"Alright, I'm sorry." She sighs, then gives both him and you a smile. "You two have fun, alright? ... And please come back with him," she adds in a more teasing note as your sister moves to join her.\n\n"Yeah, you two have a good mission too. Feel free to come back without Neo, though."\n\n"Bite me~," Neo sing-songs as the pair of blondes turn and walk off, though she turns back and calls, "Hey stupid, don't forget to check the weather forecast before you leave!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Yeah yeah you checked it.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Yeah yeah you... wait did you?|LeoSon1x4]]

You checked the forecast when you started planning this hunting trip, didn't you? ... Wait that was like two weeks ago. Crap. Checking to make sure Neo and Starielle are gone, and trying to be casual because Aiane is looking at you, you fish out your comm and look up the current conditions on the wilderness planet that you're headed for. "... Ah, crap," you mutter, before patting your son on the head. "Sorry, kiddo, looks like we can't go on that hunting trip after all."\n\n"Aw, how come?" He's not quite pouting, but obviously disappointed, frowning a bit.\n\n"Bad conditions moved in, place won't be suitable to visit for about a week. We'll have to figure out something else to do." You consider. "Y'know, that your mother won't kill me for taking you on."\n\n"I mean, c'mon, it's okay if it's at least a little dangerous, right?" Aiane asks. "I mean I've been training with you two and Aunt Neo and even sometimes Gramma and Grampa for years, I'm probably gonna join the Guild someday soon, what's the big deal if we go on an actual mission?"\n\n"I mean, yeah, your grandmother might have taken me on a full mission or two at your age, sure," you admit, scratching your cheek a bit. "But your mom doesn't necessarily see it that way." You have to wonder if Starielle is probably more used to kids not being borderline adults until they're like forty or something, and having a little trouble adjusting to having a half-elf son. He's a little on the small side, sure, but she does tend to be a little overprotective like he's still an actual kid or something.\n\n"..." Aiane frowns thoughtfully for a few moments, then sighs. "Well... whatever you decide is best, Dad."\n\n... Man he's good. You don't doubt his sincerity, necessarily, but he's also neatly put you in a situation where you can play it safe and be the one responsible for disappointing him, or you do something more risky and you take the heat from his mother for it. Well. Whatever. You are the dad, even if you're a little bit of a part-timer. You'll pick what's best. You start flipping through your comm, looking for potential alternate ideas.\n\n<hr>\n[[Go somewhere pretty safe.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Take him on a job... a fairly safe one.|LeoSon1x5]]\n\n[[Fuck it, he's sixteen, you were killing slaughtermonsters at sixteen, let's do something thrilling!|LeoSon]]

"Hmmm... hey, y'know what?" Grinning, you scroll to a specific job you'd made a note of earlier. "There's actually one I was thinking of taking before we scheduled the hunting trip, kind of for nostalgia's sake. If it's still open, that might be a pretty interesting one for you."\n\n"Oh yeah?" Aiane doesn't try to hide his curious look, all open honesty as he leans in a bit to try and see your phone.\n\n"Yeah, lemme go see if it's still open, if it is we'll go. This should be a pretty standard contract, doubt your mother will throw <i>too</i> much of a..." You pause, then amend. "She won't be that mad at me over it." You don't want to describe his mom as throwing a 'tantrum' in front of him, after all. ... You're not sure if Starielle has ever thrown a tantrum in her life, come to think of it, 'mild fretting' is about the most unreasonable you've ever seen her be. ... Hm, you wonder if your son's mother is dating anyone?\n\nAnyway, a quick check shows that there are still several slots open for the job, and you reserve two of them for yourself and your 'assistant'. The two of you head to the departure portal annex, and are soon stepping out of an alley on a street made up of a mixture of standard wood and stone buildings and trees grown into habitable structures. "Son, welcome to the capital of the Kingdom of Jurisdania," you announce cheerfully, taking a look around yourself... you don't recognize the specific street, but the look is pretty undeniable, you've never seen another city exactly like it on your adventures since then. "This is where I met your mom, before she became a Guild member."\n\n"Ah, you mean when she was working at the... um, inn?" Aiane murmurs, his cheeks and pointed ears coloring a bit.\n\n"Told you about that, huh?" Well you can't say you're <i>too</i> surprised, it's not like Aiane's a particularly sheltered kid at all, and Starielle's always been pretty frank with you about how she feels about her time working in the brothel. "Yup, that's true, it's somewhere in this city, and that was where we met." You glance upward, noting the time... early evening, starting to move towards full dark, especially with the height of the tree-wall around the city. "Anyway, we're not due to report in until the morning, so let's take a bit of a walk around, get a look at the place, and find somewhere to stay for the night."\n\nThe two of you set off, doing some light sightseeing, in that everything's pretty much new to both of you... you only walked around for maybe two hours or so before, so it's not like you're a particularly well-versed guide. The streets seem to be lit by lamps with little miniature gardens inside that host colonies of luminescent insects... amusingly the buzzing sounds a lot like some of the lowtech lights you've been around on other worlds, though the light itself is a bit more pleasantly yellow than those. You're just pondering that when someone standing under one of said lamps pushes off of it and saunters towards you.\n\nYou were surprised last time that an elvish city had a brothel, you suppose you shouldn't be surprised they have independent streetwalkers too. This one looks like she's probably only in her mid- to late teenage years (or the elf equivalent), with slightly shorter ears that curl in at the bottom of the base. Her coloration's pretty remarkable, too... not much the caramel colored skin, but her eyes are less just yellow and more 'gold chrome', and her hair's pretty remarkable... long and straight and shiny, an almost metallic grey that catches with numerous shades in the light, reminding you somewhat of Damascus steel. She's dressed in a half-open white silk blouse and fairly short black skirt, legs sheathed in purple stockings and heels on her feet... yeah, this world is ahead of the curve on women's fashion, looks like.\n\n"Hey," she says, resting a hand on her hip and jutting it out a bit, showing off her pretty body with full perky tits and sleekly rounded hips. "Care to have some fun tonight?" She glances at Aiane, who's blushing brightly now. "I don't mind giving a good two-for-one rate, y'know."\n\n<hr>\n[[Two for one sounds good!|LeoSon]]\n\n[[He's too young, you on the other hand...|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Hm, maybe it's time for Aiane to become a man.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Sorry, we have work in the morning.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Actually doesn't she look sort of familiar?|LeoSon1x6]]

Ready to begin, then? Alright, deviant, let's get started. We still have the same question as before to get us started, but from here things get a little streamlined.\n\nSo... male or female?\n\n<hr>\n[[Male.|MaleChargen]]\n\n[[Female.|FemaleChargen]]\n\n[[Write in "Other" on the sheet.|OtherChargen]]

"Alright, she can come live on the Guildhall with me," you think, already vaguely trying to figure out how you're going to arrange certain housing issues. "But on one condition. Kaialith, you have to come too."\n\n"Eh? Me?" Kaialith blinks and points at herself. "But I like it here! Sure, I mean, I'd miss Leonalith if we weren't together, but I would if she left to do something else anyway, so... uh... what was I saying?"\n\n"Listen, I'm gonna be away a lot of the time... in between the times where I'd be able to hang out with her and show her stuff, she'd basically just be sitting in our apartment or kicking around the Guildhall by herself, and without any other influences she'd probably just be heading down to one of the market levels to do exactly what she was doing tonight," you answer, shaking your head. "If you really want her to get out there and experience some new stuff, her mom needs to come along and experience it with her."\n\nKaialith's looking a bit thoughtful now, frowning as she looks down, when Mirielle speaks up again. "As much as I'd like to make some comment about this man trying to steal away more of my best workers as well as close acquaintances, he does have a point, Kaialith. His profession does keep him busy, and we can't ask him to just take five years off to do this. Besides, just as it won't hurt Leonalith to get out and experience what the universe has to offer, neither will it hurt you."\n\n"I... guess so." Kaialith is still frowning lightly. "But I can come back, right?"\n\n"Yes, you will always be welcome here. This is your home and there will always be a place for you in it," Mirielle replies evenly. You kinda see what Starielle meant now about how she shows her deep feelings in her own way. "But if you should find happiness somewhere else, I will be satisfied as well."\n\n"Wellllll... um, so, there's places for working girls on this Guildhall, right?" Kaialith asks, glancing over at you.\n\n"Ah, yeah, there are, but you wouldn't have to worry about that," you assure her. "Where I'm at right now with my career, I'm really comfy money-wise, there's no troubles with keeping the lights on or dinner on the table, you and Leonalith could just stay with me without needing to work."\n\n"Ohoooo, housewife play, is it?" Kaialith practically coos, putting her fingers in front of her mouth as she snickers, yellow eyes dancing in a way you're not sure how you feel about. "Huhu, well, I can do that, we'll see how that works out, huhu~!"\n\nMirielle gives her a long look, before turning her gaze back to you. "... In any event. You agree, then, Mister Leo?"\n\n"Just Leo. Or if you have to, 'Mister LaChance'. But yeah." You rub your face some, then shake your head. "Look, Aiane and I are signed up for part of this 'hunt squad' that's operating the next few days. I already confirmed the job so we both need to show up and see it through... when it's done, that's when we'll leave, okay? Until then let me find my own way to tell Aiane, if you would."\n\n"More than fair," Mirielle agrees. "Kaialith, why don't you show him to a double-bed room? It's my understanding he'll be reporting at dawn. I'll send Aiane up presently, Mister LaChance."\n\nYou hesitate briefly, but nod... you feel like you can trust Mirielle not to let anything untoward happen, so you follow the bouncy (in more ways than one) brown-skinned elf upstairs to what looks more like a standard inn room than the one you were in last time. Your mind still awhirl, you flop into bed and close your eyes, cycling through meditation techniques until you find one that works and lets you sleep. \n\nThe next morning... though only just... you and Aiane report to the castle training grounds, where a number of other mercenaries both local and from the Guild have gathered. You notice that all the local guards are armed with slugthrowers now... not particularly advanced ones, but guns all the same. 'What are those, I've seen more than one trekking across the multiverse... M-Something Garand? It's like those things just sort of appear places, I wonder if the king bought these from a Guild connection or if two just showed up and mated?' Anyway, you do your best to keep your head down and mind your own business, in no mood to socialize... Aiane obviously wonders what's got you grumpy, but keeps his curiosity to himself. 'He's a good kid. Wonder if the new one will be so easy?' You think back to Leonalith's almost stereotypical teenage girl disdain for everything around her. 'Prooobably not.' \n\nApparently the big to-do coming up is Princess Amanielle's birthday, and since it's going to be held outside the guards want specialists like you combing through the woods and nearby area eliminating anything that could be dangerous. It's not particularly hazardous or taxing work, involving mostly shooting wolves and wild pigs and the like... you know some of the groups are likely to run into orcs, but eh, the kid will likely have to kill his first sentient at some point if he's gonna be in the life. Still, you're hoping it's not this trip, you've got enough on your plate, and for the first two days at least it all goes smoothly. When you come back to the Blushing Elf Maiden to sleep it's usually late, allowing you to luckily avoid any of the parties involved. Though on the third day Aiane asks to spend the evening hanging out with some of the younger mercs he's met and talked to during the mission... you know enough of them that you're not too concerned, so you agree, and head back to the inn yourself in early evening.\n\nYou find Leonalith sitting on one of the barrels outside... she's wearing a blouse again, though only the top few buttons are undone, and she's wearing black slacks and flats instead of the other attire, that and her hair being pulled back into a ponytail giving her a slightly 'mature tomboy' look rather than the sensuality of before. She quirks her eyebrows as you approach, prompting you to stop long enough for her to say, "So, I hear you're my old man."\n\n... Riiiight. You asked them to let you tell Aiane (which yeah you kinda need to do that) but sort of failed to mention any feelings on them telling Leonalith. "Yeaaaah," you murmur, rubbing the back of your neck. "I only just found out about it myself, y'know."\n\n"Figured. This isn't exactly an etiquette school, y'know, these things happen. Usually when a baby's daddy shows up he either turns right around and leaves or he just shrugs and says 'So what?', that's all." She kicks her feet a bit as she looks at you, eyes slightly narrowed. ... Geez, you thought she looked like her mother, but in this light you actually can see that she looks a lot like <i>your</i> mother in the face, there's a hell of a realization. Especially considering that you're unable to help realizing how friggin' hot she is, since that whole 'she's your daughter' thing hasn't quite internalized yet. While you're sulking to yourself she continues, "I also hear me and my mother are shipping out with you."\n\n"Yeah. Probably tomorrow afternoon. Your mom and Mirielle both think it's better if you learn a bit more about what's out there before deciding what you wanna do with your life." You smile a little sheepishly at her. "Listen, I know it's probably annoying to have this decision made for you, but it's a couple of years, and you'll have fun probably. The Guildhall's a great place, I loved it growing up, and I'll be able to take you a lot of other great places too, stuff from around the multiverse."\n\n"Mm." She just looks at you flatly, before hopping down from the barrel and sauntering over. "Thing is, I like my little slice of the world. It's comfy. It's fun. It's where all the people I know and the fewer I actually like are. I mean it might not be so bad if I was going on my own, but... my <i>mom</i> coming along too? It's fine with her around here, but having her along on every new thing I try? I mean... meh. So, y'know, if instead of coming back here tomorrow, maybe you just leave from wherever you are when you finish that dumb hunting job?"\n\n"I'm not entirely sure Mirielle wouldn't track me down across dimensions for breaking that sort of promise, even if I were inclined to," you answer wryly.\n\n"Oh, c'mon. I could always try and convince you," she suggests, tilting her head and smiling just slightly.\n\n<hr>\n[[No.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[.. "Convince"?|LeoSon]]\n\n

Lots of people think of hometowns, or at least home planets. You don't recall ever even having a home dimension. Your parents were both members of the Guild of Interdimensional Professionals, Specialists, and Enforcers, and you grew up popping about between dimensions and spending time in the Guildhall as if it were all natural. Of course once you became an adult it was time to make your own way... but were you going to pick any way other than the Guild?\n\nNo. No you were not. But there's no "legacy" system in the guild, your parents' accomplishments aren't yours, and you had to start from the bottom like pretty much everyone else. With, obviously, the primary goal of earning enough to buy a starship and have it equipped with an DSD... a Dimensional Slipstream Drive. As it is, right now you have to use the Guildhall's portals and retrieval devices, which both puts a ding in your pocketbook and limits your options. Plus, if you had a decent starship, you could live in it and not rent a room from the Guildhall... which, besides putting a ding in your pocketbook, also somewhat limits your "game", as it were.\n\nThese are the thoughts foremost on your mind as you finish up your latest job, which was almost annoyingly simple. 'Ehhh, I guess everyone has to pay their dues with the occasional cleanup duty,' you think with a sigh as you slam your palm into a pirate ninja's chin with one hand and yank his katana away from him with the other. You wheel around, slicing wide and ducking as you go, managing to avoid the blood spray from the two ninja pirates' throats you cut as you did. 'Literally, my dues are coming up and it's always good to have some set aside for that.'\n\nYou quickly finish off the last few of the pirate ninjas, ninja pirates, and their boss the ninrate pija, then take a moment to flick the blood off of your 'borrowed' weapon before swinging it up to rest on your shoulder. Yup, managed not to get any blood on you again, you think as you examine yourself like the protagonist in the first pages of a story by a lazy writer. Short, wild black hair, grey eyes, kinda handsome-cute face if you do say so yourself. Clothes designed to blend in as well as possible in most environments (and thus just slightly weird in most environments) while also offering you the most utility... a black zip-up sleeveless shirt with the zipper edged in white, a hooded jacket in the same colors, fingerless gloves, plain pants with a few zippered pockets, and lace-up sneaker-style black boots with white soles. Looks simple but it <i>was</i> a gift from your parents, so it's made of some pretty hefty armored cloth and has storage dimensions in the pockets.\n\n<img src="images/Leo.jpg">\n\n"Welp! That's that," you announce, glancing around at the pile of human-shaped vermin. Literally, they may look like people but they're actually feral, nonsentient animals that tend to swarm badly if allowed to breed, which is why the Guild has a standing elimination order on them. Eh, it was the end of the month, not much else was listed, and as said, gotta pay your dues.\n\nTaking out the retrieval beacon from one of your pockets, you press the button and let yourself go a little limp as you feel the pull of the Guildhall's return system on your body. With a practiced little skip-hop you catch yourself coming out of the portal in the main hall and quickly move ahead to avoid anyone who might be coming out after you or is already moving from one of the other portals nearby.\n\nThis place would probably be chaotic to most, but you've been coming here quite literally as long as you can remember. The main arrival hall is a large 3/4 circle of portal rings, flashing active and spitting out a wide array of sentients of varied race, species, and dress, most of whom have their own versions of your little exit-the-portal catchup gait before moving towards the open part of the circle and thus into the guildhall proper. There's always one or two stumbling, staring noobs, and it tends to make you feel rather smug that they're usually older than you are. Beyond the entrance portal annex is the lobby, a massive, sprawling room filled with seating areas, tables, and dotted with food service kiosks ranging from enterprising individuals to representatives of every major fast food chain in twenty dimensions. Since the lobby covers several square miles, there's plenty of room. The outer walls are made up of counters to see Facilitation Agents... the people who accept and give out jobs, as well as providing access to all of the Guild's various other functions.\n\nGuild members who treat it as just a place to snag the occasional job or want to get in and out as quick as possible usually go for the closest or least crowded of the stations, but like most people who have made the Guild more of a way of life than just an occupation, you have a preferred Agent, and you make your way towards her station while hoping she's on today. Soon you spot the familiar short, brown hair, the red eyes, and the soft peach skin you know so well by now... of course, the ample chest doesn't hurt either. You have some time to appreciate the view as you wait in the short line to speak to her, taking in the plain white blouse, slightly visible black short skirt, and ID card with red lanyard around her neck that would let her fit in as an office worker on a billion different worlds... you've always wondered why the Guild doesn't have a more exciting dress code for their FAs, like cool bodysuits or stylish formalwear. (Or maybe little tiny bikinis. You'd love to see Vima in a little tiny bikini.) The armored hunter in front of you finishes up their transaction and moves away, and your ego gets a scritch near the base of its tail as Vima seems to perk up at the sight of you, giving you a warm smile.\n\n<img src="images/Vima.jpg">\n\n"Oh! Hey Leo! Got a job to turn in?"\n\n"Mm-hmm, here y'go," you reply, slipping the slender black chit out of one of your pockets and passing it across the counter.\n\nVima picks it up and plugs it in, consulting the screen that pops up. "Oh, a bunch of NP Bugs, huh? Not exactly glamorous, but everyone has to pay their dues, I guess!" She pauses, then regards you solemnly. "Seriously, your dues need to be paid in three days."\n\n"I know, I know, thanks Vima."\n\n"Do you want the credits on your Guild account?" At your nod, she types at her board for a few moments, then casually pulls out a thin slab of black material as it pops out of the counter in front of her, drawing out the tablet and proffering it to you. "There you go, the job board with everything your rank clears you for and below! Anything else I can help you with?"\n\n<hr>\n[[No, just this.|LeoJobList]]\n\n[[Any leads on ships?|Leo]]\n\n[[How about... a date?|Leo]]

Hm, a big exciting brawl that can help lead up to the breaking should put on a pretty good show for the client. Hm, let's see... you've got a good shield drone with teleporter built in, that will keep civilians out of the way. Less that you're concerned for their safety, more because you want to let them feel safe enough to crowd around and watch. If at all possible, getting it broadcast on national news would be fantastic! (Actually just for funsies, let's use the drone's camera to make a more typical recording of everything that you can upload to this Earth's internet before you leave. Heh.)\n\nThat settled, now, how best to go at her? It should be a good fight either way...\n\n[[Brawn|KiSSH]] - Your body is plenty powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with She-Hulk, especially when buffing yourself with magic. It would be simple enough to adopt an appearance that makes you a literal match for her, so the two of you could have a good old-fashioned punch-'em-up in the middle of the street.\n\n[[Brains|KiSSH]] - Or rather, tech, which your body is obviously made entirely of, you could just make it more obviously so. It'd be a nice little plus for the audience and your client too, no doubt... some nerd with gadgets taking down a big burly strong dude always plays well, to judge by some of Walters' contemporary heroes.

Oooo, it wouldn't be a high fantasy RPG if you didn't pick a sword longer than you are tall? You reach out to grip the blue-wrapped handle of the sword, hefting it down, of course finding it no problem to pick up despite its obvious weight, though you're not exactly swinging it with expertise yet. It's a hefty thing with a large, black double-edged blade and tapering point, the back having a round notch close to the square golden hilt and some sort of shimmering gemstone attached around part of the blade on the front.\n\nOnce you've taken it down, the racks slide aside, providing access to the clothes shelves and racks within. You release the sword, watching as it shimmers and disappears (no doubt into your inventory), and step inside. Spotting a mirror, you head over to it and, as expected, get a body adjustment menu. Let's see... shift hair to brown, make it fairly short (not long enough to get grabbed in combat, long enough to get grabbed in "close quarters grappling", heh heh heh), make your eyes blue, skin a warmer peachy color. Hm... some nice big boobs and round hips, add some curve to the legs and roundure to the butt... aw yeah, you've got an 'asking for it' body now!\n\nYou wander around in the clothing section for awhile, selecting a few bits of offered equipment and some clothing, settling for a pseudo-Japanese look with elaborate separated sleeves and a white top with gold and red accents (that's basically just a tapering flap over your front bound below the chest and behind the neck with black bands), a thin orange and red sash (to which you attach the matching back flap of the top), and when combined with a red pleated skirt gives you a vague 'miko' look without actually looking like one. One elaborately trimmed thigh-high stocking beneath the 'Kneeguard of Movement and Might' you selected, and some white-and-gold black-soled 'Boots of Agile Movement', and a simple red hairclip that slightly increases your Charisma, and you're ready to go.\n\n"All done?" Moonsugar asks, reappearing after you've spent a minute sort of idling and poking at menus.\n\n"Yup, think I'm ready!" you answer.\n\n"Alright, what would you like to name this character?"\n\nHm... well, you'll just go with one of your standards. "Kuro." Darkness, black, y'know. Plus you've got that massive black sword, so you figure the name fits.\n\n"Alright, registering this character as 'Kuro'! As a reminder, if this character becomes permanently incapacitated, you can't play as them again without going to some extreme lengths! Sending you to starting area, <i>now</i>!"\n\nHm? That's actually the first you've heard of getting a character back if they die or get Bad Ended! But before you can ask more, the 'department store' is going dark, and when light returns it's sunlight filtering in through trees. You're in some kind of forest, it looks like... a rather pleasant and pretty one, really. Clearly a starting area. You try to bring up your character menu, a window popping open a bit in front of your face. Up top is a view of your character as they're currently equipped, along with your weapon which is labeled 'Main Equip', presumably meaning it's the one you'll bring out in a combat situation.\n\n<img src="images/Kuro1.jpg">\n\nIt lists your name at the top, and has various sections below the image reading things like your stats (your Strength is the highest, followed by Endurance and Durability, with Charisma and Agility tied for fourth), your traits ('Giant Killer', a trait that gives you a bonus for taking on enemies larger than yourself with the bigger the enemy the bigger the bonus, and... oh my, 'Fertile Fields', a trait that makes you highly receptive to healing magic and items but also... highly receptive), and a few quick buttons that currently have nothing in them. Down at the bottom it also has an area called 'Quick Journal', with a button that reads 'Starter Quest'. Ah, so again, like most sandboxes it does still have an option for being guided through the early game via quests... probably some fairly safe ones since you're only Level 1. But it looks like you have to actually activate the quest to begin it, it's not on by default.\n\nSo, should you do the newbie quests? Or go racing off in search of your inevitable Bad End?\n\n<hr>\n[[Start the quest.|YamiHF]]\n\n[[Adventurrrre! Lewwwwwds!|YamiHF]]

"Let's at least wait for Janus," you suggest. "If there's anyone who's unlikely to speak up and say something stupid to offend the demon-"\n\n"It's Janus, right," Aleantra agrees with a snicker.\n\nIt's not too much longer before the door opens again, the third member of the club scurrying in, face flushed a bit with obviously having hurried across campus. Cute, slight, and with pronouns of 'whatever you want', he's got slightly long black hair, relatively subdued makeup, a black hoodie, black pleated skirt, and bright pink thigh-highs under rather more fashionable boots than Aleantra's. He stops nearby, obviously trying to catch his breath and not be obvious about it, tugging at the strap of his messenger bag with its numerous little keychains and charms attached to the strap ring. "H-hi, sorry I'm late," he murmurs, biting his pink lower lip a bit.\n\n"You're not late, Janus, sit down," you say gently, since he tends to jump if you use too firm a voice. Which is kind of adorable and funny sometimes, but not quite what you want at the moment. He shifts the messenger bag onto his lap as he sits down, resting his hands on top of it and showing off freshly-painted nails in a variety of metallic colors. "I called the meeting because tonight we have an opportunity to do a summoning. A demon summoning."\n\nJanus's eyes, one blue-green and one green, widen. "R-really? A demon? For real, an actual for serious demon? A-" He ducks his head as both you and Aleantra smirk at him. "Yeah, okay, so, a demon. But you really want me to come with you?"\n\n"The more witches, the more powerful it will be," you explain. "I need to pick up a few things on the way there," which Janus can help with, the cute little snot is absolutely loaded. "But at midnight tonight, the more witches we have gathered at the old ritual hill, the better a demon we'll get."\n\n"Oh." He bobs his head, probably trying not to look disappointed that you want him along mostly as the equivalent of a magical antenna, but is probably mollified just by the fact that he's being included. Then he perks up a little. "Does that mean Kathryn is coming?!"\n\nBefore you can say anything, Aleantra rolls her eyes. "Oh, come on, we don't need Kathryn." At your glance and Janus's pout, she makes a face. "Look, she creeps me out, okay? That's all. Three witches is plenty for this thing, let's just go before she shows up." \n\n<hr>\n[[Wait for Kathryn.|ValTome1x4]]\n\n[[Leave.|ValTome]]

For the first 141 years of your life, you were Siphanielle Tyvaris. Known as the Peerless Mage of Deepwood Fords, you were the best of your generation of the Shadow Elves, a respected and powerful people living in the dark wooded realm, at peace (if a slightly tentative one) with all the other races save the Demons.\n\nThen the Hero arrived.\n\nThe prophesied hero destined to defeat the demon king. A man from another world blessed with abilities beyond any known to the people before, having arrived at the very height of potential physically, and gradually putting together a team of the most skilled and most attractive female fighters in the world, and also a daughter-like loli who was basically a mascot.\n\nYou may or may not have had a thing for him. You're never going to tell.\n\nQuesting with the Hero drove you to new heights in your own abilities, and by the time you faced the demon king you might well have been the world's most peerless mage. Upon the enemy's defeat, the magical item that would have sent the Hero back to his own world dropped... and bounced right off of his boot. You caught it by accident, and suddenly found yourself in a small, messy room belonging to one Yamashiro Keitaro, unemployed video game addict. AKA the Hero.\n\nOops.\n\nTurns out the Japanese government had monitored the dimensional shift and pretty quickly showed up to explain things to you. Luckily they weren't interested in detaining you or dissecting you for study or something... in fact, once you accepted that there likely wasn't any way home and you said you'd be fine selling them your magical accessories and artifacts, they were quite solicitous. You were given citizenship and effectively allowed to take over the Hero's old life, including his apartment and possessions. Uncertain what else to do with yourself, you learned to use the thing called a "computer" and the other things called "game consoles". That was six months ago.\n\nAnd here's you now.\n\n<img src="images/Sipha.jpg">\n\nYour once elegantly coifed and styled black hair has been allowed to get rather messy, draping in your face in front and overall rather uneven, your long pointed ears sticking out from the slightly draggled locks. Luckily your amber eyes are still clear despite spending eighteen hours a day or so staring at screens, and your face is still pretty and slim, your lips still shiny and smooth, despite a diet of mostly convenience store snacks and instant ramen. Your elaborate and expensive elven garments, designed to show off your large chest and round hips and butt while still conveying elegance and refinement, have long since been shoved into the back of the closet, replaced with a comfy off-the-shoulder purple sweater and soft blue shorts. Admittedly, your century plus of fastidious studying habits mean that you keep the apartment you "inherited" meticulously clean and organized rather than the mess it was when you arrived, but it's still rather cluttered with your snacks, toys, games, and figures. Well, a fair portion of them used to be Keitaro's, but they're yours now! And you haven't been shy about adding to the lot either... apparently besides the large amount the government paid you for your stuff, they're also paying you a fairly hefty "retainer" in case they ever need your expertise on something. Yup, life is pretty sweet...\n\n... at 4am. Oops. Blinking your slightly burning eyes, you decide maybe enough's enough for now and save your game, setting down the controller before scooting your pink and black game chair (Keitaro's furniture was one of the things you absolutely replaced first thing, apparently before he became the Hero his hygeine was a little lacking) to the side, and toppling right out of it and onto your futon. Fuwaaaah... wriggling around and pulling the comforter over yourself, you quickly fall asleep. (Turns out elves are immune to blue light induced insomnia. You are best gamer.)\n\nEventually you blink your eyes blearily open and stare at your phone propped up nearby, displaying the time. Ugh, daylight hours. Still, you are awake now... time to get up?\n\n<hr>\n[[Can't game if you're not awake!|Sipha1x1]]\n\n[[Tomorrow's as good for gaming as today. Zzzzzz.|Sipha]]

Hm, the summoning ritual did seem to mostly come up only a few times a year, maybe you should look into that one since you'd have to wait if you miss this opportunity. It takes a bit of flipping through and skimming to find where you saw it, but eventually you find it.\n\nTurns out that you were right... in fact, the best time for the summoning is tonight, and a similarly good time won't come again until the winter solstice... and not until quite literally a year from now for a particularly good night again. At least that's what the book says in regards to a witch's first summoning... apparently once you get the first one done right, any summonings after that are a bit easier and the various factors that make for one are much more lenient. But unless you want to wait until winter break, tonight at midnight is likely your best bet to pull this off.\n\nOf course you read through the whole thing to get an idea of what's involved, you're not an amateur. You need the proper time as judged by the stars and moon and not by technological timepieces (easy enough for you), you need a place of power (you know a great one too, and it's well away from prying eyes), and a handful of other items and ingredients that you luckily happen to have on hand or can get with a quick trip to a few nearby stores. The diagrams are all nice and clear, you can easily do this. It notes that when the demon shows up, it won't technically be bound in a circle and forced to obey you, but will have a 'non-hostility' geas on it... meaning that as long as you're careful and don't offer any sort of offense (physical or verbal) that would allow it to defend its existence or honor (such as demons count it), you'll be safe. You can then negotiate with the demon to form a pact or bond or grant you some other sort of service.\n\nYou pause a bit at reading that the summoning can be performed by a coven, and that in fact the more witches that participate in the summoning, the more powerful a demon can be called up. It apparently doesn't even necessarily matter how powerful the individual witches are... the simple fact that there's more of them will amplify the natural energy of the ritual and allow for the more potent summoning.\n\nClosing your tome, you sit back and trace your fingers over the cover thoughtfully. You don't have a coven... not really. There is, however, the 'Practical Magic' club that you started half as a laugh last year, partly because if you went through the paperwork and convincing the right bureaucrats to sanction it (which you did with a bit of influence magic), the school would actually give you a meeting space and a small fund, which you mostly use to make various charms. But you've also attracted a small handful of other authentic practitioners... none of them anywhere near as powerful or versed as you, but a few of which you've been giving a bit of minor instruction here and there, mostly pointers to let them grow on their own. You could call a meeting of the club, which would have several benefits... one being the enhancement of the summoning, the other being that at least one of the people you know who would show up has their own car. Because otherwise you pretty much need to leave now, take an uber to the edge of town, and spend a few hours walking.\n\n<hr>\n[[Call a club meeting.|ValTome1x2]]\n\n[[Go by yourself.|ValTome2x1]]

The words spring from your mouth without thinking them, even as you spring forward with your blade drawn back.\n\n"NANATSU NO EIEN NO KIZU!"\n\nThere's a flash in the split second where you're moving past her where your arm is moving of its own accord, and then you're standing past her, your sword angled out and down, a few flakes of wet snow landing on the clean silver of the blade and dribbling down it. The Demon stands as she is for a heartbeat, until she lets out a shuddery breath... and milky green-white mingled here and there with red splatters into the air. Sword and sheath clatter to the ground just before her knees thud to the pavement as well, her body settling heavily back onto her heels, arms slumped and back arched, displaying the slices overlapping across her body as if unable to help showing the world what you'd done to her.\n\nYour breathing is hard, deep, and is starting to hurt as aches in your muscles and all throughout your body begin to manifest. 'The fight,' you think as the emptiness retreats. 'There's still... the rest of the fight...' You try to raise your head, look for your next opponent, but merely lifting your chin apparently takes the last of the strength in your body. You drop like a marionette with its strings cut, legs crumpling under you and cheek thudding against the pavement, a darkness that's heavier than the emptiness of before closing in around you.\n\n"Kid! <i>Kid</i>!"\n\nYou hear Niobe's voice from far, far away, even as you can sort of feel her hands touching you and the smell of her drifts through the darkness like a comforting arm stretched out to pull you back over a cliff.\n\n"The other one..." Sakai's voice, close and far away, together with Niobe's but from a different place.\n\n"No time, we've gotta get her out of here!"\n\n"You're right. The next street over, a medwagon, come on."\n\nAnd then the darkness that's so oppressively full swallows you up.\n\nSuddenly you're heaving and coughing, your lungs uncomfortably full, sudden pressure pushing on them and forcing whatever's filling them out. You stagger forward, cold, wet, and blinded by a thousand lights, only to thud against boulder-firm breasts and feel strong hands catch your upper arms to catch you. "Easy, kid, easy, I know that shit sucks all to hell, just calm down."\n\n"Ni-... -obe?" you gurgle, raising your head, the brightness starting to clear and resolve into a familiar face grinning a little wanly at you. "Feel like... the floor at Glowworm after 'Double or Nothing' night," you mutter, starting to shiver.\n\n"A week in a biotube will do that to you," Sakai's voice says as you feel something soft and absorbent being draped around you... a towel the size of a blanket, you realize, gratefully and somewhat sheepishly pulling it closer around yourself when you realize how naked you are.\n\n"A week?" You blink a few times, glancing around the Holy Dragon medical room, then feeling your jaw sag a little as it sinks in. "A fucking <i>week</i>?! What the hell happened to me?!"\n\n"You tore practically every muscle in your body from the neck down, had hairline fractures top to bottom in both arms, a couple in your legs, four cracked vertebrae, and your heart was on the verge of collapse," Niobe says dryly, resting her hands on her hips. "Shit, kid, you're lucky to be alive at all, even I'd've had a tough time coming back from how close you came to cacking it. 'Course, you also apparently were fighting like I could, without a custom-engineered muscle in your skinny little body."\n\nYou stand there, just trying to absorb all of that. It doesn't feel real... you remember the fight in detail, true, in fact you think you remember it better now than when you were actually fighting it. But that's just the thing... it vaguely feels like it was someone else doing the fighting. Or something else. Snapping yourself back to the here and now, you look back and forth between Niobe and Sakai. "The meeting... what happened?"\n\n"The losses among all the gangs were... grievous, but not devastating. A number of the gang heads were able to survive... Adam, of course, Moore, myself, Niobe, most of the others who were combat capable. Pink-neechan survived as well... apparently because Rirorera sent the Crazy Ho bodyguards with her to escape, and stayed behind to delay the Street Demons pursuing them. She did not survive it. Pink-neechan is secluded in mourning, and all the streetwalkers are off the streets until it is concluded." Sakai glances aside, hands clasped in front of himself. "In fact, everyone is off the streets. The sector is holding its breath, waiting to see what's next. What you will decide."\n\n"Wait, what? When the fuck did this become about me?" you blurt, taking a half-step back.\n\n"When you took down that especially glowy Street Demon, apparently," Niobe snorts. "What the fuck did you do to her, anyway?"\n\n"..." It takes a second for you to come to grips with the fact that the end of that fight wasn't some delusion you had as your brain shut down. "Nanatsu no-... uh... 'Seven Eternal Wounds'. It's a sword technique where you make seven slices almost instantaneously... if you do it when there's a decent enough opening it's basically unblockable. And like... it crosses certain pressure points and nerves and I guess... chakras or whatever... ... anyway, the cuts themselves can be healed but you'll still feel them for the rest of your life, like a sort of 'pressure' or something where they were. At least that's what Ico said about it."\n\n"Shit, she taught you something next level like that?" Niobe mutters, unable to help looking impressed.\n\n"Um. ... I saw her do it." You raise a hand to rub the back of your neck, then drop it when you realize you're flashing both of them when you do. "... Once."\n\nNiobe and Sakai trade a glance at that, before Sakai clears his throat. "In any event, apparently you made quite the impression. There is a video recording waiting for you, I think you should see it. We'll be in the lounge down the hall, join us when you've gotten dressed." With that, Sakai turns and walks out, Niobe lingering a moment longer like she wants to say something, but she's still silent when she turns and leaves as well. You dry the rest of the pinkish liquid goo off of yourself with the towel, then spot your jacket hanging on a hook above a counter, some folded clothes below it. To your surprise they're not the booty shorts and tie-top that you were wearing before, but a pair of very nice black silk pants, red silk shirt, and a black sports bra and thong. You also find a pair of the sort of 'formal tabi' shoes that a lot of the more serious but slightly pretentious fighters in the Dragons wear. It feels a little weird to be 'pampered' like this, but since there's nothing else to wear you can only assume these are for you. Dressed more fancily than you ever have been in your life, you step out into the hall and glance around for the open door that shows you where Sakai and Niobe must be waiting.\n\nThe lounge looks like it's fit to be the VIP lounge in a high-end, Nipponzi-speaking bar, even though it's apparently the waiting room for the medstation. Niobe's leaned against the wall near the door, while Sakai's lounging in one of the chairs. As you enter Niobe pushes off the wall, and holds out your sheathed sword to you. "Here. They delivered this along with the vid."\n\nYou blink, accepting the weapon, but Niobe just gestures you to the couch when you give her a questioning look. Once you've sat down, leaning the sword against the cushion beside you (and admitting quietly to yourself you feel a lot better with it nearby again), Sakai picks up the remote from beside him and taps it, causing the screen built in the wall to flicker to life. The background is obviously computer generated, pure blackness with upward-drifting crimson cinders. Standing in front of it is what's obviously one of the Street Demon... leaders? Whatever they are. She bears some similarities to the one that breached the wall last night, though her red chrome horns lack the more obvious 'cyber' style, although her vape mask is even more elaborate and with more glowing pieces, lending her a slightly draconic aspect. Her white hair is much longer and smoother, and her outfit is more straight up 'schoolgirl jacket', black with a red-trimmed flap, her hands tucked into its pockets. She's turned slightly to the side, as if awaiting someone else's cue.\n\n<img src="images/Pestilence.jpg">\n\nApparently receiving that cue, she turns fully towards the camera. Her tone is surprisingly conversational despite the edgelord stylings, youthful and easygoing rather than booming or rasping even with the electronic filter. "Hello, Kai. My name is Pestilence, and I'm the leader of the Street Demons. If you want to feel honored at being addressed directly by me, you can... I don't like to show my face much, but this is a special occasion.\n\n"You see, our spies tell me that at the meeting we interrupted, it was said that we seem to have no code. That's not true, we do have one, and it's very simple... 'Try to make one another's wishes come true.' Other gangs may call each other family, but we are... we are all we care about, we are all we love. Once we acknowledge you and you acknowledge yourself as a poison and a plague on society you are one of us, and we look after one another and love one another, and there is nothing we would not do in this world to see each other's ambitions, desires, and wants made manifest."\n\n"Shit," you murmur under your breath.\n\n"Right now you probably just said or thought a nasty word because you think I'm declaring some sort of awful vengeance on you for what you did to Cyanide. And if you'd killed her, or if that was her wish, then of course we would raze the sector, the city, the planet to its foundations as our love demands. But that's not what Cyanide wants. Her wish now is different, and so it's with glad hearts and endless love we will try to make that come true. To that end, let me explain what has already been done.\n\n"First of all, you have been bought from your master and freed. It took quite a bit of pressure, but he agreed to sell you for an entirely reasonable price of absolutely nothing. The brick code for your slave chip was included with the package we sent to Mister Sakai, along with instructions telling him he'd better use it and what would happen if he didn't. He seems a reasonable sort of idiot, I'm sure he followed orders." You most definitely do not look at Sakai shifting slightly in fury to one side of you. "We also secured the freedom of your friend Zee, who will be our honored guest for the foreseeable future."\n\nEven as you're snapping bolt upright and grabbing for your sword, the recording of Pestilence draws a hand out of her pocket and holds it up to calm you. "If you're thinking of reacting hastily, calm down. That's not a euphemism. We're really treating her as our guest, she's being held in comfort and security. Splice in the video now, huh?" The image briefly cuts to what looks almost like a hotel suite, with Zee sitting on a couch, dressed in comfortable-looking jeans and a sweater. She certainly looks mildly worried, but you can't see any marks on her, and when she gets up to walk into the kitchen area her movements look natural and unforced. She's obviously nervous but not scared, precisely. The image cuts back to Pestilence. "There, see? We're just keeping her for awhile. You can have her back at the end of this, assuming you agree to our terms."\n\nYou glance aside at Sakai and mouth 'Terms?', and he nods as the image pauses briefly before continuing. "Cyanide wants a rematch. Midnight, one year from now, Big Sakura Park, on the bridge in the center. Just you and her, one on one. No interference, no traps, no weapons but your swords. Oh, we had the microfractures in yours repaired and reinforced with auritanium, by the way... feel free to have Sakai's people check it out to insure we haven't meddled with it any other way." \n\nBlinking, you pull your sword over and unsheath about a foot of it, noticing the almost spectral spiderwebbing of shimmery gold running all across the surface. 'Shit, that's the stuff they use on warship hulls. If you're an <i>insanely</i> rich interstellar empire, anyway.'\n\n"We understand you're probably recovering from the fight yourself, but once you're on your feet, we'd like your answer. In return for your agreement, we will institute a one-year ceasefire from the moment we receive your message to dawn of the day after you and Cyanide cross swords again. No Street Demon will so much as litter anywhere on Makarzia without permission from the local gang boss. Whether Cyanide wins or loses the rematch, we'll immediately turn Zee over after bricking her slave chip, either to yourself if you're still alive, or a person of your designation if you are not. She and you will both be considered under our protection, everyone will be informed that visiting any harm on you is considered a breach of the ceasefire and will result in extreme retribution against the responsible party. We already learned of Horace Allfather planning something in revenge for what happened at the meeting, and have made examples of several of his top lieutenants. He will almost certainly not be bothering you again."\n\nYou glance at Sakai and Niobe, and see that both have gone just a little pale. ... Sakai's not exactly easy to spook anyway, but if whatever the Street Demons did to Horace's men made even Niobe look a little green, it probably actually was enough to make that big mean bastard think twice.\n\n"We have a rough estimate of when you're expected to recover, so we'll say that within twenty-four hours of... this," she says, gesturing to the lower right of the screen, where a timestamp of about an hour from now appears. "We'd like your answer. If it's yes, the ceasefire goes into effect, and we'll see you one year from now. If it's no, the war begins. Oh, and Zee will become our permanent prisoner instead of our guest. We'll keep her in her current accommodations, of course, since Cyanide specifically said we shouldn't use threatening her life to coerce you to agree. So she'll be safe... in a gilded cage. It's your choice, Kai. Please make the right one, because after all, it's important to me that Cyanide's wish come true." She stares into the screen for several moments, then lifts her chin and makes a little slash-across-the-throat gesture just before the camera blips out.\n\n"... How can someone be so theatrical but have such a bad editing staff?" you can't help but wonder aloud despite the situation.\n\n"Regardless of her people's ability to execute her flair for the dramatic, Pestilence seems to be true to her word. I already had our forgemasters examine your sword... the Street Demons apparently took it to Mazamyun, the Grand Forgemaster who resides in the Dark. How they paid or cajoled him I have no idea, but that sword would likely not break now if you detonated a nuclear device on it." Sakai shakes his head. "The Street Demons haven't gone completely 'peaceful' yet, either... as certainly Horace's people learned... but they have quieted down a great deal and made no more direct movements against any of the other gangs. Their offer of a ceasefire if you agree to the rematch seems sincere."\n\n"Hey, listen, don't let him pressure you, kid," Niobe cautions, walking over and folding her arms on the back of the couch as she frowns at you. "You don't have to do shit, especially now that your slave chip's bricked and sitting in a glass vial in that medbay." You can't help but raise your hands to touch lightly at the back of your neck, the resolve in Niobe's eyes firming up as she continues. "You're your own person now, beholden to no one. You don't owe any of these fucks anything, and yeah that includes you, Sakai," she snaps, though there was no indication he was going to speak. "She got hurt fighting your fight on your time wearing your dragon, you owed her putting her back together, you two are square now."\n\nAlmost urgently, she rests a hand on your shoulder. "C'mon, kid, let's fuck off out of here. Put all of Ikes's stupid 'heart of the sword' or whatever bullshit behind you, let's ditch the whole stupid planet and go."\n\n"You'd go that far to run from this?" Sakai says a little icily.\n\n"From an all-out war? You bet your ass I would," Niobe snaps back, almost snarling at him. "I've been in them before, and I'm not interested in being on the front lines of one again over this cesspit of acid rain and chipped concrete, especially when my only prize is getting to eke out a living in this cesspit of acid rain and chipped concrete with however many of my people survive." She moves her hand to your shoulder, squeezing gently. "I've got enough resources to get you, me, and all of my gang that wants to come the hell out of here. Let's go, kid, let's say 'fuck it' to all of it."\n\nYou look from her, to Sakai, who's sitting silent and expressionless, apparently agreeing with Niobe that it's your choice. You look back up at Niobe. "... What if I stay?"\n\n"Shit, kid!" she hisses, wheeling around and tilting her head back as she puts both hands over her face, stalking off in a random direction. She stands there for several seconds, then lowers her arms and lets her head slump, sighing. "... Shit. Shit, I hate saying this kind of stuff, but..." She turns around to face you, misery written on her face. "... You're the only thing besides my gang that I ever put work into that actually amounted to fuckall, kid. That... means something, considering where I started life. I can't walk away from that. So you stay, I stay, the Geneslicers stay. Just think about that though, alright? You have this rematch and the Street Demons go right back to declaring war afterwards, a lot of people are gonna die that didn't have to. Maybe me, but definitely other people I care about. So just lemme say, you better be <i>damn</i> sure it's what you want, knowing you're not just risking your own neck," she snaps, stabbing a finger towards you for emphasis.\n\n<hr>\n[[You need time to think.|KaiCy1x4]]\n\n[[... Fuck it, let's go.|KaiCy]]

"Oh, come on, Kathryn will get a kick out of summoning a demon," you scold good-naturedly, grinning at Aleanta's repeated eyeroll and Janus's beaming smile. "And she'll be here any time."\n\n"My ears are burning~!" comes a chirpy sound from the half-open door as it's pushed the rest of the way open, a vision of domestic bliss walking in. Kathryn's tall, with long, wavy blonde hair and a pretty, pleasant face, accented by a virtually constant smile and the fact that she walks around with her eyes closed virtually all the time. She's wearing a comfy-looking, thick pink turtleneck sweater that very nicely accentuates her large breasts, and a long cream-colored skirt with low-heeled pink pumps. If it weren't for the multiple piercings occasionally visible in her ears (some with thin chains going between them), and the thin gold chain around her neck with several obviously occult symbols on it, there wouldn't be a single thing about her that overtly said 'witch'. "Hello, everyone~!"\n\n"Hi, Kathryn!" Janus chirps, mismatched eyes sparkling. He ducks his head and squirms happily, cheeks pink as Kathryn steps over and ruffles his hair.\n\n"Hello~, Janus! Aleanta," she adds pleasantly, clasping her hands together.\n\n"Kathryn," Aleanta murmurs in acknowledgement before glancing away.\n\n"And of course, Madame Valerie," Kathryn continues, turning towards you and giving a slight bow. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this summons?"\n\n"Funny you should mention 'summons'," you reply, before once more explaining your intentions for the night.\n\n"Oh this sounds absolutely thrilling!" the blonde exclaims, putting a hand to her chin and smiling brightly... her eyes are still closed, but you somehow get the impression of them sparkling all the same. "An actual demon summoning, I thought it would be years before I'd get to do one! Thank you, Valerie, I'm so happy!"\n\n"Well, in that case, we probably oughtta go, yeah?" Aleanta declares, standing up and grabbing her backpack.\n\nJanus blinks... then his blush fades quickly as he scrambles to his feet. "Um, yeah, I think you're right! Valerie, um, didn't you say you needed to do some shopping before we go, we better do that!"\n\nKathryn opens her mouth, hesitates, then nods. "Yes, perhaps it's best we go now. I really am very excited to begin, after all!"\n\nYeaaaah sure. You're pretty sure you know exactly why they're all suddenly in such a hurry to go now, and it probably has less to do with champing at the bit to do the summoning and more with not wanting to include the last member of the club. Which... if you're honest, you'd prefer not to, either. However, with them, the summoning would be about as powerful as you could get it without scrounging up a seventh, although considering seven's relevance, anything you summoned with that might be more than you could handle (unless the seventh was your cousin). If you want the absolute most powerful demon summoning possible, you should wait for the last member... but then, with the five of you, you should still be able to pull something grand off, and the night will be much more pleasant in general.\n\n<hr>\n[[Wait.|ValTome]]\n\n[[Go.|ValTome]]

Dammit, <i>how</i> do they keep getting this frequency? <i>Why</i> do they keep getting this frequency?! For some reason an inordinate number of villains actually like to call up the Guardian Sentinels and tell them exactly what they plan to do, exactly where, and often exactly when, so that you can show up and stop their unstoppable plan. It's really kind of ridiculous... on the other hand, it's actually super handy for defeating them, so you can't just turn them down.\n\nOkay, put your Drama Hero face on. You have to be ready to engage them and draw them out. If they feel like you're not actually paying attention to them and meeting them on their level, they might get sulky and sign off early, or change their plans. So yes, game face on, use the Strong Voice, aaaand hit 'Receive'!\n\nImmediately the large screen lights up with the image of the villain on the other end... one of these days you're gonna need to remember to use one of the small screens, it feels like this gives them way too much of an advantage as far as theme goes. But then again if they realized you'd stuck them at 1080 resolution on one of the thirty-six inchers instead of the big boy they'd probably throw a tantrum and just push the doomsday weapon's button then and there on the spot, so maybe indulging them with the main screen is for the best anyway.\n\n"So it's you!" you project, folding your arms over your chest and tilting your head just so as you address the screen, making sure to put a bit of dramatic emphasis on their chosen nom de guerre.\n\n<hr>\n[["Doctor Deathtrap!"|Cal2x4]]\n\n[["Misteress Mutagen!"|Cal]]

"Yeah. Assistance contract. I need to see this get done with my own eyes," you answer.\n\n"Alright then. The job is listed. ... Um..." She delicately picks up the comm, eyeing it for a moment before offering it back. "... Please take this with you. Ah, and I'll call you on it when someone accepts the job."\n\nNodding tiredly, you take the blood-smeared comm back, then glance down at the various other smudges and splatters you've left on her countertop. "... Sorry," you murmur distantly, turning and making your way towards one of the bathrooms.\n\nYou watch numbly as the blood slides off your hands and whirls around the basin of the sink. You've heard the Guild actually puts something in the water that makes blood come off easier... true? Maybe? You don't know. You do think it's weird to imagine what you have left of the old man sliding off of you and down the drain. 'Shit, the body, what about the body?' you think distantly, before letting it drift away. It's the landlord's problem now, not yours, you have other things to focus on.\n\n"You look rough," a quiet voice says from nearby.\n\nYou glance up, staring at the slight catgirl in the red and white jacket without recognizing her for a few moments. Of course the way you're feeling you might have done the same if it had been Zee that walked into the bathroom with you and spoke up. "... It's been a rough night," you admit once you've found the way back into your own head.\n\n"Looks it." Her eyes roam up and down you, one ear giving a flick, before she raises a hand and proffers a credcard. "You're always short, right? Enough for a clothes-cleaning and some food bars, that's all, so take it."\n\nThe ghost of something like pride hisses inside your skull as you stare at the card briefly, before you instead raise a heavy hand up and take it instead. "Thanks, Texas."\n\n"It's fine. Get some rest," she says before turning and walking back out.\n\n... Were other people always this kind? you wonder as you retrieve your clothes from a quick-laundry machine a bit later and redress. You don't remember it. Sometimes it feels like the last few years have just been a long string of pain and abuse with Zee as the bright spot amidst all of them. But as you chew a mouthful of vaguely meat-flavored protein and fiber on your way to a seating area, more incidents like the one that just happen keep drifting up. People giving you loans, sometimes without asking. Tossing you gear they said they didn't need anymore. Offering to patch you up with their own supplies so you wouldn't have to charge something to the medcenter. 'My Guildcert is tied to Doonian's MC rosette... once that trades hands, I'll have to reapply and have my license reviewed as a solo. Am I gonna lose this?' you think as you sink into a chair and lean back, closing your eyes. 'Is that another thing my stupid decisions have cost me?'\n\nYou've drifted to somewhere not quite conscious and not quite asleep and stayed there for you have no idea how long when the comm in your pocket buzzes. Half-shuddering, half-lurching upright in the chair, you give your head a slight shake before pulling it out and typing in Doonian's code, some random series of numbers as far as you know, but you've done so well at memorizing it you doubt you'll ever forget it. "Yeah, this is Kai."\n\n"Miss Kai? This is Vima, the one who took the information for your job earlier? I wanted to let you know, your assistance contract has been accepted. The Guild member who accepted has said she'll be waiting for you in front of portal booth #12-20, if you're ready to go."\n\n"Yeah." You rub your face with one hand, then bring it down to the arm of the chair and push yourself to your feet. "Yeah, 'kay, thanks Vima. ... Sorry again about earlier," you add before hitting disconnect. You don't want her to have to say it's okay. Instead you turn towards the nearby lift and direct it to departure portal annex twenty, stepping out once it stops and walking down the rows of currently mostly closed booths. As you get to the last on the row, you do indeed see someone waiting there... sitting on the floor, actually. She's wearing a black schoolgirl-style uniform with red tie-scarf, black thigh-highs, and red sword-gloves of the sort that stop before the ball of her thumb. Even her katana is color-coordinated, mostly black but with a red grip beneath the wraps. Not that unusual... mercs are known for their decidedly odd fashion sense even when going on combat missions, as your own clothing can attest despite only part of it being your choice. Though she also seems really familiar to you, though you're almost sure you haven't met her before... long brown hair, somewhat disheveled and uneven here and there, red eyes somewhat like yours, a slender nose and 'refined' cheekbones and chin. She looks like she's around your own age, though she gets a little less familiar-seeming when she gives you a cheeky grin.\n\n<img src="images/Miranda.png">\n\n"You must be Kai," she says as she rises smoothly to her feet. "My name's Miranda, I'm the one who took the job you posted."\n\n"Hey, yeah, m'Kai." You stare at her for a second, before asking, "You new?"\n\nThat gets a brief laugh out of her. "What, you think you know everyone in the Guild?"\n\n"Not everyone. But I've usually seen everyone that's been around awhile at least a couple of times. You seem sorta familiar," you admit. "But I don't recall where I've seen you before."\n\n"I'll be honest... I've had my license for three days," she replies, seeming even more amused when your jaw clenches and your eyes narrow. "Don't worry, I soloed a B-rank combat mission for my proof of worth, you won't have any problems with my skill."\n\n"... Merc for three days and you wanna earn yourself a Mercenary Company Rosette, pretty ambitious," you murmur.\n\n"My teacher always told me to train like you're aiming to slice a moon in half. Even if you never quite get there, cutting down a mountain winds up a good consolation prize." You must have a Look on your face, because she snorts. "Yeah he's full of those, but he's not wrong. I set my sights high and aim for big goals, and just try not to stumble too bad on the way. But right now the Rosette isn't important... the primary completion goal on the contract, the return of your slave Zee," she continues, her expression turning serious now. "She's actually your friend, yeah?"\n\n"... Yeah," you say softly, nodding once. "Saving her is the most important thing. And I mean that. If we do this and it comes down to saving her or me-"\n\n"I don't think it'll come to that," Miranda cuts in smoothly, one red-gloved hand giving a short, negating wave. "But I understand. I want to go all the way on this, but you're right, saving her is the priority. We'll get her back, and then she can stay in my room here on the Guildhall until we're done with Horace. Sound good?"\n\nAlmost suspiciously good. But then, as you just recalled... maybe you've been a little blind to some of the kindness from your fellow mercs. "Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it."\n\n"Alright, you need to get anything before we go?"\n\nYou briefly consider, then shake your head. Most of your own weapons and gear are shit compared to what Horace's syndicate will be armed with, and any of the better stuff in Doonian's vaults that he hasn't... hadn't... sold yet is now technically the Guild's property until either someone completes the secondary objective of the job you've posted or enough time has passed that the objective is considered abandoned. "Nah, I'll manage with this."\n\n"Cool, me too," she says, seeming a bit cheery again as she turns to the portal booth. "Let's head out. Put us down near your apartment, we'll look for clues there," she says, gesturing to the coordinates input pad.\n\nYou step up and raise your hand, then twitch away from the display as if it were a hot stovetop. The image of everything wrecked, Zee achingly absent, a bloody lump of meat laying next to an overturned recliner...\n\n"Everything okay?" Miranda asks quietly.\n\n"Yeah." You jerk a little, then tap the familiar sequence, setting the temporal coordinates for as close to when you left as the dimensional differential will allow. "Yeah, sorry. Long day," you murmur as the door of the booth slides open, revealing the swirling portal beyond.\n\nThe two of you emerge onto the sidewalk outside the building, hands snapping to your swords and both taking a good long look around. You have to admit, it does look like Miranda's probably about at your level, at least, just to judge from her movements in that. ... Maybe better. Pushing such thoughts aside, you turn and make your way up the steps, stopping in the hallway and pointing to the smashed door. "It's that one."\n\n"Mm. I'd say that seems obvious, but judging from the look of the neighborhood," Miranda quips, before shooting you a sheepish look. "Sorry."\n\n"Nah. You're not wrong," you reply with a shake of the head, walking through ahead of her. It definitely hurts to see the entry and kitchen area... essentially Zee's realm... like this. Some of it was obviously in the struggle, but it looks like Horace's men took the time to bust everything they reasonably could in a few minutes. Trying to hurt you? Or just for the sheer meanness of it? Trying to shift your mind into a more analytical mode rather than the hurt, you cross to the smashed kitchen table and squat down, starting to brush bits of debris aside, seeing if the syndicate goons might have dropped something while tussling with Zee... she wasn't a combatant but she wasn't helpless either, Niobe and you saw to that. "There's other rooms but some of them aren't really liveable and we stayed out of them. I think it all happened in here and in the living room in there."\n\n"Got it," Miranda acknowledges, heading for the doorway.\n\n"... Dammit," you murmur several minutes later, not finding a single sign of the assailants other than the destruction they left. You stand up, already calling "You find anything?!" as you turn. You blink as you spot Miranda still standing just inside the darkened room, and walk over, slipping in behind her and realizing that she's staring at Doonian's body. You look over at it as well, calmer now, and there's still that strange sensation, that feeling that you can't identify. Not love by a long shot, no... but it's not hate anymore, either. Not quite sorrow, definitely not joy. It's like your mind knows that you should be feeling <i>something</i> looking at his battered, immobile corpse, but it has no idea what and has just given you a blank canvas and left you to figure out what should go on it. You look aside at Miranda, whose face is an unreadable mask. "First time seeing someone like that?"\n\n"... Yeah." She closes her eyes quickly and turns her head a bit, shifting her shoulders before the rest of her body as she turns towards the wall. "Yeah, first time seeing... that. I've cut plenty of people, but... it just wasn't like that."\n\nYeah," you answer flatly, moving to stand over Doonian's corpse and looking down at him... it. "Yeah, normally you have to hate someone pretty bad to beat them to death with your bare fists. It's ugly, and it's slow. But Horace employs the sort of guys who hate on command, they do this sort of shit then they go down to the bar to flirt with the wait staff like it's nothing." You look over at her again. "Sure you're still up for this?"\n\n"I'm fine," Miranda replies offhandedly, her eyes on the holes in the wall. "These are projectiles. His or Horace's men? He... Doonian... was a Guild member, or he used to be, wouldn't he have had a blaster?"\n\n"Blasters are a little rare on Makarzia, it's hard to get the charge packs for them," you answer, scanning the area around the body with an appraising eye now. "Especially since there's so many different kinds. So everyone either uses guns... projectile slingers... or melee weapons. Both can get pretty exotic. But considering the direction and the size of the holes, they're probably from Doonian's hand cannon. Not shocked one of Horace's boys decided to take it with them, it was one of the only valuable things in this shithole."\n\n"How many projectiles did it have in it?"\n\n"Rounds. Twelve."\n\n"Hm." Miranda touches gloved fingertips to one of the holes, then glances over at you. "There are only nine holes, though."\n\n"So he only got that many shots off," you say with a shrug. Then you hesitate, before frowning and shaking your head, turning back to her. "Nah, the old man was a slug, but he hears the door smash, he hears Zee scream, the adrenaline hits. He's out of the chair, turns it over, he's probably already mag-dumping by the time they come through the door, he'd have gotten more than nine off."\n\n"Let's assume he was standing where you're standing," Miranda says, glancing over at you, the words giving you a somewhat odd sensation just for a second. "I could see them getting to him before he got off the last shot, but that still leaves two unaccounted for." She backs up slowly to stand next to you, obviously making an effort not to look at the corpse. She uses two fingers to point in the general vicinity of the wall, moving them as she tracks from one hole to the next, then mms softly. "There's a void in the firing pattern. See it?"\n\n"I... no. I mean, maybe, kind of," you hedge as you frown at the bullet holes. "But a void, you mean like... he actually nailed one of them?"\n\n"I think so, it looks like."\n\n"Nah, nah, there'd be blood everywhere if he perforated one of them, that hand cannon was a vicious caliber. All the blood's over here. If he did hit the guy, it's Horace's assholes so they were probably wearing cloth-armor suits that make anything below Guild-certed weave armor look like shit. ... Wait," you correct yourself, looking down at the floor again and skimming your gaze back and forth. "In that case there'd be flattened bullets on the floor. No way they'd bother to take them with them." You wrack your brain for a moment before snorting. "Shit, the old man was loaded up with ceramicoats."\n\n"Ceramicoats?" Miranda asks curiously.\n\n"It's a process that can be done to the bullets, makes 'em sorta... slick, y'know?" you answer, making a gesture with a finger and your other hand trying to show something slipping through the air. "Makes 'em fly faster and penetrate armor more, they're a really shithead thing to use in a hab area 'cause they go through walls and bodies alike but it was the old man, he wouldn't have given a fuck. So if Horace's guys were wearing the really good stuff, maybe the ceramicoat bullets have enough speed and penetration power to go through the suit in a nice, neat little hole-" you say, making a stabbing motion.\n\n"But not come out, especially through another layer of armor," Miranda picks up, comprehension flickering in her eyes. "So no big blood pools, and no proj-, bullets left behind."\n\n"Yeah, maybe Horace didn't order the beating, maybe they were just pissed the fuck off he put a couple of holes in one of their boys. Then again, it's Horace, so."\n\n"With the void in the pattern... if we assume the shot man was a little taller than average for male humans... it would have been one in the thigh and one in the collarbone. From what you're describing it probably wasn't lethal, but he would have been in a lot of pain and not able to move very well... I doubt they would have wanted to take him very far. Where's the nearest medical help?" she asks, glancing over at you.\n\n"There's an all-night emergency clinic at the corner of the block, but they're required to report things like bullet wounds to the cops. No way to get around it either, it's all droid-manned. Nah, one more block over is the nearest place they'd've taken him, c'mon."\n\nSoon you're pounding insistently on a reinforced door in another apartment building. It takes almost half a minute before the speaker beside the door clicks to life. <i>"P-... password?"</i>\n\n"The password is 'open the door and let me the fuck in, Twitch!'" you call back, slamming your fist down on the door a few more times.\n\n"You go to a doctor called 'Twitch'?" Miranda whispers, raising one eyebrow.\n\n"No, I go to an unlicensed medisurgeon called Twitch, and she twitches, not her cyberlimbs," you mutter back, before pounding again. "Twitch, dammit, open up!"\n\nYou drop your fist as there's the sound of automated locks unclicking, and the door creaks open just the slightest, revealing a sliver of a pale face, white hair, and one lense of a goggles-like eye replacement prosthetic. "Oh, um, hey Kai, are you hurt, I can-" Twitch squawks and goes stumbling back as you shove the door open and step inside, Miranda striding a bit more calmly behind you. The cyborg medisurgeon is pale, her hair having gone prematurely white from the strain on her body of her numerous implants and prosthesis. Both arms have been replaced with largely humanoid silver limbs, left mostly bare by the white full-length smock she's wearing, four more purely functional long, multi-jointed prosthesis rising from her back, currently curling in on themselves like a smacked insect's as she cowers. "Y-you seem okay, I mean, I mean did you maybe finally decide on that neuroenhancer I suggested, I-I still have it in, I-"\n\n"Cut the crap, Twitch," you growl. "Some syndicate guys, one of 'em shot twice, did they come in here?"\n\n"I, I, I, I, I," Twitch stammers, sounding somewhere between that and a sound file failing to load properly since she's had to enhance her voice box with a small speaker implant. "I, I, I can't tell you that, Kai, you, you know I can't tell you that, it's how things work, I can't tell you that, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"\n\n"Dammit, Twitch, they killed the old man and they took Zee and you're gonna help me track them down," you snarl, lips actually pulling back from your teeth.\n\n"PLEASE, Kai!" the cyborg almost shrieks, drawing in more on herself, her whole body shuddering as well as some other, harsher little jerks, even as all of her prosthetics stay almost unnervingly steady. "I can't, I can't, I can't, they'll hurt me if I do, you know they'll hurt me if I tell you!" From the sound of her voice, the little near-electronic scratch hiccups, you can tell she'd be sobbing if her tear ducts hadn't been replaced along with everything else conencted to her eyes. "You've always been nice to me, Kai, you've always been really nice, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't want to be hurt, Zee was nice to me too that time you brought her in with the flu, you remember that, you remember I helped Zee with the flu and I didn't even charge you 'cause you were always nice to me, please please please don't hurt me!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Push.|Kai]]\n\n[[Back off.|Kai4x9]]

Eh, why not? At least you can feel like you at least had something like a brush with being productive in this other world. And while the nest egg the government paid you is substantial, it might not last forever... having another source of income to help pay for your admittedly expensive hobbies would help. Tucking your hands into your jacket pockets, you wander over to stand in front of the job station. There's two sections, the one with official job pamphlets, the ones from businesses and at least nominally upright establishments (mostly here in Shinjuku or in neighboring wards), and the board above that's filled with postings from individuals or indie companies looking for a bit of help. It looks like someone's been tearing down some of the more blatantly shady offers and blatant recruitment attempts, to judge by the tatters of shiny cards and pamphlets remaining on some of the pins.\n\nAlright, let's see, on the <b>official pamphlets</b>, there's\n\n* A [[game company|SiphaJob]] hiring testers, oooo!\n* A [[bar|SiphaJob]] looking for bartenders and waitresses. Hm... mixing drinks is <i>kinda</i> like alchemical potion making, right?\n* A [[soapland|SiphaJob]] looking for girls. ... You thiiiink you've heard of these? Still, must be okay if it's got an actual pamhplet.\n\nAnd on the <b>direct offerings</b> boards, there's\n\n* A [[mangaka|SiphaJob]] looking for assistants. Apparently prior artistic skill isn't needed, they'll teach you to shade.\n* An [[indie visual novel|SiphaJob1x1]] studio looking for voice actresses. Hm, maybe you've played one of their games?\n* Someone looking for a [[delivery person|SiphaJob]]... hm, delivery of what? Doesn't say. How curious.\n* And there's an ad for '[[Independent Models|SiphaPorn]]'... you have a vague feeling that they might mean something other than just having your picture taken in some nice clothes, but you're not entirely sure.

You turn your attention to the scroll with worlds Xenith and her crew have found for you to explore, to bring back new resources (or items, or servants, or even possibly hero souls). And, frankly, it's a way for you to get out of the Dark Monolith and have fun! No Demon Lord since the 127th has actually left the Dark Monolith, instead being born and existing there for their entire tenure, before dissipating their energy through their Dark Monolith as it sank into the sub-realm. That's 538 hikkikomiri Demon Lords... something nice to keep in mind, how privileged you are to get to leave the house! Now let's see what worlds and places are currently available to you...\n\n[[Earth|MaxEarthStart]] - Specifically, a town called Knightsvale, sometime in the early twenty-first century. They apparently have a lot of fun things there, to judge by some of the notes jotted down below its entry.\n\n[[Nirn|MaxNirnStart]] - The portal apparently opens in a country called "Skyrim". The world is full of magic, and the scrying team has made a few excited notes about how full of hero souls it might theoretically be.\n\n[[Letoria|MaxLetoriaStart]] - A world somewhat like Nirn, in that it's full of magic and heroes, but distinct in various ways as well. There's not quite as many excited notes, so it's probably not as much of a wealth of hero souls, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun to visit!\n\n

"If he's calling here, he must know I went with you," you note, glancing at Niobe. "Maybe this is a gang leader thing?"\n\n"Shit. The work never stops," Niobe says with a sigh, shoving herself to her feet and trudging towards the hall. "Yer probably right, I'll take care of this," she notes as she heads back, Ilia trailing after her.\n\nThings are quiet for a bit, with you settling into a chair to rest. You exchange glances with Diore several times, wondering how exactly to start up a conversation with your mentor's bodyguard/boytoy, when both of you jump a little at a loud slam and then angry shouting from down the hall. Both of you start to stand before it becomes clear it's not a sound of anyone in distress, just Niobe being severely pissed. Settling back, the two of you exchange a somewhat heavier glance as you start wondering if this was really a good idea.\n\nEventually the shouting ends, and there's the sound of a door slamming shortly before Niobe stalks back in, Ilia still following after her and looking pale again... literally having turned almost sheet white, eyes and hair as well. "Fuck it, war on two fronts," she declares, walking over to one of the wall screens and grabbing the controller, starting to stab it with enough force to make the smaller device's screen make soft *krk* noises without actually cracking visibly. "Unlike some fucking moron though I'm gonna beat the better-defended and better-supplied enemy first so I can use his shit against the other one."\n\n"Er, Niobe, what the fuck are you talking about?" you ask as you and Diore stand and walk over, freezing in place as a neon-lined illustration of the Holy Dragons headquarters submerged beneath wavy blue lines appears on the screen.\n\n"Sakai wants to threaten me, fuck 'im, I'll show him I can take over his whole fucking operation with a handful of genesoldiers and make him my bitch. Maybe I'll literally make him my bitch, I'll see how the mood takes me. Now!" she says, slapping a hand against the screen enough to make it wobble a little on its mounting. "I've been figuring out how to crack this place anyway just as a fun li'l thought exercise or whatever the fuck you call it, and I've got a totally doable plan. We take over this bitch and every Dragon in the city sector either has to bend the knee or get left out in the cold, and if they decide on the cold then fuck 'em, we'll sit down there in their own comfy little hidey-hole under the water waiting until the Demons and the rest have killed off enough of each other that we can step on 'em like bugs."\n\n"You're seriously talking about taking over the Temple?" you say, somewhere between disbelief and awe as you stare at the image on the screen. "It's a fortress. An underwater fortress. It's designed to fend off underwater assault too."\n\n"Yeah, by submersibles and people wearin' diving equipment, fuckers don't know what I've got in my pocket. I send down an aquatic team in nothing but their skins and some basic equipment, they infiltrate here at one of the emergency exits," she says, already starting to explain as she gestures to points on the map, using the controller to manipulate the illustration. "They get in, force the Temple to surface, that's when we hit 'em hard, we go right at the front, it's actually where the defenses are least concentrated. But that's mainly a diversion for two other teams, the Capture Team and Stealth team," she continues, adding two differently-colored groups of generic 'people' icons. "Capture team moves fast and light, secures Sakai or someone else irreplacable as leverage. Stealth team moves to the control room that we're almost certain is located here, below the main garden. Once the stealth team has that, all the defenses are on our side, the Dragons lose every advantage they have, and if the capture team succeeds too, then we basically make everyone of 'em in there and the rest of the city bend the knee."\n\nGeez. That must have been a hell of a comm argument. Still, you guess you can't exactly argue with it as a survival tactic... other than Horace Allfather, the Holy Dragons are probably the richest gang in the city. The facilities in the Temple alone could help a gang like Niobe's go from nobody to juggernaut practically overnight. "You really think you can pull it off, though? I mean, if it's you, maybe."\n\n"Not just me. I need you too, kid."\n\n"... Eh?"\n\n"Listen, each of these teams is gonna be specially chosen for their abilities... it's the only way this works with the numbers we've got. So I'm gonna ask you to go under the knife... or rather, in the mod tube," Niobe says, expression a bit grim as she continues. "To change you up right we'll have to go deep so this ain't a one-way trip, you agree to this and you'll be a genemod like us for the rest of your life. You join any team though and I think it'll put us over the top one way or another. Kid... you do this for me, and not only will we remove your chip when we do the mod, I guarantee you that within an hour of having control of the Dragons' finances, I will have Zee bundled up and brought over, free and clear and wearing some decent fuckin' clothes for once."\n\nYou hesitate for long moments, then nod. Put like that, you can't really argue. You're not super thrilled to be going to war with people you've gotten on well with up until this point, but maybe it's like Niobe said, the Geneslicers need what the Dragons have if they're gonna make it through this war. "I guess that's it then. Any team?"\n\n"Yeah, decide where you wanna be, kid, I'll make it happen."\n\n<hr>\n[[The aquatic team.|KaiGS]]\n\n[[The assault team.|KaiGS]]\n\n[[The capture team.|KaiGS]]\n\n[[The stealth team.|KaiGS]]

"Oh, let's just get rid of that Tifa we've got wandering around not doing anything," you declare after some thought. "I'm not really thinking of anything good to do with her right now, I'd rather bring her back when I've already got something in mind."\n\n"Of course, your magnificence, sometimes it's better to not leave a snack laying around in plain sight when you're not ready to eat it," Xenith coos.\n\nYou bring up a view on the crystal of Tifa wandering through the stone corridor, lit by the pseudomateria outgrowths. She pauses briefly as she comes to the apparent end, the opening beyond completely dark... then jumps a little as her PHS gives an audible 'bleep!'. Pulling it out of her belt and checking the screen, a look of relief washes over her face, before she strides into the darkness and disappears.\n\n"There, she's been sent back to her original world... almost no time should have passed there, so she won't notice anything's odd, and will be fresh to snag again whenever you decide you'd like to dream up some delightful violation for her, your majesty!"\n\n"Good, good."\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|MaxThroneRoomRepeat]]

"Noooo!" Ryo wails, clearly recognizing the term you used from some doujin or another.\n\nYou giggle sweetly, continuing the smooth rock of your hips as you fuck him. "Too la~te, I already put the curse on you~! Know what happens when a guy has a femboi curse put on him while he's getting fucked in the butt, Ryo-chan~? The first thing is, he goes completely and utterly crazy for cock!"\n\n"Hnnnnnh!" Ryo's eyes go wide as his cock suddenly goes from half-hard to steely and throbbing beneath him. His tongue pokes out just a bit, his mouth open and eyes slightly rolled as his hips start gyrating and bucking. "Nnnh, ah!"\n\n"And his voice turns all sweet and girly, and his moans extra lew~d, and he starts talking like a slut!" you coo, sliding your hands up and down his back before starting to thrust just a bit faster.\n\n"Nnnh, ah, ah, ah!" Ryo squeals, his voice geting higher with every loud gasp. "Oh, my hips are moving on their own! I'm losing my mind to this cock!" he mewls in his newly feminine voice.\n\n"And theeeeen, his tight little ass turns into a soft, wet pussy, even more sensitive to having big fat dicks thrust into it!"\n\n"Ah, ohhh, oh, ah!" Ryo moans as your thrusts come all the easier, his softened, slick hole now accepting your dick as if it had been made for no other purpose.\n\n"His pecs perk up and his nipples get all puffy 'cause now they're tits, and his ass gets rounder and bouncier!"\n\nAs you say it, you reach under him, squeezing the slightly softer, more prominent part of his chest, toying with his nipples as the areola thicken and turn more pink. His ass starts to jiggle visibly with the impact of your hips against it, his moans getting even sweeter and lewder if possible at his newly sensitive nipples being teased and the sensation of his ass bouncing.\n\n"But fiiiinally... and most importantlyyyyy..." you coo into his ear, wiggling a bit to press your tits against his back, your fluffy foxtail flicking. "His cock shrinks and goes permanently limp, turning into a soft little boiclit that will never, ever get hard again because he'll only ever cum from big, fat, throbbing cocks in his ass from now on!"\n\n"Kyaaaaaa!" Ryo squeals as you thrust forward and start filling him with your own load even as his dick wilts and shrinks, growing smaller and if anything softer than it ever was before, drawn-up little balls dwarfed by yours pressing against them. His eyes roll up and his tongue lolls out as he assgasms repeatedly from the feel of you using him as a cumdump, overlapping female-esque climaxes rocking his girly, cute body as his hips continue to twitch and rub his pert feminine ass against you.\n\n"And of course, he's obligated to attend to any big hard cock he sees, too, because he knows that his purpose in life is to service dicks," you purr as you pull out, scooting forward a bit and presenting your cum-smeared prick to the panting, flushed femboi still bent over the bed. He turns his head, blinking at it with lust-glazed eyes... before unhesitatingly darting forward and wrapping his mouth around the head, moaning sweetly in pleasure as he bobs his head over the upper half of it and pumps the lower half with both soft, slender, girlish hands. Smirking down at him, you stroke a hand over his hair, which has grown softer and shinier and a bit longer. "There's a good girl, Ryo-chan~!"\n\nSoon you're laying on your back, hands tucked behind your head and watching in amusement as Ryo bounces himself on your cock entirely of his own accord, riding you like an experienced whore and moaning just as wickedly, back arched to jut his flat little tits out and display those puffy pink nipples, his limp clit-cock bouncing on his smooth, hairless crotch. You've actually enlarged your cock to increase his lewd pleasure from fucking himself on it, enough that every time he slams himself down on it his flat, sleek belly bulges up luridly with the outline of your prick, his eyes rolled and lips curled in a brainless smile from the near-constant assgasms you're giving him, his hips shaking shamelessly in an effort to work your monster dick around inside his ass-pussy. "So how do you like being a little femboi slut, Ryo-chan?" you coo.\n\n"Ish the besht, Konko-shamaaaaa!" Ryo squeals, so cock-drunk he's actually slurring his words, his tongue flopping about and hands tucked behind his head as he works his hips, doing his very best to milk another load out of you with his soft, supple little cock-holster of an ass.\n\nAwww, such a good slutty femboi he's become! To award him you grab his hips and yank down hard, starting to pump a truly magnificent load into him, Ryo squealing and arching his head back, trembling all over as he cums the entire time you're filling him. The outline of your cock fades as his belly gradually swells out, growing rounder and rounder, until the slutty little boy-girl looks a good seven or eight months pregnant, his round cumbelly draping down and almost entirely hiding his limp little cocklet. His brain completely whited-out, he topples backwards and sprawls, your cock still inside him, twitching and still cumming despite the fact that he's gone unconscious from pleasure overload.\n\n"Konkonkonkon~," you laugh as you pull out of him, doing a quick bit of magic to make sure that only a minimal amount will flow out. You want to give him time to assimilate the rest, which should happen pretty quickly while he's out... it will keep him in his current state of looking young, girly, healthy, and with a ravenous thirst for dick for the rest of his natural life... perhaps 150 years or so? Well, humans are extending their lifespans all the time, too! Giggling a bit more to yourself, you poof your hoodie and shoes back on as you stand up, pausing briefly to turn all of Ryo's boy clothes into cute/slutty girl clothes before skipping out the door.\n\n"What the-" one of the women who's just walked into the house says at the sight of you.\n\n"Ah... excuse me, who are you, and what were you doing in Ryo's room?" the other, older one asks.\n\nThis would be Ryo's sister and mother! Both black-haired and pretty, the sister with a pageboy cut and wearing sweater and slacks, the mother with her hair long and in a braid, wearing her nice white nurse's uniform. Oh dear~, it's such a shame that you bumped into them coming down the stairs~, now you're going to have to prank them a bit too~! A little bit of magic to make them-\n\n<hr>\n[[-embrace and support Ryo's new form.|Konko6ax2]]\n\n[[-stroke and penetrate Ryo's new form.|Konko]]

"I found a cellphone under the seat here, yeah," you answer, reaching back to pluck it from the hidden pocket and hold it out. "Is this it?"\n\n"Oh! I mean, yes, that looks like it might be mine, thank you." The lenses of her mask even went wide before she quickly tried to look casual again. "I'll just check," she adds, plucking it up and holding it up, making sure only the back of the case is facing you. The back of the case that's all sparkly in a snowflake pattern.\n\n'Someone needs to have a talk with you about this,' you mutter internally, actually watching her eyes go wide and her cheeks turn pink again before she whips it back down.\n\n"Well, I... this might be... ah..." She trails off, then actually hugs it to her chest, hunching in on herself somewhat. You can't help but think that despite being part of her mask, it looks like her cat ears are drooping, and you can just imagine if she did in fact have one of the infamous fluffy tails of her namesake it would be swishing forelornly. "Did you... perhaps... look at the screen?"\n\n<hr>\n[["... Nnno?"|Cal]]\n\n[["... Mmmmaybe?"|Cal]]\n\n[["... Hm. What if I did?"|Cal]]

There are two libraries on campus, and while both are named after wealthy donors (who died in different centuries), everyone just calls them the Old Library and the New Library. The New Library is of course where people go to use the computer lab, find modern reference material, look studious in hopes someone will see them looking studious and approach them for a "study" date, check out the latest popular children's book because they're so passionate about reading, etc. The Old Library is where you go if you want to actually study in peace and quiet, maybe find a dated or rare piece of reference material, and in your case, try to discover a little bit more about just how much of your little part of the world the university founders were clued in to. \n\nThe building is appropriately old and gothic in style, and the interior smells primarily of old books rather than new furniture and a bland mingling of a hundred different perfumes and body sprays like the new library. You stop by the door, and are in the process of hanging your bag on one of the hooks when you hear a prim, "Leave your bag by the door, please." Of course.\n\nYou glance over at Ms. Lassiter, trying not to let your annoyance show on your face. The librarian has fairly severe features, but an unlined face, her jet black hair pulled back tightly with a braid that goes over each ear and behind the back of her head to form a tight bun. She's one of those people that looks like she could either be a mature forty or a very spry ninety, it's really hard to tell whether she's actually old and just has a definite lack of wrinkles, or relatively young and just has a sour, fussy disposition. Her clothes don't help, a black skirt-suit that looks like a power suit and a pilgrim's dress had a secret, torrid love affair and then shipped their bastard child off to a rod-assed librarian's wardrobe in order to hide their shame. However, she is the librarian here, and you can't afford to get on her bad side by pointing out that you were almost finished doing what she told you to do before she told you to do it. "Yes, ma'am," you reply politely, pulling a notebook and pen out of your bag and tucking them under your arm.\n\n"Mm. I don't suppose you're here working on an actual <i>paper</i> today?" she asks, looking over the rim of her very librarian-y glasses at you. Her eyes are grey, though a much paler shade than your own, and seem to be trying to search your soul for some justification for its existence.\n\n"Just here to read over some of the journals again today, thanks," you reply, heading for a section you've been to repeatedly, while she watched you.\n\n"Donated journals are towards the back and to your left," Lassiter states flatly. "Please remember to clean your hands and that they are not to be checked out."\n\n'I'm not sure what that woman needs but she needs a lot of it and really hard,' you think with an internal sigh as you skim over the row of books, then pluck one down. The Old Library maintains a number of journals from alumni that were donated in their wills, some of which seem to have been clued in but keeping things a bit vague. Still, you're finding some valuable pointers in some of them. This one sounds like he had quite the library of his own... you just need to find out which of his books might be worth tracking down if he donated them. As you read you make several notes, underlining what you think are book titles that you would actually want to look into.\n\nHours pass, and it's late afternoon by the time you approach the desk. Ms. Lassiter looks up at you a bit narrow-eyed, but waits for you to actually speak for once. "Yeah, I found some book titles but I'm not sure where to begin looking them up."\n\n"Very well," Lassiter says after obviously taking a moment to figure out if there's any way she can dissect that and scold you for not using the card catalogue. You suppose not knowing what kind of book they even necessarily are qualifies as worthy of her assistance. "What is the title?"\n\n<hr>\n[["The Witch Princess of Avalon."|ValLib2x1]]\n\n[["The Circles of Faeries."|ValLib1x1]]

Checking his bio, this guy looks like he used to be a near-legend around here... the early images show a lion man with a thick golden mane and a solemn but cheeky smile (fairly similar to the one on your own official Guild image), and a later, updated one shows his mane darkened, an obvious scar running down one side of his face and an eyepatch on that side, his muzzle turned down in a solemn scowl. He's big, tough, skilled, and scary... just the sort of bounty takedown that really gets people talking about you, and thus the potential for high-paying clients asking for you specifically. Besides, the payday would be enough to put the majority of the money for a small ship down and make reasonable, achievable payments on what was left over. (... What, you can't have reasonable expectations amongst your pie-in-the-sky gloryhounding?)\n\nYou accept the bounty, and pay a small amount for the information packet the Guild has on him. It takes a little while to go through it, but you eventually think you've got a decent lead on where he might be. There's a no-tech world called Saurion where he's been noted as having visited several times... since he likes to use starfighters a lot, such a world would be perfect for a hideout to lay low waiting for attention to bleed off, since any worthwhile fighter capable of atmospheric reentry and takeoff can land vertically and thus wouldn't need any clear space bigger than itself. Which briefly makes you jealous that you don't have enough money for your own starfighter... man, the goal is definitely to someday own one of those sweet sub-carrier classes with a small fighter bay, but maybe for right now you can at least realistically dream of a ship designed with an attached fighter that you can board from inside. \n\n... Anyway, Saurion is what Guild members typically call a "Savage" world, meaning that if it's got locals they're probably not much above chipped stone weapons and firepits... though the Savage moniker actually comes from the local fauna being big, aggressive, and hungry. (The flora sometimes too, looks like Saurion has at least a bit of that.) You keep that in mind as you head to one of the armory stations, entering your personal code and handprint to have it bring up your locker. You make it a policy not to weigh yourself down too heavily trying to plan for every single contingency, so best to take two weapons... one to deal with Comet (and any similar "person"-level threats) and one to deal with any Big Game that decides you look tasty. You take a look over the rows of weapons that you were either gifted by your parents or picked up in various ways on your missions, before selecting the first of them.\n\n<img src="images/SFMK99.png">\n\nThe medium length black blaster with green accents and a 'split' opening around the barrel is the StellarForge MK-99 mid-range combat rifle. It's widely joked that the MK doesn't stand for 'Mark' but 'Maybe Kill' because even its Stun setting is notorious for still putting holes in things, and on the other end at high power its full auto firing mode is so unreliable for keeping on target that it's a tossup whether you'll actually hit something standing right in front of you. But other than that it's a good weapon, perfect for dealing with someone large, tough, agile, and who has a status of "Eh" on being brought in alive. Now let's see, for the big stuff...\n\n<img src="images/FIAHW111.jpg">\n\nThe very large, very bulky black rifle with minimal aesthetics is the Federal Integrated Armory Heavy Weapon 111. Besides the rather unimaginative name and look, it's banned on a good handful of planets in its home dimension. Developed primarily for crowd control, it fires a massive ball of energy that hits with a 'splash' effect that heavily disrupts electrical signals... including the electrical signals most living creatures use to power their brains and nerves. Which doesn't sound too bad, except that apparently it has about a 75% chance of causing permanent neurological damage and a laundry list of other side effects. Not the sort of thing a responsible, upstanding bounty hunter uses on a mark... but should be perfect for anything two stories tall with lots of sharp teeth it wants to use on you.\n\nUnfortunately without a ship of your own, you're going to have to guesstimate where to have a portal put you. You spend another thirty minutes or so looking over a low detail map of the planet, before selecting the place that you'd be most likely to set down and hole up if it was you. You select some coordinates, then head to the outgoing transfer lobby (which is a little more organized than the incoming, since they have to make sure you get the right portal). By dint of long experience you brace yourself for the shift between environments, and it's good that you've got this pretty much down because otherwise the differential might have knocked you on your ass. One second you're in a slightly cool, slightly dim, slightly dry interior and then between heartbeats you're standing under the hot, bright sun with air so thick it feels a bit like you're taking a drink every time you inhale. You'd already squinted a little bit, and now gradually open your eyes to take a look around. You're not quite inside a lush jungle of trees practically dripping with vines and alive with flowers, a bit outside of it and with a low mountain range in sight a few miles away. \n\n'Not the most comfortable place in the world to be wearing full body black, including an insulated jacket, and carrying a bigass rifle on your back,' you think ruefully, glancing briefly in the general direction of the sun as you take in the shrieks of birds and buzzing of insects. Of course you're not stupid enough to strip down or leave the rifle just because you're going to get a bit sweaty. The insect noises more than anything remind you that it's a good idea to keep as much of your skin covered as possible... in fact, while you're at it, you activate the light deflector field built into the collar of your shirt to shield your head. Really it's only intended to take some of the lethal force off of most head blows, and it gives you a very faint sense of claustrophobia whenever it's on, but better than having some amped-up mosquito decide to stick you right in the middle of the forehead. Even if it didn't kill you, you'd never hear the end of it back at the Guild.\n\nAlright, you're here, and you're confident that Comet Lion is too. The question is how best to find him...\n\n<hr>\n[[Scan for power signatures.|LeoNova1x1]]\n\n[[Examine the area.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Head for the mountains.|LeoNova]]

"I HATE THIS! I HATE WHAT YOU DID! I HATE YOU AND I HATE THAT YOU'RE DYING!" you scream, feeling tears slip down your face for one of the only times in your very long life. "I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS AND WHAT CAUSED IT!" You slam a foot to the ground, fists clenched at your sides, then throw back your head and howl with everything in your being, "<b><i>I HATE LOVE!</i></b>"\n\nA column of pure energy bursts out from around you, blasting into the sky in a column of retina-searing brilliance. It strikes the upper atmosphere as if it were a solid thing, spreading out and consuming the entire sky in a bright glow, the air instantly churned into roiling storm clouds that darken and begin to rage with thunder and shriek with lightning. Gradually the energy tapers off, the column thinning and diminishing, until it disappears completely. The clouds that had been forced away by the pressure of it close in, pouring down the warm rain onto the ruined shrine grounds.\n\n"Konko," the fading spirit says in a soft, horrified voice. "What did you do?"\n\n"... It took away my best friend," you whisper back, your fists still clenched, your head lowering as rain pours down over you. "So I killed it. It took all my power," you add, fur starting to be carried to the ground by the rain, bits of your ears and tail flopping to the ground by the moment. "But I killed it. I killed love."\n\n"Oh, Konko... oh Konko no..."\n\n"Love is an awful thing," you declare flatly, fists tightening until they tremble. "It took you from me, it made you mutilate yourself, it made you wind up alone here and left you to die. Love sucks. So it's gone. None left. Everything outside of that spell has been completely stripped of love."\n\n"Poor Konko... you don't know what you've done," the spirit calls faintly, before it fades away entirely, leaving nothing but empty space around you.\n\nYou stare down at the ground, feeling the rain soak into your hair, your hoodie, course over your body with a warmth like tears. The fur of your ears and tail is being washed away, both of them gone like they were never there. But it was worth it. You destroyed love for everything outside the beam of light. Yes, that means there's no love left in the world at all!\n\n"... I hate love," you whisper, your voice catching in your throat as you say it, before your entire chest convulses. You sob, hunching forward, repeating the words even as your whole body quakes with a depth of loss you've never known. "I hate love... I hate love... I hate love..."\n\n<hr>\n[[Game Over.|KonFren2axEnd2]]

"Oh, I'm just the local mischievous fox spirit who fucked Ryo up the ass and turned him into a slutty little femboi. Which you two are perfectly fine with, of course," you add.\n\n"Well, of course we are," the sister huffs, resting her hips.\n\n"My my, why wouldn't we be?" the mother adds in almost confusion, putting a hand to her cheek.\n\n"Good, good," you acknowledge, putting your hands together and beaming. "So remember, buy him lots of slutty clothing, introduce him to lots of men he'd like to fuck, encourage any men you date to plow his cute ass, oh, and do try to be a bit sluttier yourselves, hmmmm?"\n\n"I do have a date this Friday, I guess I could skip dinner to bring him back here and get him to fuck Ryo before letting him use my pussy as a cumdump," the sister allows, nodding once.\n\n"I suppose it's past time I got back to dating, or at least bringing men home to casually beastfuck me and my son and daughter," the mother adds thoughtfully.\n\n"Good good, good good," you coo, patting your hands together before trotting right past them, giving a wave, "Enjoy being a filthy pack of degenerate sluts together!"\n\n"Thank you, Konko-sama," both of them call after you as the door closes.\n\nYes, thank you indeed, Konko-sama! You do such wonderful things to promote happy families! You're the best, Konko-sama, yaaaay!\n\n<hr>\n[[Game Over.|6axEnd]]

The rain lets up about halfway home, leaving you still dripping as you walk slowly along the sidewalk, gaze on the ground. You can hear shouting and arguing from all around, even occasionally crashing noises or glass breaking... once, from a distance, you hear a gunshot. But you ignore all of it. Who cares, really? Just a world without love. Good.\n\nYou step into your house, looking around, finding it dimmer and less colorful with mortal eyes. Shrugging, you peel out of your hoodie and drop it aside, naked, wet skin showing gooseflesh to a cold that you've never actually felt before. You realize after a few tries that you can't just think the TV on anymore, and actually have to take a moment to find the remote and turn it on. The news is on, the formerly cheerful and sunny newswoman having a bit of a sneer on her voice as she declares that China doesn't have the guts to launch its missiles like they say they're going to. Eh. More stuff you don't care about. You leave the coverage droning on about all the wars that have turned a thousand times more vicious and all the destructive weapons that are being launched as you make your way into your bedroom.\n\nYou flump down on your belly on the bed, hugging a pillow up under your head and resting your chin on it, staring over it at the wall. As the sky darkens with the setting of the sun, you can hear voices outside... and then the slamming of something against your door as they start trying to knock it down. It won't take terribly long... without your power to reinforce the architecture, it's just wood. Sturdy wood, you have at least several minutes before a bunch of people who no longer care if they lose their families or jobs or even their own lives come smashing their way in to rape you and likely kill you, just like you can faintly hear happening all up and down the block.\n\nShifting a little in place but otherwise not moving, you close your eyes, feeling a few tears slip down your cheeks and soak into the pillow. "... Still better than love," you whisper, even as the crunching sounds of the axe on your door get louder.\n\n<b>Konko end</b> - <i>A world without love</i>

"No, please, I don't want my body changed!" he groans, shuddering a little as you give a particular roll of your hips to work your cock around inside him.\n\n"But Ryo-cha~n, you'll make such a cute-!"\n\n<hr>\n[["-girl!"|Konko]]\n\n[["-femboi!"|Konko6ax1]]\n\n[["-puppy!"|Konko]]

You regard the two for a moment, then announce, "Listen, I'm actually pretty busy, so I'm just going to speed this along." You clap a hand on Riko's shoulder, looking her square in the eye. "You're now cursed to be absolutely addicted to Koji's cock and will do absolutely anything to get it." You then clap your other hand onto Koji's shoulder and look him in the eye. "You're now cursed to be absolutely addicted to Riko's washboard chest and will do absolutely anything to get it." You glance back and forth between the two of them who are standing there in shock, their eyes widening as they realize from the thoughts now running through their head and arousal coursing through their veins that it's true. "Absolutely nothing else about your preferences or desires has changed, and in fact your dominant streaks are both stronger than ever." You then thump both on the back simultaneously. "Have fun and congratulations on the marriage."\n\nYou wheel around and walk off, hearing them start to argue furiously with each other in your wake... both about how much they hate each other and which love hotel nearby to rent. Ah, just because they're quick and dirty doesn't mean the simple pranks aren't fun too~!\n\nMaking your way to the nearby train station, you use your pass to take one of the next trains out... not towards home, or rather, not towards Kyoko's home, but instead towards one of the hospitals in the city. Using Kyoko's memories, you navigate to one of the care wards and soon find the person you're looking for.\n\n"Oh, Kyoko, what are you doing here?" Your, ah, Kyoko's mother asks, looking at you with mild worry. She's quite pretty and well-kept... ah, bless this modern age and all its amenities for creating so many MILFs. Her black hair is braided and draped forward over one shoulder, her white nurse's uniform pristine (and with a pleasingly short skirt hugging her round hips), tights shaping her thick thighs and firm calves. "Are you feeling alright?"\n\n"No, I just needed to come see you," you answer. "I have some bad news, Mother..."\n\n<hr>\n[["... we need to discipline Ryo."|Konko]]\n\n[["... but I'll still take care of dinner."|Konko8x5]]

You've heard stories about elf Slayers like this one... you're not entirely sure you'd feel safe even locking her in a mouse cage. It seems likely the only real thing to do is to let this little game of cat and mouse play out the rest of the way. You make your way through the rooms of the house and step out onto the back porch, giving a call of "Oh, <i>Tiger</i>!" before upending the improvised bag and dumping a small, pale grey mouse onto the wooden slats, briefly stunning it.\n\n"Tiger?! A tiger?!" the transformed elf squeaks in a dazed tone... before giving a much louder squeak and trying to scrabble its legs as your landlord's big stripey cat saunters out of the shadows, its yellow eyes glinting. "That's bigger than a tiger! Stay away! Noooooooo!"\n\nYou stay just long enough to confirm that Tiger's done his job before stepping back into the house, feeling no particular desire to watch the aftermath. If that sword had gotten much farther you might be a bit more inclined to take some pleasure in her fate, but as it is, it was just survival. You return to your room, briefly holding up the dress. "... Nice. Suitable for either combat or a fancy dinner reception." You fold it up and tuck it into a trunk you keep specially warded to thwart scrying and detection spells, along with the rest of the elf's things. You should be able to use them yourself someday, but best to keep them out of sight for at least a year or two.\n\nUnpleasantness aside, you've definitely had proof that the Amulet of Change works, and possibly even better than described. You were half exhausted from making the amulet itself, but even what you had was more than enough to overcome an elf's spell resistance and force of will and turn her into a mouse virtually instantaneously. If it could do that, virtually anything is on the board. But at the moment what you really need is some sleep, and you let yourself collapse into bed face-down on the pillow, quickly passing out.\n\nWhen you awaken it's late afternoon. You stare blearily at your clock, your brain gradually waking up enough to process that you missed all your classes. ... Oh well. Trying to focus today, after practically turning yourself into a minor god last night, probably would have been difficult. (Yeah okay rein it in Hera, you're gonna get yourself toppled or something if you start thinking like that.) You push yourself up and prepare a cube of ramen to help you remind yourself that you're not particularly all-powerful yet, before adjourning to the shower. And there you ponder your next move.\n\nObviously you need to do a bit more of a test run with the amulet... or rather, have some fun with it, if you're honest about your goal. You're pretty sure that you can manipulate your form and those of others even more thoroughly than the simple, straightforward panic-job you did last night, if you have the time to think and apply some more delicacy with your mental casting. The question is, where to start?\n\n<hr>\n[[Try transforming yourself.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Try transforming others.|ValNA]]

You want your first summoning to be momentous and something you can brag about to your cousin later... you'd feel pretty embarrassed if all that showed up to your personal summoning was a Dark Pixie or something. Pulling out your phone, you send a text to the club's group chat that you're meeting up, then pack up your things and head to the club room in the student union.\n\nIt's a simple space, with a few workbenches that were discarded by the college equivalents of shop class up against the walls, some bookcases, and a central seating area for holding meetings. You walk over and take a seat, doubting you'll have to wait very long before the first person shows up. And you're right, as barely five minutes later the door opens and Aleantra enters, backpack on her shoulder. Her hair is done in a number of braids that are bound together at the back and fall down her back, and rather than the typical black gothic makeup, she's done her Egyptian-style eyelinings and lips in white, to make them stand out all the more starkly against her dark chocolate skin. She's got on her usual long leather jacket and a black shirt with gold heiroglyphics, and artfully torn and ripped black jeans with combat boots. Dropping her backpack on the floor, she settles into the chair next to yours. "So what's up, Val?"\n\n"The alignments are right to do a summoning tonight," you explain, grinning. At her raised eyebrows, you nod. "Yeah, the real thing. A demon from the lower planes."\n\n"Is that safe?"\n\n"Should be, as long as we're careful. But according to my book, the ritual will go off better with more witches, which is why I called the meeting."\n\n"Shit, I wouldn't trust one or two of the other fuckers with a good ritual knife much less demonic power," Aleantra says with a snort. "But I'm down. Hell, you wanna go hop in the car and we can leave right now, just tell the rest of them something came up. Or I mean, I guess we can wait for at least Janus to show up, that'd be okay too," she adds with a shrug.\n\n<hr>\n[[Leave now.|ValTome]]\n\n[[Wait for Janus.|ValTome1x3]]

Ah... this is just too much fun, you've gotta keep it up a bit longer. A little bit of bloodline magic lets you follow the connections between Ryo and Kyoko, and you assume spirit form before popping over into the city.\n\nYou pop back into existence (invisibly and intangibly) a short distance behind Kyoko herself. Looks like she's walking with two of her friends from college, one boy and one girl... you wait for her to fall behind them juuust the slightest amount due to a distracting flash you create on a nearby store window, then fling yourself right into her back.\n\n"Nyihi?!" Kyoko squeaks in the instant where she can feel you enter her body and a pair of fox ears and tail pop out from her, before you're in control. You quickly poof the telltale fox bits away as her friends turn around to look at her curiously.\n\n"Ky-chan, you okay?"\n\n"Fine, fine," you answer in Kyoko's usual placid tone, reaching up to adjust your glasses. Other than the purse you're now wearing, its strap across your chest to slightly emphasize your breasts (and your pants being a bit less form-fitting), you look pretty much as you did before you left Ryo's house. Ah, well, looks like the real Kyoko is wearing black thong underwear, but other than that it's the same.\n\n<img src="images/Kyoko.jpg">\n\nYou now have full access to Kyoko's memories, and between that and a quick peek into their minds, you now know who the people with you are. The girl in the hooded jacket, t-shirt, shorts and tights is Riko, her pale brown hair cut just almost short enough to be boyish... that, the loosely-worn backpack, sneakers, and essentially no chest to speak of definitely all give her a tomboyish look. Of course unlike Kyoko, you now know that Riko is a closeted but extremely thirsty and very, very dominant lesbian with a crush on her dear oneechan-like friend. She's absolutely mad for the idea of getting hot, feminine girls... and Kyoko specifically... beneath her and turning them into her mewling pussy-slurping slaves, even if she doesn't actually have the courage to come out about it. Also finds guys completely disgusting.\n\n<img src="images/Riko.png">\n\nThe guy with artfully unkempt brown hair, a handsome face, and a tan hooded jacket over a turquoise sweater-vest and white collared shirt with black slacks (all expensive) is Koji. Very handsome, very kind, one of the nicest guys in school, always there to lend a selfless helping hand. And with a deep, dark, secret desire to absolutely and utterly own a girl with big tits and treat her as his personal pet. His dreams are full of the idea of getting some beauty... like Kyoko, certainly... and getting her steadily more extreme breast augmentation treatments while using her holes as cumdumps, but he's far too sincere in being nice and respectful to ever actually try and bring it up to anyone. Can't even get it up for a girl under a C-cup, though.\n\n<img src="images/Koji.jpg">\n\n"I just got distracted for a second, is all, thinking about my little brother being home sick," you answer, snickering internally, because you certainly are thinking of that.\n\n"Ehhh? You said he was probably faking, right?" Riko says, shrugging. "It's no big deal, he's probably just playing netgames or something."\n\n"It's understandable you'd be worried, Ky-chan, but I'm sure he's fine," Koji adds with a sincere smile. "If it makes you feel better, we can pick him up something while we're out, like some soba or something."\n\n<hr>\n[[Ditch them both and move on.|Konko8x4]]\n\n[[No, Riko might be useful.|Konko]]\n\n[[No, Koji might be useful.|Konko]]\n\n[[They might both be useful, for many things, heheheheh!|Konko]]

Having his big sister catch him looking at "big sister" porn is too delightful a twist for you to pass up! Giggling, you poof yourself to the hallway inside, assuming his sister's form as you do. You take a moment to flick your fingers under the shoulder-length black pageboy haircut, adjust the rounded-off rectangle-lensed glasses, and tug at the front of the grey turtleneck shirt so that it hugs up against the C-cups you're currently in possession of. After a moment's thought, you also shrink the black pants by a size, making them practically skintight against the sister's/your nice legs and butt. Satisfied that you've tweaked your look to subtly hit his buttons even moreso than his sister usually might, you push the door open without knocking. "Hey, Ryo, are you in here? I need that ruler you borrowed the other day."\n\n"WHOA! Kyoko, knock!" Ryo yelps, trying to simultaneously shove the magazine under the covers and yank the covers over his obvious and only underwear-clad hardon. He succeeds at both by about half. "You're not even supposed to be home!"\n\n"I got off school early, what's the big-" Then you dramatically narrow your eyes, scowling just so perfectly. "What are you doing?"\n\n"N-nothing," he stammers, looking in the exact opposite direction of the magazine. Brilliant, Ryo, brilliant.\n\n"You're in here jerking off, aren't you?" you say in a cool but outraged tone, making his face go solid red. You stroll over to his bed, his eyes getting wider the closer you get. "What was that you were looking at? Do you have porn or something?"\n\n"Hey, no, stop!" he cries desperately as you yank back the covers and snatch up the doujinshi in a flash, far too fast for him to do anything more than make a weak grab for it that leaves him reaching out towards you.\n\nYou make a show of slowly flipping through the pages, enjoying the feel of his humiliation and terror growing as he tries desperately to remember what you're seeing on each page. "... 'Oneechan'," you intone blandly, making him wince. "... 'Oneechan'. ... 'Oneechan'. ... 'Oneechan'." He twitches and flinches with each one, until by the last one he's practically reeling back clutching his head. "He sure has a lot of sisters. Huh?"\n\n"Th-they're not blood-related!" Ryo yowls plaintively. "They're, they're just cute older girls that he knows, th-that's all!"\n\n"At least two of whom wear glasses, huh?" you ask, holding the doujinshi up with the page turned towards him, having of course carefully selected a near full-page spread of the girl that looks most like you do right now. "Like this one?"\n\n"Coincidence! It's coincidence!" he whines, on the verge of tears.\n\n"Sure it is." You turn the doujinshi back around, staring at the page visibly and letting the silence draw out ever so deliciously. "... Hmph. Sitting here jerking off to girls called 'oneechan'. Including one that looks like me." You carefully don't look as he wilts and goes pale, though you're laughing up a storm internally. "Seems like-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-something Mom should know." (Blackmail him.)|Konko]]\n\n[["-you're a disgusting pervert." (Dominate him.)|Konko8x2]]\n\n[["-you've discovered my secret." (Fuck him.)|Konko]]\n\n[["-you need to be purified." (Get help to further prank him.)|Konko]]

Clearly the universe is sending you a sign that you ought to prank these two, putting you in their path. The gods can go fuck themselves, but the universe, well, the universe is good to you sometimes!\n\nNow let's see, how to begin? Well, one prank you like to do is [[giving humans what they think they desire|Konko5x1]]... at least for a start, anyway. They do tend to fail to check themselves and therefore wreck themselves if you give them what they lust for, in this case it sounds like these two primarily envy having their youth back. ... And tits. Even bigger, much perkier tits. \n\n'Course it also sounds like they're dissatisfied with their love lives as well. You could always provide them a [[lover|Konko4x3]] of some sort or another. Most likely by taking the form of said lover... after all, that's one of the best ways a prank can be fun for you~!\n\nHm. Well, one way to solve their boredom, horniness, and lack of appreciation for their lovely MILF-y bodies would be... konkonkon~, a bit of a [[lust spell|Konko]]!

Maybe today is one of those days anyway. Let's go out and walk around, just see where your feet lead you, and find someone to cause some really wild grief to! Hee.\n\nYou set off down the street, humming cheerfully to yourself, seeding little bits of mischief here and there, like dropped coins that are enchanted to summon a gust of wind if someone in a skirt picks them up, or making puddles look more shallow than they are.\n\nLet's seeee... you could wander on down near the [[park|Konko]], sometimes there are amusing festivals or booths or just humans milling about practically asking to be messed with. Or the [[woods|Konko]], messing with some woodsman or farmer might actually be a bit nostalgic. Or, ohoooo, maybe you could wander down to the [[abandoned shrine|Konko3x2]]... lost spirits sometimes gather there, and you can make fun of them for not being able to keep up with you! Or maybe even one of the [[shrines|Konko]] that's still in use, actually get some replies to your mockery!

Let's start out close to home, shall we? After all, why bother to live smack-dab in the middle of so many humans if not to have easy access to pranking them? Plus nowadays if you ever get close to being noticed, you can just move somewhere else and start over! Heck, now you have seven whole continents instead of one tiny island to choose from!\n\nBuuut let's not get carried away, today is today and the world is for later! Let's just take a stroll through the neighborhood and see what we find, hmmmm?\n\nYou set off down the sidewalk, hands tucked in your hoodie pockets, humming some old Heian period melody... oh wait no that's the opening of 'Samurai Champloo'. You have so enjoyed catching up on human entertainment the last few years! You skip along, a song in your heart, fluff in your tail, and ears perked for sounds of potential.\n\nAnd they twitch as they pick up a conversation? Oho? Sounds like a pair of housewives gossiping while their husbands are out. Oh wait, not gossiping, complaining. Oho? Oho ohoooo? You redirect yourself and cross the lawn of one of the little houses, slipping up to the open window and peeking in. Yes, it looks like a pair of mature houseladies.\n\n"-said he wasn't but I could just tell, he was looking at her. College students, at his age!" the black-haired one says in a tone that says she's furious because she feels like she should be.\n\n"What can you do? Men are attracted to youth. Youth and big, firm tits that stay up around your neck without a bra," the brown-haired one snorts in reply, sipping her tea.\n\n"Tells me he's not looking at other women at all, well he barely looks at me anymore for sure! Says he's too tired when he gets home, which is just nonsense, he only worked seventy-four hours last week! He used to work seventy-two every single week when he was in his twenties and he had energy to spare then!"\n\n"And mine's barely home, always off on those foreign campuses, probably ogling <i>foreign</i> college girls with their even bigger firmer tits! Silly old thing, as if those girls don't already have big, strong, probably football-playing foreign boyfriends with big, fat-"\n\n"Yes yes foreigners are very fat, can we stick to complaining about our husbands please?"\n\n"Ahem. Yes, you're right. Our husbands. And the young hussies that draw their eye!"\n\nKonkonkon, humans are so ridiculous! You know they age away in the blink of an eye practically compared to spirits, but these two are lamenting their lack of youth when they're hardly elderly. You barely see four wrinkles between them and they've got some nice big tits themselves, even if they're covered by sweaters and perhaps no longer entirely "up around their necks". A bit soft here and there, they've both got the bodies of mothers, but you've an eye for all lovely things and they're quite nice for humans. What a shame that they're so busy lamenting what they don't have or what they think others want... why, it's almost deserving of getting pranked over!\n\n<hr>\n[[Prank 'em!|Konko4x2]]\n\n[[Eh, maybe later.|Konko6x1]]

Eh, at the least you can say you did something to tidy up the monitor room. You spend awhile poking about under chairs, glancing under workstations, peeking in corners, and looking behind things, just checking for stuff that might have been left behind by some illustrious hero that you'd want to keep as a secret memento. Sadly other than a computer stylus that you think was probably gnawed on by either Copper Shark or Cybertooth, you don't find anything of the sort. You do find a few things... for one, what you're pretty sure is a [[hidden panel|Cal]] in the wall... it doesn't seem to be locked, you're just not sure if it's something you should mess with. The other is a [[cell phone|Cal1x2]] that you actually found slid partway under the base of the main monitor station chair. Looks like it probably slipped either out of the pocket of its owner or off of the seat where they'd laid it while they were on duty themselves.\n\nIf you're not interested in investigating those, well, you could go [[poking around in the computer files|Cal]]...

Oooo, yes, let's have these two bitchy MILFs become MILF bitches! What a lovely depraved thing! Congrats, Konko, you're such a wicked creature, konkonkonkon!\n\nHm, although it pains you somewhat to turn into any animal other than the noble, beautiful king of the world, the fox, you resign yourself to it, as you do every time a prank involves such. Oh well... at least when you turn yourself into a big black mutt, you compromise by giving yourself still rather foxish ears, muzzle, and a nice big floofy tail. Well, those, and a sheath so fat and balls so heavy that even one glance will leave your targets with no recourse but instantly think 'It's so much bigger than my husband's!' at the very sight of them, konkonkonkon~\n\nNow! You leap over the back yard fence while the two of them aren't looking, then start radiating attraction... juuuust a small amount, just enough to get them to look out and notice you~...\n\n"Hm? Oh, one of the neighborhood dogs has gotten into the yard again," the brown-haired one with the ponytail, the apparent homeowner, says in a slightly exasperated tone. You listen to the sound of them setting down their drinks and coming to the back door... you doubt they've even noticed if that's not standard for them to do when such a thing happens.\n\n"But my my, that one's a pretty beast, isn't he?" the black-haired one with the braid says, putting a hand to her chest as she looks at you. You let your chest puff up with pride a bit because yes, yes you are.\n\n"And friendly," Ponytail remarks as you come prancing over, increasing the attraction just the littlest bit as you do. Still, it's enough to have both of them kneeling down and starting to pet and stroke your fur. "Hm, where did you come from, I haven't seen you around before, pretty boy."\n\n"Yes, who's a pretty boy, who's a good boy," Braid coos as she pats at your sides and scratches above your tail.\n\n'I am not always a boy, but when I am a boy I am the prettiest boy,' you think smugly, your tail wagging (because you choose to not because she's encouraging you). As to good... well! You're very good at what you do! ♥ To prove it, you start gradually ramping up the attraction spell, flavoring it just subtly towards lust.\n\nSoon you can hear a slightly breathy tone enter the two's voices as they praise you for being such a pretty, lovely, good, wonderful, attractive boy, their hands starting to wander bit by bit. The first time one of them bumps her fingers up against your sheath, she twitches her hand back almost reflexively, but then her hand starts wandering towards it again. She thinks 'Oh God it's so much bigger than my husband's' so loudly you barely even need to try to hear it, making you give a snicker that comes out as genial panting.\n\nBit by bit, their movements become more bold... at first they glance 'stealthily' at each other, trying to make sure the other doesn't see them cupping and rubbing your sheath or fondling your heavy, furry balls. But as your cock starts to slide out, and their hands find their ways to it, stroking over the slick crimson surface, even those bits of subtlety are lost. Soon both Ponytail and Braid are breathing heavily, almost panting themselves as they openly fondle you, their utterings of "Good boy" and "Pretty dog" becoming ever more lewd-sounding as they gradually give in to the lust you've been stealthily stoking in them. Well, it took much less effort than you thought anyway... apparently both were pent-up enough to not need a lot of encouragement turning lewd. ♥\n\nIn fact, by the time you roll over onto your back and display your big, throbbing red rocket to them, it doesn't even require any further pushing on your part... both of them dive right in, Ponytail sliding her mouth over the pointed tip and starting to slurp her mouth up and down over it, while Braid starts kissing and licking at your knot, both of them not even hesitating to go down on a big, strange dog right out in the open in Ponytail's back yard. 'Oh, poor dears, your husbands must have been neglecting you badly indee~d! How lucky that sweet selfless Konko was here to see to your best interests, konkonkonkon~!' In fact they're only pausing in their oral ministrations to yank at their clothing, until both horny married MILFs are naked in the open air, heavy, soft breasts hanging down as they work their mouths over your prick, sheath, and balls, their hands still rubbing and stroking over your belly and sides and chest almost worshipfully. You have to admit to giving a surprised (and pleased) yip when the black-haired one ducks her head down and starts tonguing the dark pucker nested near your tail, your tongue lolling out and tail wagging harder. 'Oh my, oh my, Braid you're quite the naughty one! Sorry, Ponytail, even if you are the hostess I'm going to fuck Braid first!' you think happily as her tongue swirls around and around your asshole before pushing inside of it, the middle-aged housewife shamelessly licking a dog's butt.\n\nSoon enough that comes to pass, only the very slightest mental nudge required to get Braid to turn around and lift her ass, presenting for you like a proper bitch in heat. Rolling back onto your feet, you waste no time in mounting up, wiggling and shifting around on her back... not because you're having trouble aiming like a real dog, you just want to really drive home she's got a big furry animal on her back, its big inhuman cock poking at her sodden married pussy~. ♥ Once she's moaning almost desperately, you thrust in, filling her with your particularly big and bestial prick, making her cry out in a way that's dangerously close to getting the attention of the neighborhood even before you begin thrusting in. 'Yes, that's right, play dangerous, you'd be soooo humiliated if the neighbors came out here and saw you getting fucked by an animal, but your thoughts are an animal's right now, aren't they? Any human left in them is just going to get off on it more,' you think smugly as you pound away at her, Ponytail sitting nearby with her legs spread, feverishly finger-fucking her pussy.\n\n<hr>\n[[Yes, that's good, keep that hole warm for your turn!|Konko]]\n\n[[Hmmm... but you didn't tell her to do that! ♥|Konko]]

You pause, sniffing briefly. You lift a hand to your face, giving a few more sniffs at the sleeve of your sweater. Then you lift one of the forelocks of your hair to your nose and sniff again. ... Okay so the smell is definitely...\n\n<hr>\n[[... your clothes.|Sipha]]\n\n[[... you.|Sipha]]

"... Dammit!" you hiss, before holding up a hand in negation and lowering your head a little, taking a few quick, deep breaths. "I'm... not gonna hurt you, Twitch."\n\n"Please don't," she whimpers.\n\nYou lick your lips, trying to figure out how to salvage this, when you feel Miranda's hand on your back. "May I?" she whispers. At your small nod, she steps forward, smiling in a surprisingly gentle way that makes her seem more familiar to you than ever. "Hi there. My name's Miranda. Is Twitch the name you prefer, or is that just what everyone calls you?"\n\n"... T-... Twitch is okay," the medisurgeon murmurs, flinching just slightly as Miranda raises a hand and holds it out.\n\n"Well Twitch, neither Kai or I are going to hurt you. We promise. She's just upset right now, and I imagine you know why." Miranda slowly sets the hand on Twitch's shoulder, rubbing gently, the cyborg woman's trembling slowly easing. "You can understand that, right?"\n\n"... Yes," Twitch murmurs softly, the groups of pixels indicating her view on the surface of the viewers shifting towards you. "... They killed Doonian too, huh? Not just took Zee? M'sorry... Kai..."\n\n"I need to get her back, Twitch," you reply just as softly but urgently. "I just have to." \n\n"B-b-b-but I can't!" Twitch blurts, already starting to tremble again. "Kai, even if, even if, even if it wasn't against the code of the streets, Horace would kill me for telling on his guys! A-a-a-a-and first he'd hurt me real bad! I have to live here, Kai, I have to keep living here, I have to-"\n\n"What if you didn't have to live here, though?" Miranda cuts in, causing both you and Twitch to look at her in confusion.\n\n"Uh... where would I go?" the cyborg asks, as if the concept of living anywhere other than her little clinic-apartment in City Sector 117-A had simply never occurred to her.\n\n"Are you familiar with GIPSE?"\n\n"Th-... the Guild?" Twitch seems more confused than ever, pixel pupils flitting between Miranda and you. "I mean, sure, I mean I know what it is, I know Kai's in the Guild, I know other people are, but we don't take Guild scrip here sorry and even if we could I-"\n\n"No, that's not what I meant. I meant, how would you like to live in the Guildhall instead?"\n\n"W-w-w-w-what? No, no, that's silly, no, I couldn't be a Guild anything, no no no, I don't even have a license for surgery, too many neuroquirks, can't do it," Twitch murmurs, actually turning away a little now. "Couldn't be that, Guild wouldn't want me."\n\n"They wouldn't have a say in it. Right now, Kai owns what we call a Mercenary Company Rosette that used to belong to her late owner," Miranda explains. "If we finish this job, it will belong to me instead, but either way it includes a number of privileges and abilities."\n\nWhere she's going with this dawns on you, and you smirk as you say, "Including the right to a small personal medsuite, complete with a bunkroom for an on-call doctor. And that doctor can be whoever we want, doesn't matter if what sort of license they have, if any."\n\n"... Me?" Twitch points at herself with one silver finger. "I mean... you'd do that just to get me to tell?"\n\n"Well, that, and to make sure you're safe, and because I probably would need a good medisurgeon eventually, and if you're good enough for Kai you're definitely good enough for me," Miranda picks up. "It might take us a little while to get the money to pay the dues on the medsuite, but I have somewhere you can stay until then. So please... if you really do care about Kai and Zee, help them. Help me. And I promise I'll help you in return."\n\n"... They didn't say where they were going," Twitch whispers after a moment, walking over to one of the counters and pulling over a tablet, her cyberlimbs starting to pluck up a few more things from nearby and bringing it around, her gleaming silver hands moving deftly as she attaches them and hooks them up. "Or anything other than for me to patch up the guy... and to give them a sedative for Zee. Sorry, Kai... I was scared."\n\n"It's okay, Twitch," you murmur, pushing down the resentment that tries to rear up and snap. "... It's probably better that she's not awake to be scared too."\n\n"I did give them the least harsh stuff I could," Twitch agrees as she works on whatever it is, as Miranda takes out some items from somewhere on her outfit and starts writing a note on what looks like honest-to-Crystal Dragon stationary. "They wanted her sedated for at least a few hours so I'm guessing they're not planning to hurt her right away."\n\n"But they didn't say anything at all about where they were going? If it was back to Horace or somewhere else?"\n\n"No. But the guy they brought in needed a transfusion." Calm now that she's got a place to direct her thoughts and is using her cyberlimbs, Twitch's voice is even as she uses one of them to actually solder several of the parts together. She picks the whole thing up and comes back over, holding it out to you. "The artificial blood I culture picks up a harmless radioactive signature from the stasis cabinet I keep it in... you've got about ninety more minutes before his body absorbs enough of it that you won't be able to track it with this."\n\n"... Thanks, Twitch," you murmur, giving her a small but sincere smile as you take the kludged-together tracker.\n\n"Alright, here's what you'll need," Miranda says as she steps in, holding out a small handful of objects. "This is a small emergency beacon, when you activate it you'll be pulled right to the Guildhall. The plastic thing under it is a guest pass, make sure and give it to the security officer who will probably turn up right away. Ask him to take you right to the outgoing portals, and have him input the set of coordinates I wrote on the back of the pass. You'll wind up in the countryside near an old house... it will be wide and open, so don't panic. Go to the house and give the man who answers the door this envelope... even in the event Horace was able to send someone after you, that man will protect you, I promise. Once you've gotten whatever you need to take with you packed up, you should probably leave right away."\n\n"Probably," Twitch murmurs as she takes the items, looking at them, then up at Miranda. "That Rosette thing sure must be important, to do all this for some mechrat like me."\n\n"It's very important to me. But you're not just 'some mechrat', you're a person who's in front of me that I can help," Miranda says with another almost impish smile. "And that means I should help if I can."\n\n"... Can I give you a hug?" the white-haired girl asks quietly.\n\n"Yes, you absolutely can." Miranda grins wider as Twitch steps in and gives her an uncertain hug, your companion patting her gently on the back to the side of the mess of metal where her cyberlimbs are attached.\n\nWhen Twitch steps back, she turns towards you, hesitates, then murmurs, "Uh, Kai, can I give you a hug too?"\n\nYour impatience to find Zee snaps that there's not time for this bullshit... but you realize that this could theoretically be the last time you ever see Twitch, if you lose your own Guildcert. And you realize, Twitch has always been as kind to you and yours as her tenuous situation would allow for... and you find yourself giving her a sad smile and opening your arms. "Yeah, c'mere, goof." You give her a gentle squeeze as she wraps those silver arms around you, uncertain if it feels like you might break her if you do it too hard or if it feels like she might break you with her metal grip. You move your hands to her sleek unyielding shoulders as both of you step back. "Take care of yourself, alright? Don't let the weird country air make you all lightheaded or whatever."\n\n"I won't."\n\n"I'll check on you when I can, too, arright?"\n\n"Okay. Thank you."\n\nSoon you and Miranda are walking down the steps of Twitch's building porch. You stop at the sidewalk and switch the tablet on, watching the GPS function come up and read 'Calibrating'. Waiting in silence, you glance over at Miranda, then back at the screen before noting, "Spare emergency beacons and guest passes aren't cheap."\n\n"No, they're not," Miranda agrees simply enough, looking at you expectantly, clearly knowing that's not the end of it.\n\n"Plus sounds like you're getting someone close to you pretty involved, for the sake of someone that was a perfect stranger half an hour ago. Not exactly standard merc procedure. She's right... that Rosette must mean a lot to you."\n\n"It does. I'm not going to deny that," Miranda agrees, bobbing her head. "But what I told her is true too. Helping someone in in trouble right in front of you that you can help is the right thing to do."\n\n"Yeah. Yeah, the woman who taught me to use a sword used to say something like that too," you admit, unable to help smiling just a little. "'We may fight for money, but that doesn't mean we can't fight for what's right too. If you're strong,"\n\n"'You're strong enough to protect the weak'," Miranda says along with you, smiling and shrugging a little when you shoot her a glance. "It's something my teacher... my grandfather... used to say a lot too."\n\n"... Guess it's one of those sword mysticism things," you murmur, looking back at the tablet. "Okay, looks like we've got a hit. Let's go, but be on the lookout for parked cars."\n\n"Why? ... Oh, to steal, right?"\n\n"You're learning quick, newb. Let's go."\n\nSoon the two of you are stepping out of the stolen car, moving to peek around the corner at a nearby single-story building, a restaurant with glowing 'Condemned' holoribbons surrounding it. "Probably holed up in there while they wait for orders on what to do with Zee and while their boy heals up a little more," you murmur.\n\n"Probably. How should we do this?" Miranda whispers back, despite your distance from the building. She pauses, then grins as she says, "We should go through the roof."\n\n"The roof?" you glance at her.\n\n"I know, I know, it's probably childish, but I've always wanted to come crashing in through the ceiling and immediately start beating up bad guys. It would certainly shock them," she says cheerfully. Then she clears her throat. "Like I said, though, I know it's a bit childish. If you say another plan is better, I'll go with that."\n\n<hr>\n[[Let's go for a more direct assault.|Kai]]\n\n[[The ceiling thing could have merit...|Kai]]

Pulsar seemed like a pretty cool guy from what little you talked to him, he seems kinda like he might be your sort of guy... well, except for the whole thing about how he seems a bit hung-up on military-esque procedure and discipline. Besides, you've often found it a little weird trying to hang out with married couples as a solo act, and off the top of your head you can't think of anything you'd particularly have in common with Lu. Heaving yourself off the bed, you trot outside and down the hall. It's not much of a search... you're in the same general area as the rest, and on one of the doors is a rearing griffon heraldry emblem with claws outstretched and wings spread, rendered in shiny crimson. Yup, figures. You press your thumb to the button, and a moment later the door slides open.\n\n"Oh, uh, sorry, I catch you at a bad time?" you ask, blinking awkwardly at the sight of the very tall Leonavian standing there in nothing but a pair of red boxer-briefs. He's showing off a whole lot of coppery fur that's short and sleek enough to show off every powerful, defined muscle of his chest, stomach, and arms... even just leaning against the doorframe he seems practically in motion, like a well-designed car. Your eyes flicked down before you could stop them, too, and you definitely got an eyeful of what was filling that bulge in his flightsuit earlier. You're not sure what the underwear is made of but it's very clearly outlining the drape of his shaft over his large balls, despite its limpness. "I didn't figure you'd be in bed so early."\n\n"Not at all, Leo, please feel free to come in," Pulsar replies, beak curling with an easy grin as he pushes off the doorframe and saunters away. You blink a little at the sight of his broad, powerful back... or more specifically, at the two silver lines running in an unconnected V down the upper part of it, steadily-glowing blue lights shining down the middle of them and dotted along the sides.\n\n'Prosthetic hookups?' you muse as you follow him in. It definitely feels a bit awkward to come into a mostly naked man's room, since you don't know him that well, but he seems so unbothered by it you somehow feel like it would be even more awkward if you said no. "Thanks," you answer, easing down into one of the chairs in the small sitting area as he does. "I was kind of restless, I'm not used to spending downtime on a ship like this."\n\n"It takes awhile to adjust after other sorts of postings. Though I imagine our previous backgrounds are rather different. I'm passingly familiar with your own," he continues as he leans forward to pick up the short crystal glass filled with amber fluid sitting on the table between the two chairs. He pauses briefly, raising the glass a bit more and tilting it. "Aphidiny, care for some?"\n\n"Ah, yeah, maybe just a sliver of it, that stuff hits me pretty hard and we might be busy soon, huh?" you answer with a nod. Since he seems determined to go around in his underwear even as he pours you the drink, you decide to unzip your jacket and shrug out of it, settling back with your arms now bared. "Thanks," you add as you take the glass. "Yeah, I'm basically a Guildhall Cat. Ah, it's what they call us, the ones that are born to Guild members and start coming in from youth."\n\n"Amusing term," Pulsar answers in a warm tone as he settles back down in his chair, slipping his tail through the large hole in the back.\n\n"I'm guessing you're Void Force? Probably from about as young, huh?" you ask with a grin of your own.\n\n"You'd be right. I was practically a cub when I was assigned to the VFS Nova under Captain Etoile, though I'm proud to say I soon earned my place as one of his trusted officers."\n\n"That was Nova's dad?"\n\n"He was, Etoile Fox." He pauses with his glass almost to his beak at your raised eyebrow, tilting the crystal again as he clarifies, "Nova takes after his mother."\n\n"Aha." You lift your own glass, more to take in the scent of the strong liquor than to drink quite yet. You're no lightweight but Aphidiny kicks like a... hm, is that disrespectful, with Lu on board? "So how do you do that, y'know? Make that transition from a huge, highly regimented crew to four people that are only as military as they decide to be?"\n\n"It's actually easier than you think," Pulsar asserts, lifting a talon-tipped finger from his glass to gesture. "You see, adapting to your situation is all about how you treat other people. You properly segment the situation you're in with someone into one of three categories, and you treat them according to the rules of that situation, and everything else flows naturally. My father, also a military man, taught me this, and it's never steered me wrong," he asserts proudly, continuing to wag his finger lightly as he explains. "In work situations, treat everyone as if they were a fellow professional just as invested in doing a job as you are. In social situations, treat every male as a gentleman and equal, and treat every female as a lady and equal," he continues, voice full of good-natured wisdom as you nod along and finally start to sip your drink. "And in bedroom situations, of course, treat every male like a slutty little girl, and every female as an object to be used for your pleasure."\n\n"KPLSF!" That being the sound you make when one of the more potent and expensive alcohols within several dimensions almost goes into your lungs. You're left coughing and gasping, staring through watery eyes as Pulsar smirks and sips his own drink calmly. "You... you did that on purpose!"\n\n"I did. I'm also quite serious," he asserts, tail flicking back and forth lazily, though you notice his blue eyes have fixed on you with a particular intensity. Your own eyes widen as you get your coughing under control, but he seems utterly unperturbed as he takes another light sip of his drink before continuing. "Of course, by nature of it being a bedroom situation, that means everyone involved has previously given their consent to such a relationship. It's not a bedroom situation without it. I can explain in more detail, if you like?" He pauses, then you notice a fresh glitter in his eyes. "Or you could just go ahead and consent, of course."\n\n<hr>\n[[Well... listening doesn't hurt.|LeoNova]]\n\n[["Er, uh, um, erm, ah..."|LeoNova]]\n\n[["What if I... do consent?"|LeoNova5x1]]\n\n[[Nope, time to go.|LeoNova2x2]]

"I sense something," you declare, your voice having shifted to a low, threatening baritone as you begin to turn. "A presence I have not felt since..."\n\n"Take that stupid thing off, Konko," the short figure standing on the sidewalk behind you says in a disgusted tone.\n\nShrugging, you reach up and undo the latch on the Darth Vader helmet, your ears springing free as you lift it off and toss it aside. She's shorter than you, smaller than you, with no tits to speak of, her but her golden ears, hair, and tail are similar enough, though hers fade to a honey color at the tips. She's wearing clothes based on a more elaborate 'see we can do it better' version of the clothes the Japanese mortals wore back before you were sealed, including an off-the-shoulder top that ties at the sides and has elaborate sleeve hangings, a blue skirt, what look very much like black bike shorts, and black tabi socks with red-strapped sandals. The little smirk on her cute face and the glitter in her green eyes say she's rather smug to have found you and (almost) snuck up on you.\n\n<img src="images/Pecan.png">\n\n"Well well well, if it isn't Pecan-imouto," you declare with a grin.\n\nInstantly her face flushes and she stabs a finger in your direction. "IT'S PIKAKON!"\n\n"The lightning fox Pokemon?"\n\n"NOT PIKACHU, PIKAKON!"\n\n"The flasher fox?"\n\n"NOT FLASHING LIKE BOOBS, FLASHING LIKE LIGHTNING!"\n\n"I thought you said you weren't the lightning fox Pokemon?"\n\n"GYAAAAAH I HATE YOOOOOU I'M NOT YOUR IMOUTO EITHERRRRRR!" she shrieks, dropping to her back on the ground and clutching her head, rolling back and forth as she kicks her legs.\n\nYou serenely walk over to stand beside her as she continues rolling back and forth and crying out 'GYAAA-AAA-AAA!', using your calmest and most reasonable tone of voice since you know it annoys the shit out of her when you do. "Mom made you after me, that makes you a little sister."\n\nShe immediately leaps to her feet, pointing at you again despite only being separated by a few feet. "Lies! Lies lies lies slander lies and libel!"\n\n"It's only libel if it's in print."\n\n"SHUT UP! So what if I was made after you?! I was created to keep you from making more trouble! I'm your superior! If anything <i>I'm</i> the big sister!"\n\n"Awwww, don't say that, my little Pecan-imoutooooo," you coo, slipping in and gripping her cheeks, starting to knead them with gentle squishes, which at first makes her squeak in outrage, before her eyes close and she starts making a soft 'gyuuu-uuu-uuuu' noise, clearly too soothed by the cheekrubs to get annoyed at either your presumption or your use of her nickname. Then you smile wider, her eyes snapping open as you close your fists on her cheeks. "Even if you werrrrre the one who gave the mortals the ritual to seal meeeee~! ♫"\n\n"GYEE!" Pecan squeals, flailing her arms in terror as you abruptly turn into a shimmering outline of black fire, with a pair of blazing red eyes and a sharp-toothed smile leering out of it. "I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I swear I didn't I never did I didn't I didn't I didn't!"\n\nNo longer made of fury just like that, you open your hands to release her, Pecan immediately dropping to the ground and then going scuttling back until she bumps against a tree, wide-eyed and hugging her legs. "Hm. You didn't?" Rapid headshaking. "You really swear it?" Rapid nodding. "Hmmmm," you murmur, bringing a hand up to cup your chin and looking downward.\n\n"I didn't, I didn't, I swear I'd never do that!" Pecan blurts, before pausing and glancing up. "I mean, maybe once or twice I thought about it..." She 'GYEE!'s again as a cylinder of black aura forms around you and instantly extends upward into the stratosphere, her ears, hair, and tail fluffing out. "BUT I DIDN'T I SWEAR AND I DON'T KNOW WHO DID!"\n\n"I'll be honest, I'd always just sort of assumed it was you," you admit, brushing some remaining condensed rage off of your hoodie sleeves. "Figured you got tired of chasing me around trying to ruin my fun and got everyone together to get rid of me."\n\n"I wouldn't do that," she mutters, actually seeming sulky now, her ears hanging low as she presses her face against her knees. "Even if you were the worst. Mo-... the Goddess made me for you, after all, without you I didn't have much purpose. It was... lonely... after you were gone. Eventually I just went to sleep, in case you ever got let out."\n\n... Aw. That actually does tug at your heart a little. You walk over and settle down to sit beside her, tilting your head in towards her. "Is that why you just showed up now? I've been out for a little while."\n\n"Yeah, I only just woke up, and then came to find you." She lifts her head and pouts at you. "You've been making a ton of trouble again, haven't you?"\n\n"For realz~! ♫" you sing-song happily, putting both index fingertips to your cheeks and tilting your head as you beam at her. "It's what I do! And no nofuns to ruin the party, yanno? Totes good deal!"\n\nShe stares blankly at you, green eyes slowly blinking. "... What?"\n\n"Okay, we have a lot of catching you up to do." You hop to your feet and dust off your ass, watching as she clambers up without jumping because she's a fuddy-duddy. "But I guess there's not much for it! You'll just have to come home with me!"\n\n"Huh?" That makes her blink, looking flummoxed. "R-really?"\n\n"Sure! You know me, sis, I always do what I want, and I wanna take my fam home! What'm I gonna do, make you sleep out in the rain? ... I'd have totally tied you up naked in the rain and left you there forever if you'd been the one to seal me," you add while lifting a single finger, your eyes having gone wide and deep and cold.\n\n"Yeah, yeah, I get it already, but I wasn't!"\n\n"Right! So, let's go home, darling little sister."\n\n"Call me 'senpai' or something!"\n\nSoon the two of you are walking into the shrine-house, Pecan looking around. "Hm... isn't this like where one of your priests lived? The super pretty one who would do lewd things with practically every male that came to the shrine while wearing those slutty miko robes you designed, and then just steal their money as the 'prank'?"\n\n"He was one of the great ones," you sigh dreamily, placing a hand over your heart in memory of the departed. "But yes it's a recreation of his house, though I updated it with modern ammenities. Speaking of which, go take a bath," you add, shooing her towards the hall.\n\n"W-wha?! I don't stink!" she blurts angrily, her cheeks going pink as she nevertheless quickly yanks a sleeve in front of her nose and sniffs.\n\n"You smell like the Heian period, and I had quite enough of that when I was in the Heian period. Go go go go go," you urge, actually pushing her down the hall now.\n\n"Alright, alright, I'm going!" she blurts, jerking forward to get off of your hands and running down the hall, practically slamming the door closed.\n\nThere. You're sure she'll figure everything out, she's a bright little spirit. ... Hm, might be a good prank to go bursting in on her right when she's rinsing herself off... ♥\n\n<hr>\n[[Crash Pecan's bath.|Konko]]\n\n[[Wait outside.|Konko]]

"Right of Succession," you say. At her blank look, you give a slight tilt of your head to her screen. "You're gonna wanna jot this down for the listing."\n\n"Oh! Oh, right, sorry," she says, quickly getting in a somewhat overly prepared position for quick typing.\n\n"Among the Makarzian criminal underground, there's something called the Right of Succession. A member of a gang who thinks someone above them is fucking things up can take them out and take their place if it's agreed that it's for the best by their new peers. That goes all the way to the top," you continue, narrowing your eyes slightly. "In which case, it's the other crime bosses that decide if the succession is valid."\n\n"And you're certain that the other crime bosses will support your succession of this Horace Allfather?" she asks, eyes flicking towards you.\n\nYou hesitate, but only briefly. Best to be honest in Guild listings, or whoever takes the job could rightfully claim some pretty heavy penalties against you. You're less concerned about yourself and more about Zee... you can't free her until you have her back and everything's checked out as on the up-and-up by the Guild, that means up until then she's your property and just as viable to be confiscated and handed over as a fine as anything else. "Relatively certain. Not completely," you admit. "So there's some risk involved for the payout."\n\n"I see. Payment for partial completion?"\n\nYou shake your head. That's the other risky part of this... you can't encourage someone to just save Zee and call it good, this payment method is all-or-nothing. "None. Doesn't work if Horace isn't really most sincerely dead. Primary and secondary both required for payment."\n\n"Alright, I'm ready to do the listing, then," the clerk says with some professional cheer, though under that you can guess what she's thinking... your job listing is a bit of a longshot. But she doesn't sound too down on it... similar listings come through the Guild all the time. "Oh, did you want to put this down as an assistance contract or a standard bounty?"\n\nMeaning, is this you asking for help, to get someone to come along with you as you try to get Zee back and go after Horace, or do you want to stay back from it and let someone else do the job?\n\n<hr>\n[[Assistance contract.|Kai]]\n\n[[Bounty.|Kai]]

"I'll be honest, I kind of want to do the intrigue," you admit, leaning on one elbow and flipping your other hand through the air. "Having these three cute ditzes sheath themselves in latex and deliver themselves to us on a silver platter is just too good to pass up."\n\n"Well, I guess you have a point," Rose allows, sighing a little. "Delayed gratification can be fun. I guess. In small doses."\n\n"Heeheehee, let's see," White coos as she settles in at one of the information and scanner stations, smoothly hacking multiple agencies including WOOHP the very moment your cloaked ship arrives in the atmosphere of the target planet. "It looks like there are several projects that WOOHP is monitoring at the moment that if we stole them, they'd send our victims to get it back... better yet, we could tweak all of them to actually work effectively and help us break the bitches~!"\n\n"Do tell, what do we have?"\n\n"Looks like there's a '[[Genetic Recombinator|KiSTS]]'... makes animal people," White adds with a smirk aimed at her sister, who sticks her tongue out. "Apparently they've run into something similar before at least once, but they wouldn't know we've made it more... fun? Hee. There's a [[Super Serum|KiSTS]] that's supposed to make soldiers stronger... and more obedient, as buried in the outline. And there's a [[Memory Implantation Device|KiSTS]] that's supposed to be used as a training tool, but it basically begging to be stolen and turned into a brainwashing machine. Of course I'm sure if lame Earth villains stole it, it could be overcome by the power of friendship, but... I'm much better at that than they are." She giggles again, then mms. "And of course there's one other option." \n\n"Go ahead, dear."\n\n"Well, I could just hack into WOOHP files and 'alert' them of a new villain on the scene with some diabolical device without many details. They send their spies in to break into the facility, but when they burst into the room to snag the villain, it's just a transporter pad that sends them directly to one of the '[[play bays|KiSTS1x2]]' here on the <i>Decimal</i>. Then we can just do whatever we want to them at our leisure!"

"I can't," you whisper, staring with wide eyes at the door in front of you. "I can't, I can't do this, not in front of all those people." You start to take a half step anyway, freeze, then turn. "I'll go out the window!"\n\n"The hell you will," Ammianda snarls as she steps forward, hands thumping against your back, both turning you back to the door and shoving you forward. "Now GET OUT THERE!"\n\nYou'd like to argue with your far more martially capable friend, but she's far more martially capable and fully able to force you into walking through the doorway and out into the next room, the choir immediately bursting into song. You can feel a cold sweat break out all over your body, beneath the soft white silk covering most of it, and yet somehow feeling like said white silk is only being held on by the gazes of every single person you know, every single family member, friend, teacher, important official, or powerful warrior you bumped into all those years ago now. And yet you've seen this whole thing from the other side so many times that your body starts moving on its own with the gentle rise and fall of the wordless song of the choir, making your way down the aisle, your honor guardian following behind you practically radiating smugness. \n\n"Guess if I liked it I should have put a ring on it, but then you did get a ring of mine after all," a man with spiky, flaming red hair murmurs as you pass.\n\n"Cram it, Keitaro," you snarl under your breath, which just makes him smile. Actually, it makes you smile too... it was just the distraction you needed, and for just a second you glance aside and spare a fond look for the Hero you fought beside decades ago. But then your attention is drawn forward to the Hero you'll fight beside for the rest of your life, your breath feeling sucked from your body.\n\nThe light coming from the window seems to sheathe Makoto's entire body in radiance, her beautiful white hair and the exquisite snowy gown she's wearing, the bouquet of white flowers in her hands glittering like diamonds. She's all you can see now as you complete your path to the altar, drawn to her as if by gravity. She's staring at you just as intently with a smile of pure, guileless happiness on her face, a smile that's never changed in all the years you've known her, a smile as pure and without artifice as the day you met. You barely even hear it as your mother begins to speak from behind the altar.\n\n"We are gathered here to observe the union of these souls. For no mere worldly official as I could be so arrogant as to claim to be the one to bind these two together. Their spirits were drawn together from across two worlds, fate and destiny of one mind and one voice in bringing them to one another. They were made for each other, made to complete one another, and there is none on Heaven, Hell, Lytozia or any other world that could stand in their way once they decided to be together. That said... do you, Makoto the Returner Hero, take Siphanielle Tyvaris to be your wife, to cherish her as if she were your own soul, to guard her life as if it were your own, and to never inflict on her that which you would not suffer yourself?"\n\n"Yes, I do," Makoto says softly, her voice still carrying to every part of the church. "She's where I belong."\n\n"And do you, Siphanielle Tyvaris, take Makoto the Returner Hero to be your wife, to share with her the gifts the gods gave you as if they were given to you both, to guard her life as if it were your own, and to never inflict on her that which you would not suffer yourself?" your mother asks, admirably able to keep her voice steady even as a single happy tear trickles from the corner of one eye.\n\n"Yes, I do," you say without hesitation. "She's worth overcoming the fear for... every time."\n\n<b>Sipha and Makoto</b> end - <i>Many happy returns</i>

"... So are you at least gonna get down on one knee and offer me the box?" you ask drolly after a moment, shaking your head slowly.\n\nOrrin blinks... then actually grins, picking up the long, hands-bredth wooden box and rounding the table, kneeling in front of you and holding it up. "Valerie, will you enter into an arranged marriage with me in return for this magical artifact?"\n\n"I agree to your terms. Means 'yes'," you reply with a good-natured sigh, picking the box up and turning it towards yourself, lifting the lid. Resting on a bed of black satin is a thin coil of wire that's somehow simultaneously whiter than platinum and shinier than silver. It's the real deal, which means the pact is definitely sealed. "So. Ah... three years to plan a wedding then, I guess," you note as you close the lid and slip the box into your bag.\n\n"Guess so," he answers as he stands. He rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "Sorry to spring it on you, I admit I'd been thinking about it a bit and kind of hoping it would be you, but... well. Um, would you like to stick around? We can go out to dinner tonight, and... well, I mean, you can see where I live, since... you know."\n\n<hr>\n[[Accept.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Pass.|ValNA2x4]]

Well, I've said the fetishes are too numerous to list, but I may as well try. Consider this a sort of informational warning, or an incentive if that's how you want to view it.\n\n<b>Common</b> \nThis is a short list of the stuff that I really quite like, so you're likely to see it crop up on some branch of almost every storyline you follow.\n\n<i>Anal\nLarge Insertions (without pain)\nBreast Enlargement\nMind Control\nVoluminous Cum\n</i>\n\n<b>Included</b>\nThis is just the stuff that's in the game somewhere, in various amounts. It's entirely likely for this list to lag behind or just forget something.\n\n<i>Incest\nBestiality\nVirgins\nTransformation\nBimbofication\nMind Alteration\nThreats\nBlackmail\nWatersports\nShemales\nMascot costumes\nMythological creatures\nParalysis\nLactation\nSnuff\nNecrophilia\nBreath control\nInfantilism\nSissification\nPublic nudity\n</i>\n\n[[Back.|Start]]

"So it's you," you say rather darkly. Wanting to at least get a proper response, you push a bit more energy into the spirit. "The one who betrayed me not once, but twice."\n\nYou're actually a little surprised by how much just that little bit of extra energy allows the spirit to regain hold of itself, actually turning and flying steadily but purposefully towards you, then taking a vaguely humanoid form standing on the ground in front of you, a featureless shape of mist and light. "Hello, Konko."\n\n"Hmph! So you're not even going to bother denying it?!"\n\n"I never thought of the first time as betraying you, just being true to myself," the spirit answers, its tone even but sad. "... But yes. The second time, that's what it was. I betrayed you. I helped perform the ritual that sealed you away, knowing full well I was betraying our friendship as I did."\n\n"Are you even sorry?" you almost snarl, putting your hands on your hips and leaning towards it.\n\n"... If you mean, do I regret it? Yes. I regretted it every day since. I regretted it when I was doing it. Did it turn out to be a stupid, foolish thing to do? Yes, it did. ... If you want me to apologize, though, Konko... I'm afraid I can't."\n\n"WHAT?! Seriously?! After all you did, you can't even tell me 'I'm sorry'?!" you snap back, throwing your hands into the air.\n\n"Because I did it for love, Konko," the spirit whispers back, soft and sad and full of a gentle aching pain. "The love I felt was real... even if it was a fool's love in the end. I would have done anything for it... so I can't apologize for what I did. For that, though... for that I'm sorry."\n\n"Love," you spit disdainfully, hating the tight feeling in your chest you don't even know how to name, the nonsensical stinging in your eyes. "What a stupid thing to betray a friend for!"\n\n"Maybe. But it was all I ever wanted. I needed it with all my being." The spirit lowers the vague shape of its head, bringing a hand to its chest. Then its head comes up, tilting slightly. "... I wanted you to love me, Konko. I would have been happy with that."\n\n"That's so <i>stupid</i>!" you snap back. "Stuff like that isn't who I am! It isn't what I do! We were <i>friends</i> because we had fun together! That's enough, that's all that matters!"\n\n"Mm. I guess maybe in the end, if you had been someone who would love me... maybe I wouldn't have wanted you to so badly?" There's the literal ghost of a sad smile on that faceless head now. "Maybe that's my nature too. ... It's alright, Konko. Maybe this was all I've been holding out for. Maybe... it really is time for me to go," it continues, 'voice' growing fainter as it begins to fade away, its form growing more indistinct.\n\n<hr>\n[["..."|KonFren3x1]]\n\n[["... No, wait!"|KonFren2x2]]\n\n[["... I HATE THIS! I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT!"|KonFren2axEnd1]]

"A book very much ahead of its time," Lassiter says, though unusually for that phrase there's an undercurrent of disgust to the words. "Fiction section. M. Colchis is the author. That's under-"\n\n"Thank you very much," you cut in smoothly before turning and hurrying off. Yeah okay that was probably rude but if you had to listen to her tell you that the book was either under C or K you were going to scream. Still, that's a bit of a surprise, it's a novel? You'd assumed it was a history or philosophical treatise or something, though you suppose that the name is very fantasy-y. Still it must be <i>old</i>. You find it easily enough, sliding the leather-bound tome off the shelf and flipping through it a bit. The pages are in surprisingly good condition, still pale and fairly soft rather than crinkled, the ink still dark. Nice. You blink at a thought and glance around, then carry the book back to the desk. "Sorry, but since this is in with the normal fiction books, can I check it out?"\n\n"Yes," Lassiter says in a clipped tone that indicates she's just reassessed her opinion of you downward somewhat for your desire to do so. (Eh, it's fine, you kind of feel like she does that <i>every</i> time you check out a book, which is an odd way for a librarian to behave, but oh well.)\n\nYou sign the by now familiar sheet for checking out an older book, and of course put up with Lassiter going over the points already on the sheet aloud despite the fact that you've done this easily fifty times and never brought a book back in anything less than the exact same condition you left with it. Eventually you leave the library, the book safely tucked in a plastic sleeve and then into your bag. When you arrive, you flop down into a chair and draw it out, starting to read. After all, the alumnus mentioned it in his journal for a reason... and besides, you like to read for fun as much as anybody, you didn't acquire your nerd-glasses just reading how-to books of witchery.\n\nYou fairly quickly see what Lassiter meant by 'ahead of its time' and just why she was so disapproving, because it turns out that <i>The Witch Princess of Avalon</i> is... entertaining. The prose is flowing and a bit more casual, avoiding the stiffness of older literature that you'd assume were its contemporaries, and certainly lacking the copious amount of footnotes of slightly closer to contemporary literature. It's a smooth, easy read like you'd expect out of the fantasy novels of your own lifetime, and even the plot feels a bit more like one of those. Specifically the titular Witch Princess is a beautiful sorceress destined to become queen of the entire world of Avalon, and is thus kidnapped by a demon king to force her to marry one of his sons. She escapes with the help of a dragon and goes on an adventure fleeing the pursuing demon general, meeting a rather creatively odd cast of characters along the way. There's a bit of <i>Journey to the West</i> there, but it also reminds you in some ways of Oz, though this would predate Frank Baum by quite awhile.\n\n'What an interesting little anachronistic tale this is,' you muse, carefully tucking a bookmark into it a little over halfway through. You sort of want to finish it in one sitting, but you have to admit you might have stayed up too late last night, and you do have classes you're pretty sure won't get canceled tomorrow. Taking off your glasses and setting them aside, you only bother wiggling out of your jeans and socks before flopping into bed. A few minor mental exercises later and you're fast asleep.\n\nYou wake up on your back instead of your front, which is odd enough on its own, until you feel some extra weight shifting as you sit up. Blinking, you look down, and stare a bit. "Well. Hello, girls." Your boobs are... bigger. Like significantly bigger. Perhaps not truly insane in size, but probably twice as big as they were before. They're still covered in black cloth, but it looks a bit thinner and different. You look up and around and find you're in a large, round room with antiquated but fairly rich furnishings, a large window nearby showing a night sky starting to lighten just slightly. You do notice that among the furnishings is a full-length mirror, so you get to your feet and walk over to take a look. You still look mostly like yourself... your face is the same, your body mostly unchanged (other than the bigger chest) although you might be a bit taller. But your ears are now longer and pointed, poking out a bit to the sides from amongst your hair. You're also wearing a high-collared, sleeveless black dress that hugs tightly over your chest and midriff, and is slit and cut a bit up the sides to bare your hips, your legs sheathed in black stockings that leave your heels and toes bare, matching black fingerless gloves covering your arms and leaving your shoulders bare. Your eyes are also now a gleaming red rather than the dark grey they were before.\n\n'The... Witch Princess?' you frown at the mirror, taking another look around the room. You've done enough lucid dreaming that you're fairly sure this isn't a dream. 'Some sort of journey spell then? Alternate dimension, higher plane, pocket dimension, segmented history shard, reality marble, wonder which it is. Knowing that would tell me a lot on how to get out of it. ... Wait, if I'm in the role of the Witch Princess, then this must be the Dire Tower. And if the sun's close to rising, that must mean-'\n\nYou turn towards the sole door as you hear a loud, repetitive crack sound from outside. The door is particularly large, but not just to make it heavy enough that a prisoner of your size would have trouble moving it... when it opens, the figure coming through clearly needs quite a bit of clearance between his height and horns. He's an almost stereotypical devil, with red skin, high, black horns, black hair braided behind him, a pointed goatee, and inhumanly-shaped legs that end in gleaming black hooves. He's probably almost eight feet tall even without the horns, and wearing intimidating black fullplate armor on his upper body, though all that's covering his lower body is a long black loincloth emblazoned with unholy-looking red sigils.\n\n"Lord Thule," you murmur, half in shock. It is your first time seeing a demon in the flesh after all, let alone one you thought was fictional. (Though admittedly depending on how all this works, he still might be.) \n\n"Ah, at least you acknowledge me this day, Witch Princess." The huge demon smirks down at you as he raises a hand and turns it in an inviting gesture, the gauntlets leaving the fingerless gloves beneath bare so that his own claws are visible. "Now, I ask you, have you reconsidered my generous offer?"\n\n<hr>\n[[... No.|ValWP1x1]]\n\n[[... Yes.|ValLib2x2]]

You spend a while sulkily turning it over in your head, but finally sigh. Honestly you're not that bothered by this body... or at least you won't be once you've visited a clothing outfitter for some adjustments. And new underwear. Seems like you could easily "tough out" a year in it as opposed to risking going Full Slut because you had to wait a week. "Alright, let's do the concept magic, then," you say with a sigh.\n\n"Great!" Rarala claps her hands together and rubs them. "Okay, let's head into the back room and strip down."\n\n"Er, what?" You blink at her, staring.\n\n"Yeah, basically the easiest way to do this is to fuck you. Don't worry, by the time we're done the concept will have been filtered out and you won't lose your mind with lust or anything. Well, any more than my usual lovers do," she says with a grin, raising her hands and wiggling her fingers with a rather lewd grin on her face.\n\n<hr>\n[[Well... if that's what it takes...|LeoFem]]\n\n[[Yeah right.|LeoFem1x2]]

It's a person-sized tunnel right next to the bed... it has to be some sort of escape tunnel in case the castle is attacked during the night, right? Which means it probably leads to some sort of safe room where you can stand up, wait awhile, then come back through when the king has hopefully left and you and Amanielle can both be embarrassed together. And maybe continue being bare-assed together that would be good too, though this is definitely a mood impactor.\n\n'So is belly-crawling through a dark tunnel naked,' you think with a grimace a few minutes later. Luckily there's enough clearance to keep anything from, y'know, dragging uncomfortably across stone, and the stone is smooth enough that your arms and legs aren't getting abraded all to hell, so thank fancy elven architecture for small favors. 'This is definitely an escape tunnel though, it's big enough for someone to get through still wearing weapons.' So it's not as claustrophobic as it could be, you've been in worse. The worst part is the dark... you're not sure if that was just an unavoidable part of a solid stone escape hatch or if elves can see in the dark or what, but you're basically crawling blind in here. It's enough to make you start rethinking getting some cybernetic implants, maybe a low-light vision rider on your corneas or even maybe a cybereye. 'Lots of cyberneticists at the Guildhall, lot cheaper than a ship, hardly set me back,' you mutter internally.\n\nFinally, you see a light at the end of the tunnel... literally. It does seem deflected, like it's probably shining on smooth stone, but it's definitely light and "WHOA!" Your eagerness to crawl forward takes you right over the edge of a decline, and you find yourself sliding down it before being abruptly ejected from the exit of the tunnel, barely managing to grab the edge enough to twist so that you drop on your ass instead of your front. You're not sure about the luck factor of landing with a splash in at least a half foot of water, but you suppose it's better than breaking your tailbone. You sit there for a second, dazed, wondering how this went from the best day ever to a decidedly sub-optimum one.\n\n"Aa... that was quite shocking," an even voice says, sounding rather calm despite the statement. "Is there a reason you're naked in my reflecting pool?"\n\n"Um." You blink, making yourself focus and turning your head. Jurielith is standing not too far away, in the balcony doorway of her room, wearing nothing but those white side-tie panties earlier, an arm tucked firmly across her breasts. She doesn't seem particularly perturbed or embarrassed... you wonder if she's just that confident in her body, or if she's just that clueless about sex. A glance around confirms you're on the balcony itself, which is outfitted with several chairs, a table with some sort of board game on it, and the rectangular pool of water you're sitting in. You raise a hand, finger lifted. "... Yes. Yes there is."\n\n"... Well?" she prompts after several seconds of silence, tilting her head a little.\n\n"Yeah, um, gimme just another minute, I'll figure it out." 'This is really something I should have been thinking up while I was in the tunnel, tips for next time.'\n\n"Mm. I reeeally don't think there's a good reason for you to be crawling around the secret escape tunnels naked," Jurielith says after a moment, shaking her head and turning around. "I think it's probably best if I call a guard."\n\nAck! No no no this is even worse than before! Being caught in flagrante delicto in a (hopefully) obviously consensual tryst with the oldest princess is bad, sneaking naked and uninvited into the room of the middle princess is really <i>really</i> bad. "H-hey, your higness, wait a second," you call as you get to your feet and splash to the edge of the pool, stepping out of it.\n\nShe pauses, one ear twitching. "... That was a second." Then she steps forward again.\n\n<hr>\n[[Quick! Seduce her!|LeoAma1x6]]\n\n[[Quick! Bribe her!|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Quick! Rape her!|LeoAma]]

Sighing, you shake your head. "Look, Uncle Seiun, I'm honored, seriously I am... but I don't think the time is right for it. Honestly I've been thinking I'd probably take the year off." \n\n"Really? Are you that spooked about getting sex changed?"\n\n"No, it's just... weird. Plus when I think about it, I haven't taken any time off since I joined the Guild in the first place." You shrug negligently. "I think rather than try to just charge ahead dealing with this at the same time, I'll take an extra long vacation." You shrug lightly. "Y'know... kinda take some 'me' time. ... Coinciding with not entirely looking like me."\n\n"Mm, well, I suppose I understand that... most mercs I know do need a vacation every so often, even if a lot of us are on the workaholic side. Probably has to do with how many of us spend money as fast as we make it," he says dryly. "But you're not that sort... a year's a bit of a long time, but you're young, you've got a lot of them ahead of you. It might be good for you to just enjoy yourself for awhile, maybe visit some new places for reasons other than shooting things. Ah, in fact, if you like, you could visit my family."\n\n"Wow, really?" you ask with a surprised blink. "You'd be okay with that?"\n\n"Why not? Your parents invited me to that 'Christmas' celebration with your grandmother that one time. I thought the poor woman was going to have some sort of fit," he says with a chuckle.\n\nYeaaah you're fairly certain Gramma was flustered not because she thought Seiun was particularly weird but because he was huge and very manly and her husband had been dead for a few years by that point. You don't particularly want to continue down that train of thought, though, so instead you clear your throat. "I mean, I'll at least think about it... I dunno that I'd wanna impose for an entire year, but that might be fun."\n\n"Please feel free to stay as long as you like, you're family. I'll write them and let them know you might drop by, you won't be imposing at all." He smiles warmly (which took you awhile to get used to, considering the beak) and reaches over to clap you on the shoulder. "You can see Gryfara, it's a beautiful place. But, don't let me twist your arm about it. Ah, but if we're not going to discuss your moving into my new company hall, I'd better go see to getting it squared away myself." He pulls out a charge slip and leaves it on the corner of the table before he stands. "You'll be fine, Leo, comm me if you need anything. Offer will still be there in a year."\n\n"Sure, thanks Uncle." You grin at him as he goes, before continuing your lunch, accepting the unspoken offer to cover whatever else you order. (Seiun knows better than to think you'd abuse his kindness.) You'd just sort of been toying with the idea of taking the year off until you could get changed back, but his offer to join his Mercenary Company threw it into stark detail how strange it would be. What would it be like if he brought in others, and they met you for the first time like this? For the rest of the time you and they were with the MC, this would be their first impression of you, when you changed back to your usual self for them that would be you changing and being different forever. It's just... too strange. Nah, you'll take it easy for awhile, live lightly off your savings, it'll be fine.\n\n'What to do, though?' you muse as you chew a mouthful of rare beef. You guess you could take Seiun up on his offer, go visit his family, see the Leonavian homeworld. Or you could just sort of lay low, hang around the Guildhall, have yourself a 'staycation' as it were. You could go searching around for actual vacation destinations, though considering the length it'd have to be quite a deal, maybe some sort of working vacation where no one knows you? ... Hm. You guess you could go stay with your grandmother for awhile... her Earth is kind of a dull, quiet place where as far as you know not much of anything happens, but that might be just what you need right now. You're not super close with her but she's often said you can come and visit any time, you can probably help out around the house too. ... Not that she's super old or anything that she needs a ton of help. Actually due to the time differential between the Guild and other dimensions the age gap between her and your mother has been very slowly but steadily shrinking over time, which you've always figured must be a bit weirder for her than it is for you, you've just sort of gotten used to it.\n\n<hr>\n[[Visit Gryfara.|LeoFem]]\n\n[[Take a staycation.|LeoFem]]\n\n[[Look for vacation destinations.|LeoFem]]\n\n[[Stay at gramma's house.|LeoFem]]

More than anything you've got to thin out the ranks of these damn Street Demons! If you don't, it's not going to matter who you hook up with, you'll get surrounded and overwhelmed!\n\nYou launch yourself at the nearest invader, drawing and slicing as you do, the nightstick-wielding Street Demon lurching backwards in a shower of blood. One of the other ones nearby sees and whips their gun up to point at you, and you whirl-dodge to the side before they quite pull the trigger, closing with them as you do, slicing downward from shoulder to waist, dropping them as well. Operating half on instinct and half trying to guide yourself towards where you can hear some of the thickest fighting going on, you continue the pattern... cut, evade and close, cut. The necessity of keeping up a fluid motion of strikes and dodghing leaves no room for fear or worry, there is only the target in front of you falling under your blade, and the next target readying their weapon against you. Cut, evade and close, cut. Horned assailant after masked attacker falling with screams and splashes of red or sometimes milky green-white, your focused strikes cutting through flesh and cybernetics alike.\n\nBy the time you actually have enough clear space in front of you to breathe, you realize you've moved through the rent in the wall and are outside, where it really is like a small-scale war is going on... Street Demons brawling with the enforcers that were left outside and any that made it in from the outer areas. It looks like whatever sort of 'cold mist' bomb that red-clad girl used when making her entrance, a number of them have been scattered around, since the light patter of rain is turning into flat, slushy snow about twenty feet off the ground, and your hard breaths come out in puffs of vapor. You can feel the cold trying to leech the strength out of your tired muscles, the fear of the sheer scale of the violence around you trying to press in around your mind. In the midst of all of it, some of the fighting in front of you parts, and you spot a Street Demon just... standing there, sword in one hand, gazing around at the fighting with blue eyes that strangely strike you as... lonely, more than anything.\n\nHer hair is short, blue, and almost "fluffy", the cyberhorns sticking up out of it white and black with glowing blue accents, her vape mask sleek and all black with more glowing blue lines. She's wearing a black hooded jacket with a few armored pieces, and designs in white and, of course, glowing blue, and under that a white blouse and long, pale blue tie... apparently some sign of what they 'should' be wearing is in vogue among the Street Demons' top talent. Below that are tight, shiny black hotpants, and shiny black thigh-highs that go down into black and blue-glow move-assist boots. A short blade is strapped to her thigh, and a long, lightly curved sword is held sheathed in her left hand... both of them crystalslicers by the look of them, assuming they're not just styled to match the rest of her look.\n\n<img src="images/Cyanide.jpg">\n\nAlmost by chance, her eyes lock with yours. And the strangest feeling runs down your spine and through your arms to the tips of your fingers where they press to your sword. And that moment seems to stretch out, the sound of the fighting all around you turning muted and drawled. In that instant all the people around you fighting and dying are just scene setting, just decoration, for that second where your eyes meet hers and both of you tighten your hands on your swords as the thick fake snowflakes drift down around you both in slow motion. The words in your head, a distant memory now, are enough to drown out the battlecries and screams of pain faded out around the edges.\n\n<i>"There are certain truths about the way of the sword, Kai. They may sound silly to you now, but they are truths all the same. On the day you are destined to start your journey as a true master of the blade, you will meet someone... another who is sharing that same day. You can choose to fight them, and likely only one of you will walk away having started their path to becoming a swordmaster. Or perhaps both will live, and forever their fates will be entwined. Or... you can refuse your destiny. You can run. And you'll be running from who you were meant to be for the rest of your life."</i>\n\nHer voice... your teacher, your friend, one of the holes in your soul... is in your head, and yet it seems to come from the katana she gave you the day she left all the same.\n\nToday's the day. Holy shit... today's the day.\n\n<hr>\n[[Face your destiny.|KaiCy1x2]]\n\n[[Run.|KaiCy]]

"Oh, let's just indulge ourselves and put them in one of the Play Bays," you decide with a grin, clapping White lightly on the shoulder. "In fact put them in bay one, I'll go down there and wait."\n\n"Okaaay! I'll try to put a rush on it, it should only take an hour at most."\n\nThe 'play bays' are areas aboard the <i>Infinite Decimal</i> specifically designed for... well, toying with captives. Theoretically they have a lot of other, 'legitimate' purposes, but you do wind up using them for that an awful lot. The bay itself isn't that exciting... just a large, open, well-lit space. Since most of the machinery is either retracted into the walls or stored in pattern buffers for rematerialization (along with a huge array of other items and even living creatures), there's not much need for it to be looming around all over the place... well, unless you want to set the scene!\n\nWhich is what you spend the next little while doing... adjusting the lighting levels to be a little more dim, adding some red glow accents, bringing in certain pieces of machinery including a trio of tall, black sets of spires for hover-restraints to lock into, linking them to the ship's teleporter system so that when the spies materialize, they'll do so already restrained and in place. You adjust the restraint areas so they should be able to see each other as well as have a good view of the 'play floor' in front of them, and overall set the stage to make it look like an obvious 'supervillain lair'... just a much darker, more sinister, and more serious one than these three are likely used to. \n\nYou're just about to call up to the twins and ask how things are going when there's a flicker, and three forms materialize hovering spread-eagle between the tines of the restraint sets, black bands around their wrists and ankles.\n\n"What the-?! Just what's going on here?!" blurts the blonde in the shiny red latex suit... that would be Clover, 'the ditzy one'.\n\n"Who are you, how did you bring us here?!" the redhead in green demands next, already flexing her fists and twisting against the restraints, but finding them as immobile as if they were bolted to a steel wall... that would be Sam, 'the smart one'. \n\n"Heeeeey, you don't look like a fat rich guy who bought a nuclear weapon for a joke," the black-haired one in yellow says, narrowing her eyes in a clear show of suspicion and complete lack of reading the situation... that would be Alex, 'the ambiguously brown one'.\n\n"Seriously, that's what you came up with?" you ask White as she and Rose materialize to either side of you, making the captive trio's eyes widen in surprise at their sudden appearance.\n\n"Honestly, I halfway just wanted to see if they'd swallow it," your daughter answers with a shrug. "I bet Rose a credit that they wouldn't and I'd have to come up with something else."\n\n"I win again~!"\n\n"Hmmm, so what should we do with them now?" White asks, glancing towards the three captives, who are alternating between shouting demands for information at you and trying to reassure each other (along with occasional near-nonsequitor interjections from Alex). "I mean, besides 'anything we want'."\n\n"You know me, my favorite is a bit of 'barnyard' action, something along those lines is always fun," Rose chirps, resting her hands on her hips.\n\n"Mmm, I like it better when we play with their minds," White counters. "Literally or figuratively." \n\n"Ehhhh, but it's always way more fun to just twist their bodies, the mind is a plaything of the body anyway," Rose protests.\n\n"But the body is so delightfully affected by what happens to the mind, and it's their minds we want to break anyway, mostly, isn't it?"\n\n"Will is as much a part of the body!"\n\n"Now girls," you interject, smoothly cutting into an old argument... and smirking at the fact that Clover, Sam, and Alex are now all three staring at you, apparently having finally realized that today isn't a standard captive scenario. "Let's see... why don't we go with..."\n\n<hr>\n[[A "donkey show".|KiSTS]]\n\n[[A "horrible consequences" scenario.|KiSTS]]\n\n[[The "bimbo treatment".|KiSTS]]\n\n[[A "hello dolly".|KiSTS]]

You need as many Guardian Sentinels as you can get in the meeting room in the next thirty minutes or so. Most of them will be too busy or are too hard to get ahold of in that time, so you'll just have to make do with whoever's on hand or not currently occupied.\n\nPresently you assemble in one of the meeting rooms, the handful of heroes you were able to get ahold of sitting around the round metal table with various levels of concern on their faces. Most of them are roughly your own (relative) age, and therefore essentially 'newbies' to either heroing or being members of the team. There's Warya, the alien gladiator, the tiger-like woman wearing rather skimpy black leather armor and a loincloth as is usual, large breasts, toned abs, and sizable bulge all on display. Trickshot, clad in his usual purple and blue bodysuit and red-lensed goggles, the shaved head and goatee that mark him as one day being a great leader on display, bow and quiver at his back and pistols on his hips. Snow Leopard, the acrobatic specialist in harsh environments, her beautiful body hugged by a bodysuit patterned after her namesake and sleek, shiny grey hair spilling out of the open top of her feline-eared cowl. And the Twins, Mazinon and Marielle, specialists in the arcane arts, their pale purple hair spilling around their pointed ears, elaborate burgundy and periwinkle outfits immaculate despite supposedly being woken from a sound sleep.\n\nThough you did manage to get ahold of at least one founding member of the Guardian Sentinels, a Big Gun as it were, and one that gives you a lot more confidence on this getting resolved... that being your mom, the hero Excalibur. She's currently standing at one point on the table rather than sitting, hands on her hips. Her costume is much like yours... being what yours is based on, after all... though her bracers are just sleek decorations and her hands are bare, and her costume includes the artful tines of a crown emerging from the braid of golden blonde hair wound around the crown of her head. Well, and a boob window. Hers has a boob window, showing a not insubstantial amount of her very substantial breasts. You've always sort of wondered why she made that design choice but 'Hey Ma why did you feel supercleavage was necessary?' has never been a question you've figured out how to put delicately. \n\n"Revealing Caliburn's secret identity isn't a small thing," she says solemnly. "It risks revealing the secret identities of everyone connected to him, and potentially everyone connected to them, and so on. It could devastate the superhero community."\n\n"Bah! You should thank her for stripping away the artifice!" Warya declares, slamming a fist down on the tabletop. "Secrets, lies, these are the tools of weaklings! Let those who would do you harm come at you, simply be ready for them whether you yourself seek battle or are in the midst of bathing!"\n\n"Their situation is not like ours, Warya," Marielle replies, before anyone else can get mad at the alien's usual blunt approach. "Unlike Tygarians or elves, not every human is trained to be capable in combat. Their secret identities protect those close to them that cannot protect themselves."\n\n"After all, even Tygarians do not expect their very small cubs to fend for themselves, do they?" her brother Mazinon adds with a small smile.\n\n"... Hm." Warya scratches a stripe on her cheek with one claw. "I... suppose most humans are rather comparable to Tygarian cubs. ... Small ones. Newborns, perhaps."\n\n"But beyond that, there's the threat of the data leak," Trickshot points out. "I mean, can you imagine the kind of chaos caused by leaking the secrets of <i>everyone</i> that uses Apple products?"\n\n"I knew I should have endorsed Samsung instead!" Snow Leopard moans, flumping her head down on her folded arms. Then quickly peeking up. "Um. If I decided to endorse a phone. As a hero. ... Or maybe I did it as a civilian, there are probably lots of people that did that, I don't need to-"\n\n"Thank you Snow," Excalibur cuts in smoothly. "We can all discuss identsec later. Again. For now we need to focus on the matter at hand, that being, Doctor Deathtrap's threat. Now, Adelaide can be dangerous, but she's fair... if we agree to her terms and run her latest Labyrinth of Doom, there's a very high probability that she won't leak anything. Moreover, she'll probably be waiting somewhere near the end of the Labyrinth to get a good close-up view of its climactic trap going off, which will give us a chance to capture her. Obviously from there we won't be able to do anything about the secrets she's committed to memory, but we ought to be able to erase the ones in her computers, and we can try to figure out some way to pressure her into holding her tongue on the rest. Her Labyrinths can indeed be perilous, but even at their worst, with this team anything she throws at us should be manageable if we all keep our heads and work together."\n\n"Bah! Why should we dance to the fool inventor's tune?!" Warya shouts, slamming her fist in the table again. There's actually a dent in the superdurable metal there from it, she does that a lot. "I say we go, but only to track down her command center and assault it directly! We have almost two of your Earth hours to do so in, plenty of time in which to discover what little metal box she's hiding in and peel off the lid!"\n\n"Mm. Well, you're under the most immediate threat, Cal," your mother says, turning her head to look at you. "What do you think? A direct assault isn't without its merits, but I still think we'd be better off giving in to her demands for the time being."\n\nHm. Admittedly the thought of, as Warya said, peeling the lid off of Deathtrap's command room and giving her a good shaking before sending her to her prison cell without supper is an appealing one, considering the aggravation she's caused you. On the other hand, it's a lot to risk... plus, y'know, your mother has an annoying habit of being right about superhero stuff like 90% of the time.\n\n<hr>\n[[Direct assault.|Cal]]\n\n[[Run the labyrinth.|Cal2x6]]

Glancing around towards the other lines, you spot a tall, mocha-skinned man wearing a dome visor instead of glasses, the headgear fitting around the front of the large bull horns jutting from the sides of his bald head. "HEY TY!" you call, his head immediately raising. "Someone forgot to tell the newbie about checking Guildcert!"\n\n"Dammit, newbie, blip her," Ty grunts back without stopping in his own checking of people, prompting the slightly smaller beefcake to quickly raise the little device to one of your eyes and click the button. "See that rosette that says 'GIPSE'? Means she's allowed to carry a weapon inside."\n\n"I'm sorry, ma'am, I wasn't told, you can go on in," the new guy says formally.\n\nYou give him a little whap on the hip with the back of your hand that says 'don't mention it' before walking past him and heading inside, swinging the katana onto your back and fastening it to the coat's straps as you do. As you pass through the doors, the anti-rain field washes over you, causing a thick mist to rise from your body as the wet is flashed off of you, the angle of the lights making the fog luminesce as it drifts off of you before quickly fading away. Inside, the Glowworm is doing its best to live up to its name... lots and lots and lots of glowing stuff. Lit cables drape off of railings and ceiling edges, virtually every wall, ledge, and piece of furniture is trimmed with glowing edges, and the large dance floor is a glossy black expanse displaying flashing colors and bursts of light like one big music visualizer... you think that's what it is, but with just how many people (many of which are also wearing glowing clothing of various coverage levels) are moving around and how many other things flash and glitter in here, you've never been 100% it's actually matching the slick, vibrant synth dance music playing constantly. \n\nYou meander through the club, partly taking in the ambiance of sentients dancing provocatively in what sometimes amounts to luminescent bikinis (or just bikini bottoms), partly taking in who's here. You spot Sakai at one of the tables on the lower level, surrounded by a number of good-looking people, some of whom are obviously fighters... he's the leader of the [[Holy Dragons|Kai1x5]], a gang that's usually in the midst of trouble with other gangs and often happy to hire a few extra blades for their fight. Also on the lower level, but tucked back into the closest thing the Glowworm has to a darkened corner, are a group of [[Transcendants|Kai7x1]], providing their own steady glow of lit injector tubes, stylish breathing masks, and here and there cybernetic eyes. The Transcendants treat intoxicants of all kinds like a religion... a religion they can be very practical about, since they always need capable people to guard and oversee deliveries for them. And on the upper level, in the VIP section, you see the massive, shaggy red form of [[Horace Allfather|Kai4x1]]... he's a gang leader too, but approaches his crime syndicate with an even more businesslike approach than most, to the point that it's basically a company. A very cold, cruel, violent company. If Horace has a job for you, it involves killing someone... for a lot of money that he will absolutely pay you all of like the utter professional he considers himself to be.\n\nYou could always go talk to the [[owner|Kai]] of the Glowworm, too... maybe she has some work for you. Like overseeing the training of her bouncers, since it's obviously lacking.

Your name is Fiona Ni Donnghaile, and you're a member of SIEARA... the Space/Interdimensional Exploratoration and Advanced Reconnaissance Authority. It's the premier space exploration and mapping organization in several dimensions, and you've wanted to join since you were small. You did your time moving up through the organization... working a desk in the data analytics and cataloging, working helm on the late shift of large stationary mapping ships, gophering and coordinating shifts on planets marked 'Completely Safe'. But now... now you're ready to begin the exciting career you joined SIEARA to have in the first place. A Recon Ranger... entrusted with the task of roaming not just across space, but even time and other dimensions, gathering data on planets, stars, and phenomenon that no one else may have ever seen before, almost literally going where no one has gone before! ... Well, no one from your dimension anyway. Though sometimes you go where they've gone before, if the task requires it. ... SIEARA is actually a very versatile operation, alright? You understand that sometimes it will involve taking missions that help SIEARA cover its operating costs rather than things that are purely about gathering knowledge, but that's okay... it's still going to be exciting and important!\n\nSpecifically, being a Recon Ranger means you're given your own (small) ship, the rank of Commander which is reciprocal with any other organization that recognizes SIEARA, and a large amount of autonomy... you can pick your own assignments, and fulfill those assignments largely at your own discretion as to methods and timetable! (Within certain parameters, obviously, you're still required to submit reports and have performance reviews just like anyone else.) Finally, no more trudging to the same shift every day, doing the afterwork of real explorers! Today begins your career as an authentic space adventurer!\n\nSo you think as you finish pulling on your boots and fastening on your bracers, and activate your nanosuit. Material pours out both, and you can't help but squirm as it crawls over your round hips, large breasts, and flat belly. (Hey, an explorer should be fit and trim, you put a lot of time in at the gym making sure you could pass any physicals they threw at you!) It only takes a few seconds for it to turn into a shiny black skintight suit with white accents (including over your crotch, where it... hugs very closely) and red lines for design. You turn towards the mirror in your quarters and eye not only the painted-on look of the suit (seriously, your not only your nipples but your areola are completely outlined) but the high heels of the tall silver boots, which you've been assured are an optimal part of the suit's systems. You wish you could focus on how the colors of the suit perfectly complement your pale complexion, red eyes, and short black hair, but you're more distracted by how overtly sexy it is. Almost without thinking, you strike an exaggerated pose, tucking your hands behind your head and lifting one leg up, hips jutted to one side, your face flushed at how you look doing so.\n\n<img src="images/Fiona.jpg">\n\n"... Geez," you murmur, shaking your head. Oh well... you've been wearing slight variations on nanosuits for a lot of your career, even if they weren't <i>quite</i> so revealing. You'll get used to it. Spending a few moments to calm down and remove the blush, you head out of the temporary quarters on the station and head for the ship bay. Soon you can see your new baby, ah, conveyance floating in one of the grave fields, ready to be sent out into the stars and begin your exploration of the mysterious spaces between them! Which is a lot of space, but, y'know. Like your suit the ship is black and red, though primarily red, a sleekly angular oblong of a main body, with foreward-swept wings attached high in the center, adjustable top-and-bottom fins attached close to the tips. It seems quite large to you, considering you'll be the only person aboard most of the time (save when you're working with another Recon Ranger), since it houses not only your new living quarters but a fully-outfitted science lab, specimen containment unit, (relatively small) cargo bay and even a virtuasuite! Still, it's much smaller than many of the practically station-sized ships you've previously been stationed on, since mostly all those did was sit in one place and carefully map every bit of an area of space or stellar phenomenon. Its designation, 'F-826', is painted on the side of the hull... by tradition, if you make it a year, you get to actually name it. (Autonomous recon is, admittedly, a pretty dangerous assignment and tends to quickly weed out anyone who's not actually capable enough within the first six months, apparently.)\n\n<img src="images/F-826.png">\n\nYou're so excited! ... Of course first you have to do a bit of (digital) paperwork, but then you're beaming aboard, striding into the small bridge area and taking a seat at the main navigation panel. "F-826, requesting permission to disembark," you comm to the flight deck.\n\n<i>"F-826, please hold for your exit vector in seven minutes."</i>\n\n... Huh. Yeah it never goes like that in the movies and sims. Obviously you know that happens in real life, since you've actually worked flight deck before, but... you were still kind of hoping they'd just 'Roger!' you right on out of here. Oh well. You go ahead and key up your plotted course for the jump drive, making sure it's all calculated for when you're cleared.\n\n<i>"F-826, you are clear for exit. Good luck, let the stars be your guide."</i>\n\nAwwww! They still said something sweet! That's the best! Beaming happily, you comm back, "Roger, control, thank you!" Then, not wanting to hold anything up, you quickly guide your ship out of the bay at the suggested speed, banking gently and following the vector projected on the viewscreen, cruising out to a safe distance before activating the jump drive and hopping to... nowhere, really.\n\nWell not "nowhere", it's just a mostly empty star system that's had everything between it and the station and everything in it so thoroughly mapped that the jump is effectively instantaneous. You direct F-826... hm, maybe you should start coming up with an unofficial name anyway... to one of the large, barren planets circling the star and have it take up orbit while you consider your options.\n\nNow that you're officially underway as a Recon Ranger, you can select your first assignment! The thoroughness of the mapping means this system also gets a great signal from SIEARA Command, so you're able to pull the list of potential assignments with no problem. Now let's see, first to select a type of assignment...\n\n[[Assistance Missions|FionaJobs1]] - Missions that involve helping someone else out... SIEARA patrols, other Recon Rangers, or third parties who have contacted SIEARA for help with particular issues. Maybe not quite as exciting as going properly solo on your first mission, but they are very responsible and look good on your performance reviews! And the better those are, the better the missions you'll be cleared to take! \n\n[[Charting Missions|FionaJobs2]] - Ooo fuuuun, stellar cartography! Which, a lot like your prior assignments, will involve a lot of just sitting in place or flying slowly around taking scans. Still, you'll actually be doing it out where no one has been before, which certainly provides for more potential excitement than charting systems that have already been explored to almost literally within an inch of their existence. Besides, depending on how far and where you go, you can run into almost any other kind of mission anyway, so... actually, yeah, fun!\n\n[[Planetary Exploration|FionaJobs3]] - Now <i>this</i> is what it's all about! Or at least what you were always the most excited about. Recon Rangers on passthrough charting missions might have tagged various planets as interesting but not actually investigated them much themselves other than a few passing details. They could have whole civilizations! Or fascinating archaeological ruins! Plants that hold the cure to awful diseases, animals that <strike>would make super cute pets</strike> can help with terraforming efforts for colony worlds! The possibilities are endless! Slightly more endless than they are in the void of space anyway!

My my, it's a lovely day today! A lovely day for...!\n\n... Hm. Actually, you do not feel like pranking, today. Gasp! ... Hahaha nah it happens sometimes! Sometimes even you, Konko, the glorious prankster spirit, feels like staying in, being lazy, just going to see a movie... ah, but you think you have a different drive today. Not pranking, but to check in on prior pranking targets to see how they're doing! To that end, you manifest a little black book and flip through the pages... not that you actually write all your targets down, you just thought 'I want a little black book that has a list of all my prior pranking targets in it'. And of course it's a magical book because otherwise it would manifest as a shelf of encyclopedias.\n\n'Here's an address not too far away... oh yes! The cute boy I caught playing hooky about a year back! I cursed him into a femboi, konkonkon, a simple but fun bit of work! Hm, well, let's go see how the happy family is today!'\n\nYou assume spirit form and pop yourself into the living room of the house... you've been there before, after all, it's not hard. The first thing you notice is that the mother is being all domestic, humming cheerfully and wearing an apron as she washes the dishes... an apron and crotchless panties, that's it. Oho~! As you're appreciating the view, you hear the front door click open... and the chatter of a veritable crowd of voices, most deep and in English. Ryo flounces in, little pink skirt bouncing, white spaghetti-strapped top snug against his flat little boytits and his hair fastened into a pair of twintails, a sparkly little star applied to his cheek in addition to his other makeup.\n\n"Mo~m, I met an American football team that was in town for an exhibition game and I'm taking them upstaaaairs!" Ryo calls into the kitchen, grinning and rubbing two of the men's cocks through their pants, squeezing at the large and obvious bulges as others of them run their hands over his trim little body.\n\n"My my, an entire football team?" the mother says as she walks in, drying off her hands, more than a few pairs of hungry, horny eyes moving over to her instead. "That's really too much, Ryo! Don't be selfish, leave at least six of them down here for Mommy."\n\n"Awwww! But okay!" Ryo giggles as he actually unzips the pants of the two men he's fondling, drawing out their large, dark brown cocks and stroking them eagerly. "Where's Sis?"\n\n"Upstairs, getting spitroasted by a pair of your friends from school, I think. Just let your friends know that if they don't want to wait in line to fuck you, they're free to go over there and pound her holes... or those of your friends from school, I should imagine," the mother answers cheerfully, beaming as part of the crowd behind Ryo peels off and moves over to her, drawing her tits out of the sides of the apron to fondle and squeeze them.\n\n"'Kaaaay!"\n\nOoo, yes yes, you have done an excellent job of creating family harmony indeed! And you think you know what you're going to do for the rest of the day, too... enjoy the show! Or... hee, you might always join in, you're sure they'd be happy to see you again!\n\n<b>Mischeivous Neighborhood Konko</b> end - <i>Family Bonds 1</i>

<b>Choices and (Choices)</b>\nMost of the time your character will be in charge of their own fate, making their own decisions and suffering the consequences or reaping the rewards. However, sometimes in some of the story branches, your character may be deprived of any ability to do anything whatsoever. At others, it may be another character who's making a decision or answering a question. At those points you the player are ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL and making choices purely based on where you want the story to go. In these instances, choices will be (enclosed in parentheses).\n\n<b>Game Over</b>\nIf you see the Game Over text, don't immediately think you have to reload and start all over. Clicking the Game Over option will generally give you an epilogue for your character from that storyline. It will also generally offer options for going back to the last major choice, going back to the start of the current storyline, or going back to character generation.\n\n<b>Continuity</b>\nThere isn't any. A character may be a complete skirt-chaser and ladykiller when you pick one choice involving him, and complete Hard Gay when you make another. Reality such as it is in the game diverges almost every time you make a choice. Some elements are always there as part of the setting you currently inhabit, but may just never come up, even though logic says the choice you made shouldn't affect them doing so. Just kick logic to the curb and enjoy the game!\n\n<b>Sex Level</b>\nSome of the stories contain way more sex than others. Some are pretty much pure porn every time you click. Others have a focus on story, with sex only occurring in the natural course (or sometimes as the ending). And, as noted on the intro page, there's very little ground left uncovered as far as kinks and fetishes go. If you find yourself not enjoying the sex content of a story, feel free to start over and choose another path, you're bound to eventually find something that fits your taste!\n\n<b>Branching</b>\nEvery choice you make affects the storyline you're playing. Some storylines (like the Jace the Monster Hunter ones) are fairly "tight"... once you've chosen a monster to hunt, all choices lead you in the same general direction, with the same cast of players and the same goal in sight. Other storylines (like the Worldland mascot ones) diverge fairly wildly with almost every single choice leading in an entirely different direction, able to bring in whole different characters and situations between two different paths.\n\nThe important thing to remember is, <i>there is no copypasted content</i> and <i>no two choices lead to the same end</i>. The choices may lead you to very similar outcomes in some cases, but each is all new written text. Consider it like alternate realities in a TV show... sure, you're having the same conversation, but now your best guy buddy is your cute blonde girlfriend instead.\n\n[[Back.|Start]]

"Let's turn her loose."\n\n"Ah, just to be clear, your benevolent tyrannicalness, but which 'her' did you mean?"\n\n<hr>\n<<if $cowtifa is true>>[[Cow Tifa.|CowTifaRelease]]<<endif>>\s\n\n<<if $orctifa is true>>[[The orcs' Tifa.|TifaOrcsRelease]]<<endif>>\s\n\n<<if $titstifa is true>>[[Megatits Tifa.|TifaTitsRelease]]<<endif>>\s\n\n<<if $chocotifa is true>>[[Chocobo breeder Tifa.|TifaChocoboRelease]]<<endif>>\s\n\n<<if $activetifa is true>>[[The Tifa on hold.|TifaActiveRelease]]<<endif>>

Happy birthday!\n\nYour very first one, in fact! Because you started to exist just now. Beneath you is the spell circle that drew together the power and energy that would become you, fragments of all the Demon Lords that came before, and around you is the swirling, unformed energy that will soon become the command chamber of your Dark Monolith. Your form is largely human, pretty and well-developed but youthful, with long honey-colored hair and red eyes. And lovely black horns emerging and arcing forward from over your ears, of course, decorated with gold bands inset with rubies and small chains. Your clothing is a small black bikini with gold inlay, straps running along your sides and around your hips, emphasizing your sleek, perfect curves. Your lovely arms are sheathed in matching sleeve-gloves with black-feathered tops, matched by feather-decorated garters around your thighs clipped to gold-trimmed black stockings that leave your heels and toes bared. Your wings are massive, black, and draconic, as befitting the sole ruler of the Realm of Deviltry.\n\n<img src="images/Maxia.jpg">\n\n"Hail, your majesty! Hail to the 666th Demon Lord! Hail to you, our beloved despot!" cries the succubus at the head of the summoning delegation, all of them throwing themselves to their knees and bowing reverently and repeatedly.\n\n"Thank you, Xenith, please be at ease," you reply evenly, giving her a smile as you turn a bit more on the hovering spell circle to face her, your hands resting on the edge of it.\n\n"Yes, of course your majesty, thank you," Xenith answeres eagerly, standing and striking a bit of a pose in her happiness. She's much more of a 'traditional' demon to be sure, with bright red skin and pointed ears, slender horns jutting up from her forehead between her bangs, most of her black hair bundled at the back of her head. Her outfit is a bit more 'succubus traditional' too, sleeveless black collar-incorporated top with a heart cut out of the upper cleavage and most of the underside cleavage open to allow for easy access to her tits from either direction. Her panties are black, slung low on her hips, and tiny, just barely covering her mound and baring most of her ass. Her arms are sheathed in shoulder-high gloves topped with black lace, with matching thigh-high stocking boots. Her long, thin tail is banded in red and black and tipped with an obvious heart, her wings angular and red on the inside, black on the inside. Her mismatched red and green black-scleraed eyes glitter happily at the sight of you, and at you knowing her name. \n\n<img src="images/Xenith.jpg">\n\n"Your majesty, forgive my impertinence and feel free to smite me out of existence for it if you like," she continues, shivering a bit in apparent delight at the very idea. "But do you know who you are and what your purpose is?"\n\n"I don't think smiting is necessary," you answer with a smile. "My name is Maxia, and my purpose is to oversee the Dark Monolith, from which the Realm of Deviltry draws its power to allow the use of magic and all its various other functions as the demons who are created here and call it their home need. We do this by pulling heroes here and trapping them eternally in its various rooms, cells, and oubliettes, utilizing them like batteries. Generally, of course, while lewding them most thoroughly to encourage them to spill more power out, though any manner of trapping them here forever still works!"\n\n"Yes, excellent, your majesty, well done!" Xenith sweeps into a quick bow, then pops back up with a jiggle. "Allow your lowly servant Xenith to explain details that may have been lost in your incarnation! The Dark Monolith is yours to shape and mold as you will, and everything in it except myself and a few other lowly servants such as those assembled here is merely an extension of you and your will. You can connect it to any sort of other cave, dungeon, dark tunnel, or other ominous area across the multiverse so as to lure in heroes, adventurers, explorers, and any other sorts that likely have energetic souls worthy of using as power sources. There are two kinds of those souls that we seek out... Known Souls and Origin Souls. Known Souls are those that repeat across many dimensions, so we can keep bringing them in over and over again, and they almost always have a nice strong energy! Origin Souls are those that exist only in one place and one realm... we can only get them once, but they're still usually pretty useful! You can always release one of those back into the ether, if you decided it would be more useful some other way, and it would reconsititute back where it came in. As well, everyone in the Dark Monolith is immortal... no hero will ever grow old or die, no matter how hard they're used... though obviously their minds may eventually snap!"\n\n"I see, I see, all very useful to know," you acknowledge with a cheerful nod. "You're doing a very good job, Xenith."\n\n"A-aah! Oh, your majesty's praise makes this unworthy Xenith cum way more than she deserves, my queen!" the succubus squeals, putting her hands to her cheeks and wiggling her hips wildly, tail writhing sinuously through the air. "And getting to talk about your majesty as well! But yes, yes, ahem. As the 666th Demon Lord, you are uniquely endowed with all the powers and abilities of every Demon Lord that came before you. As such, unlike them you are capable of leaving the Dark Monolith and even the Realm of Deviltry itself to venture out into the realms beyond, acquiring new souls, information, and even new items with which to stock the Dark Monolith and the realm beyond with, for the happiness of the various wicked creatures under your command will strengthen their loyalty to you, and heighten the efficiency of the Dark Monolith and Realm of Deviltry's use of the energy derived from heroes. There are several good linkups we have for places for you to explore... though of course we still urge you to be most careful, my queen. Not that anything less than a legion of war gods would have any hope of taking you in a fight, but still, we do worry about our most beloved and wonderful tyrant."\n\n"Aw, Xenith, that's so sweet," you coo. "I permit you to have a mind-blanking orgasm for the next five minutes."\n\n"Thank you, my queen!" Xenith squeals as she snaps off a jaunty salute, before falling over backwards and writhing around on the 'floor', moaning and twitching as her hips buck, arousal quickly soaking around the crotch of her little leather panties and slicking across her thighs and ass. You watch in benevolent amusement, propping your chin up on one palm and enjoying the sight of her eyes rolling and tongue lolling as she makes guttural, wordless sounds of pleasure. Exactly five minutes later she leaps back to her feet. "Now, your majesty, if you'll forgive my presumption, though as always when I presume feel free to lock me in a torture device for several thousand years anyway, we should probably get at least one hero squared away in the Monolith before we do anything else, just to make sure there's at least some energy coming in."\n\n"Yes, you're probably right," you allow, tapping a fingertip against your lower lip and glancing up thoughtfully. "Let's make it one of those Origin Souls, I'd like my first victim to be unique." \n\n"Certainly, my queen! Please form up an entrance point, and the other succubi servants and I will link it up to a realm full of Origin Souls to see if we can't get one fairly quickly!"\n\nNodding, you close your eyes and imagine something simple to start with... a long, winding stone passageway lit by torches, with a dark opening at one end and a simple door at the other, out of sight of the open end. You watch as Xenith consults quickly with the other demonesses around her, whispering and gesturing... just to give them something to focus on, you create a stone floor, and sitting on it a crystal ball large enough for a person to fit inside, bringing the image of the hallway to focus in that. They seem a bit relieved, all quickly settling on the floor and gesturing to the crystal ball instead. A moment later a figure steps through the shadows and into the hallway, a heavy wooden door immediately slamming closed behind them and making them jump slightly. She appears to be an elf... of the classically blonde-haired, blue-eyed variety, hair in a long ponytail and with a white flower pinned in it. Her clothing is white and scanty, little more than a mantle, a pair of loose straps of cloth draping over her breasts between a gold collar and band around her lower chest, panties, and high cloth boots, as well as a white leather belt with a quiver on it. Amused, you swing the view around below her for a gratuitous ass shot just as she's looking over her shoulder at the door.\n\n<img src="images/Effiel.jpg">\n\n"The scrying expert is checking her out now, my queen, one moment," Xenith promises as all of you watch the elf woman look around curiously. "Alright, here we go... her name is Effiel. She's a level nine elven Archer with a level in Cleric as well, making her total level ten according to the measurements of her world. She worships an elven goddess called Lenaraelle, whose portfolio heavily focuses on the glories of purity and chastity."\n\nYou can't help but giggle, putting your fingertips to your mouth as you do. "Dressed like that?"\n\n"There's probably some reason, gods are very silly about what they want their worshipers to do, after all. Or worshipers are very silly about interpreting their gods' wishes."\n\n"That is true. Well, I feel like that's true, even if I was born today," you agree with a nod, watching as Effiel apparently overcomes her confusion. Apparently the hallway isn't different enough from wherever she was exploring before to completely flummox her, so she starts off down the hallway, readying her arrow and bow. "Oh good, she's going to continue after all! Not that she had much choice," you add with another light giggle.\n\n"Yes indeed! I think it's wonderful you've constructed a nice, straightforward path for her this time, my queen... you can play with them in the future, after all, but this is an important first conquest that doesn't brook any playing around. Unless you actually wanted to play around, in which case-"\n\n"I could run a pole through you ass-to-mouth and roast you on a spit for a century while seasoning you thoroughly, yes my darling Xenith, I get it." You telekinetically slap her ass hard enough to make her yip (and cum), while examining the view of the elf in the crystal. "No, no, I'll definitely just have her meet her fate behind that door."\n\n"Excellent, your majesty! And may this lowly Xenith ask, what do you intend to put behind that door?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Something monstrous!|MaxEff]]\n\n[[Something hazardous!|MaxEff]]\n\n[[Something wicked!|MaxEff]]\n\n[[Something majestic!|MaxEffSelf]]

"Known Souls"... heroes that the universe decided that just one of weren't enough. You know that this list is curated very carefully by Xenith's team... not only is it listed for those souls that repeat almost infinitely, allowing you to have numerous attempts at netting them, it's also filtered for souls that might be a little <i>too</i> powerful... no one wants a repeat of the "Maximoff Incident" that prematurely ended the reign of your predecessor, after all.\n\n[[Gwen Stacy|MaxGwenStart]] - Some pretty teenage wall-crawler who goes by the name "Spider-Woman".\n\n[[Matterhorn|MaxMHStart]] - A big slab of beefcake... rather literally since he's a bull-man. Some sort of mercenary famed for his, heheh, endurance.\n\n<<if $activetifa is false>>[[Tifa Lockhart|MaxTifaStart]]<<endif>><<if $activetifa is true>>[[Tifa Lockhart|MaxTifaStart2]]<<endif>> - A beautiful brawler from a magitech world. Apparently quite a favorite of your predecessors, she's been an energy-providing staple for many a Dark Monolith!

<<set $activetifa to false>>"Hee, I have a lovely idea for what to do with her," you coo, rubbing your hands. "Have a few of the scryers send me more information on her world and friends!"\n\nSeveral minutes later, Tifa rounds a bend in the tunnel, and blinks at the sight of sunshine pouring in ahead. Looking somewhere between confused and relieved, she walks forward and, from her perspective, outside onto a pastoral hilltop with birds chirping and a small ranch situated below. She definitely looks confused, and even moreso as she hears a familiar voice call her name, its owner emerging from the long barn-like structure near the pasture, waving to her. Still, after only a brief hesitation she heads down to join the other.\n\n"Boy, am I glad you're here!" Yuffie says in satisfaction, resting her hands on her hips. Or rather, the succubus you created in Yuffie's image. "We were really hoping you'd turn up, otherwise I was gonna hafta be the one to do it and hoo boy no one wants that!"\n\n"I guess I got a little lost joining up with everyone," Tifa says after a moment, glancing around, before looking back at 'Yuffie'. "Er, do what?"\n\n"We need your help, seriously!" Yuffie calls, beckoning to the taller woman before rushing back into the barn.\n\nAgain, Tifa only hesitates for the briefest of moments, before following the other girl inside.\n\n"Oh good, Tifa's here!" 'Aeris' chirps, walking over and clasping her hands. "Tifa, we've learned about an <i>extremely</i> important materia! We won't be able to save the planet without it! But we also can't get to it with anything else but a gold chocobo."\n\n"Oh no," Tifa says with a sigh. "Those are incredibly rare... we'd have to breed one ourselves, wouldn't we?"\n\n"Yes, but there's a possible way to do that with much higher odds!" 'Aeris' answers excitedly, beckoning her supposed friend along, past the stalls filled with chocobos of various colors (with 'Yuffie' currently putting a bridle on one of them), to one that's standing open and empty... well, mostly empty. There's a mostly flat metal box in the middle of it. "Here, step up on this and I'll explain."\n\n"O... kay?" Tifa definitely looks dubious, but since as far as she's concerned it's her close friend telling her to do so, she nevertheless steps up onto the box. Immediately several parts of it slide open, manacles snapping closed around her ankles and wrists. "HEY!" Tifa yelps, as she's pulled into a bent-forward position, the arms forcing her to lift her ass up by various twists and pushes. "What's going on?!"\n\n"Um, duh," 'Yuffie' snorts as she leads a fluffy yellow chocobo over to the stall. "Chocobo breeding. Hey, Aeris, I couldn't remember what gives the best odds and didn't wanna bother looking at the book so I just got the one with the biggest dick, okay?"\n\n"Hm, well, seems to make sense to me," 'Aeris' answers brightly as she steps forward, pushing Tifa's skirt up and pulling her panties down around her bared thighs, baring the other woman's pussy and ass.\n\n"W-what?!" Tifa splutters. "You two can't be serious! You can't breed chocobos with-!" She cuts off with a yelp of shock as the big, warbling yellow bird behind her moves forward and hefts itself up a bit, slapping a very long, impressively thick vein-bulged pink tube against the cleft of her ass. "Stop, no, don't!"\n\n"Look, it <i>totally</i> works, and the stronger the breeding partner is the more likely we'll get a gold," 'Yuffie' insists, holding up a magazine, apparently unperturbed by the chocobo in front of her thrusting its hips in its attempts to penetrate her friend.\n\n"Hm, Yuffie, isn't that a drawn pornographic comic?" 'Aeris' asks curiously, even as she reaches out, the innocent-looking young woman quickly and efficiently guiding the blunt end of the chocobo's bestial prick to Tifa's bared pussy.\n\n"Yeah, so?"\n\n"Fair point!"\n\n"GYRRRRRK!" Tifa's jaw clenches and her eyes roll as the chocobo thrusts forward, burying half its cock at once in her pussy, her belly bulging up with the outline of it. Warbling happily, the huge bird arches back further and starts rocking its hips, driving them forward again and again, forcing more of its cock into Tifa with each thrust. "H-help, help, it's raping me, I'm being raped by a chocobo, somebody help," she whimpers, even as the overstimulation causes her pussy to start growing damp, spurting out arousal against the chocobo's feathery belly as it slaps against her hips and ass, apparently no room for both her shameful juices and that thick avian prick inside of her.\n\n"Duh, that's the idea," 'Yuffie' snickers, leaning against the wall of the stall.\n\n"Now, Tifa, don't go complaining about a little being raped by a chocobo," 'Aeris' scolds gently. "This is to save the planet, you should be grateful for this opportunity!"\n\n"Hnngh, hnya, nnghk!" Tifa's protests grow more wordless as drool goes running down her chin, her still-clothed tits swaying under her with the impact of the chocobo's hips against hers. The big bird suddenly gives a loud "WARK!" and thrusts forward, and Tifa's eyes focus and then go wide for just a moment before her belly suddenly bulges forth visibly at the tip of the cock outline in it, that first intense spurt of chocobo cum pushing out on her stretched flesh before her whole stomach starts to round out and bulge. In a matter of seconds it's filled her to the point that she looks seven months pregnant, before it abruptly pulls back and out, leaving Tifa to slump and shudder in her bonds as nonhuman cum gushes out of her gaping pussy, her body shuddering in shameful, unwanted orgasms. But her belly only flattens a certain amount before it begins to round out again, Tifa squirming in the manacles and twisting her hips, making soft gasping noises at the feeling of pressure from within. "What's... what's happening, wha-" Then she cries out as her body twitches in forced orgasm, her pussy visibly trembling as she twitches and bucks her hips. Her already still slightly spread cunt begins to push further apart, something smooth and glossy visible within and spreading her further apart as every quivering orgasm pushes it further and further out. "Hnnnh! Hnnnhaaa! Hnhyaaaa! AAA!" Tifa shrieks as with one last climax so intense it clearly briefly blanks her brain, the egg is pushed out to tumble to the padded cradle that's raised up from the base that's restraining her.\n\n"Ooo, is it a gold, is it a gold?" 'Aeris asks excitedly.\n\n"Hmmm. Hard to tell," 'Yuffie' answers, moving to pick up the egg and examine it. "Honestly we probably gotta wait until it gets hatched."\n\n"Well in that case, we'll just have to keep cranking out eggs! As many as we can!" 'Aeris' declares brightly, smiling as Yuffie sets the egg aside and moves back down the row of stalls. "There are at least twenty-five chocobos here, if we cycle through them we can have Tifa laying eggs twenty-four seven!"\n\n"W-wha? No... I can't..." Tifa gasps, whimpering as she hears the thump of the next chocobo's large avian feet thumping the stable ground behind her.\n\n"Oh come on now, Tifa," 'Aeris' says with a frown. "This is to save the world!"\n\n"Yeah, Tifa, we can't save the world without you laying a gold chocobo egg," 'Yuffie' adds urgently. "You gotta do it!"\n\n"... O-... okay," Tifa whimpers, shuddering all over. "I'll... I'll do it, to save the worrRRRLD!" she yowls as the next chocobo mounts up on her, this one almost instantly hitting its target and shoving in, the entirety of its cock stuffed inside her with the conditioning from her previous fucking and her recent egg-laying. "Nnnh, ah, oh fuck, it's so big, oh fuck, oh fuck!" she mewls as the chocobo warbles happily as it begins its next breeding. "I-I don't know how many more I can take, can't you do something?!"\n\n"Hmmm. Oh right, aren't we supposed to feed the chocobo greens or something to increase chances of getting a gold?" 'Aeris' asks, glancing at her co-conspirator.\n\n"Oh riiiight, right riiiiight," 'Yuffie' mutters, fishing in one of her pockets. "I even got some special greens just for it!"\n\n"W-w-well feed the chocobo the greens already!" Tifa snaps, her voice shuddering with the impact of the bird's feathered hips slapping against her ass and its cock thumping the inside of her womb. "Feed the chocobMMF!" Her eyes go wide with surprise and indignation as Yuffie stuffs the handful of leafy greens into her mouth, forcing them in like a gag. But apparently they've been pressed in enough that Tifa has to gulp and swallow at them just to clear her airway. Flushing from a mixture of being chocofucked and the added indignity, she snaps, "I said feed the chocobo, not wark!"\n\nHer eyes go wide, then she cries out as her body shudders and begins to change. Her boots splinter and tear as her toes and heels push through them, some of her toes merging together as they start to turn into much more birdlike talons, her stockings also tearing as her thighs grow thicker, more of the same almost scale-like yellow surface now covering her feet sliding up them. Her ass begins to grow and widen, getting larger by the second even as the chocobo continues to thrust into her, her ever larger butt wobbling more dramatically beneath its thrusts, her thickened waist snapping her belt and the waistband of her skirt, even as her thickened thighs do the same to her panties. Her tits too are growing larger, a pair of truly remarkable avian breasts that soon tear her top to shreads as they wobble. The manacles around her breasts abruptly release, forcing her to flap her arms in a panic trying to stay slightly upright on her new legs... and the flapping continuing as a thick new growth of yellow feathers sprouts all over them, her gloves tearing and splitting both at the new growth and the shifting of her arms into a crooked, obviously winglike configuration. \n\n"No! No, what's happening, wark's happening, warrrrk happewark?!" Tifa cries, her words becoming steadily more indistinct as her neck stretches out longer and longer, her lower face shifting and altering, curving out and hardening as it takes on a beaklike look. "Warrrk, wark wark!" she protests, flapping her wings almost in time with the thrusts of the chocobo currently breeding her. Though her ass has now attained properly chocobo-like proportions, it's still bare and human-styled, as smooth and round as it ever was, though it now has a fringe of golden feathers encircling it from her hips and creating a tail above it. "Wark, warrrrrk!" Tifacobo tosses her head, hair lashing, the strange and ridiculous chocobo hybrid warbling as the other beast atop it lets out a loud "WARK!" of its own, spilling its load into her, the Tifacobo's thickened and rounded belly not showing quite as much of the bulging from the massive amount of cum.\n\n"There we go," 'Aeris' coos once the chocobo has been pulled away and the Tifacobo has warbled and warked its orgasm-induced way through laying another, larger egg in much less time. "That will make it muuuch more efficient! Now, Tifa, any time you <i>really</i> want to stop, just say anything other than 'wark', okay? That's how we'll know you want to trade off with Yuffie!"\n\n"Hey!"\n\n"Wark!" the Tifacobo cries, clearly incapable of saying anything else as it flaps its wings and wiggles in the restraints around its birdlike ankles. "Wark wark, wark!"\n\n"Oh good, I guess she's ready for the next one, Yuffie!"\n\n"WARK!"\n\nLaughing delightedly, you wave the image off the crystal. "Well, I guess we'll always have fresh eggs from now on!"\n\n"A truly delightful side benefit, your magnificence!"\n<<set $chocotifa to true>>\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|MaxThroneRoomRepeat]]

Hm, he said he doesn't drink often, probably best to make him something fairly easy on the ABV, you think as you take down bottles from the shelf. You'll make yourself something a little harder, you muse as you look over the bottles... you're not a <i>huge</i> drinker, but hey, you're young, and you didn't acquire your drink mixing skills without a fair bit of partaking! You'll be fine.\n\n'Or not,' you think vaguely, even your mental voice almost slurring as you loll on the chair, barely able to keep your hand resting on top of your glass where it's sitting on the table to one side of you without flopping it and turning the whole thing over. Wow, Nova stocks waaaay better stuff than you can usually get your hands on... the first one kind of snuck up on you while you were in the middle of the second one, which made it hard to tell how hammered you were getting, and about halfway through the third one, well.\n\nThough you and Nova had been chatting, with him gradually taking over the majority of it as you descended further into lazy, almost-asleep drunkenness, he now stops mid-story and chuckles. "I think perhaps you need to get back to your quarters, my young friend."\n\n"Yeah, prolly," you slur, chuckling a little, staggering some as you get to your feet with his help, not even thinking of his nudity as he hauls you in against his side and slips an arm under yours to help you stay up. "You... keep gooood stuff, man... better'n crap I can get... savin' up for ship..."\n\n"I've no doubt you'll get there someday," Nova assures you genially as he half-leads half-carries you to the door and out into the hall. But his voice is already distant and fading, you practically asleep on your feet, only conscious in the vaguest of ways as you sort-of-kind-of manage to put one foot in front of the other on the way back to your cabin.\n\nInside, you're similarly vaguely aware of being led over to your bed and eased down onto it, arms flopping out in front of your head. Ahhh... the mattress feels so good under your chest and cheek, so nice and softfirm and cool, you think as your pants are undone and slid down and off of you, boots tugged off of your feet. 'That feels nice,' you similarly semi-consciously think as strong hands stroke over your back, pushing up your top, then down to massage your ass, squeezing it and parting it. The kneading and massaging continues, lulling you even further down into being barely awake, to the point that you only let out a soft 'mmf' as you feel something hot and hard and slick pushing into your ass, spreading you open and sliding in deep.\n\nThe rocking of your body as that hot thing in your ass starts to move is relaxing... so relaxing, gently rubbing and pressing you against the bed as that thick, slick thing pumps into you and something fuzzy and firm thumps against your butt. You can feel hands soothingly stroking your waist, reaching up to rub and stroke your hair, making you 'mmm' softly again and shudder. That thing inside you... it feels sort of...\n\n<hr>\n[[... annoying.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[... good.|LeoNova]]

Shrugging, you go with the obvious default, since it could be anyone. "Number one."\n\n"That's my number," Mazinon notes, glancing briefly at the display panel of his bracelet.<<set $mazinonsecret to true>>\n\nOh. Huh. Well, it's another guy's fantasy, so you guess at least it counts as "guy talk" or something. Though you admit you have difficulty imagining what a tall, refined elf sorcerer must fantasize about. Mazinon walks over, as unperturbed by his own nudity as ever, leaning in close to speak close to your ear... though he does seem to be trying to give you some space, at the same time he's clearly comfortable getting closer than most other guys would, and you can feel the warmth of his body... even if nothing is quite brushing against you.\n\n"It is quite juvenile, I admit, but sometimes I fantasize about... ruling the world," Mazinon murmurs in your ear, making your lips quirk a little bit. Hasn't everyone, at least once? Perhaps emboldened by your response, he chuckles. "Of course, I have a rather unique perspective on it... I am descended from elf kings of old, after all, who truly did see themselves as rulers of the world. And as much as we might like to present ourselves as ethereal creatures of pure grace and divinity, more candid histories paint a different picture... such as that of my ancestor Mazinyin, called 'The Mad-Cocked'. A particularly crude sobriquet for an elf king, but then..."\n\nHe hesitates only briefly before continuing. "You see, Mazinyin claimed that all elf women were his to do with as he pleased... from the commonfolk to the wives of his nobles. He spent his days siring bastards, treating prostitutes from the streets like royal ladies to be made love to, and noblewomen like cheap whores to be spanked and degraded. I admit, in the throes of my adolescence, such stories stirred thoughts in me. To this day, I am unable to help occasionally drifting into the fantasy of assuming my ancestor's mantle... ascending to rule Earth on high, to have any woman I please brought before me, to take her there in front of my onlooking court, all of them politely urging me on and applauding me as I took my pleasure."\n\nThere's just a moment of hesitation again, before he continues, his voice having dropped and grown a little breathier. "For you see, all the male nobles were afraid to speak out against Mazinyin... if they said so much as a cross word about him fucking their wives up the ass while calling them a... I believe the closest translation for the Elvish word he used in English is 'fuckpig'... he would have them captured in the night, force-fed a potion of sex change, and then brought before him to be despoiled in front of not only the nobles, but a cheering crowd of commoners. So you see... in my fantasies... when I've got your mother on all fours in front of me, spanking her ass as I impregnate her while calling her a 'fuckpig', the entire time I am doing it, I am staring right at you, waiting for the slightest hint of anything but approval to cross your face, so that I may have an excuse to make you the next one to be on all fours before me, tits swaying and pussy gushing as I impregnate you."\n\nYou shiver just a bit at the very lightest brush of his cock against your hip as he straightens up and steps back, moving to stand beside his sister again, who's looking at you both curiously. There's a very strange sensation in your head at the moment... it's sort of like a pentagon graph and plotting a point inside it somewhere between embarrassed, embarrassed on Mazinon's behalf, outraged at such a deviant fantasy, aroused at such a powerfully appealing fantasy, and... just aroused in a strange way you've not necessarily experience before.\n\nBut it was definitely enough for Dr. Deathtrap, it looks like, since the doors for the exit slide open.\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|CalKLHallway2]]

"Take care of...?" 'Mom' asks in confusion.\n\n"Oh, have your supervisors not told you? Maybe they haven't even heard. I just saw it on a news feed that they're expecting an outbreak of Fox Flu in the area," you explain solemnly.\n\n"Oh dear," she murmurs, putting her fingers to her lips.\n\n"Yeah, it could spread pretty fast so there's a pretty decent chance you'll have to work late tonight. I wanted to tell you if that winds up happening, I'll make sure Ryo gets dinner and does his homework if any of his friends bring it by."\n\n"Thank you, Kyoko, I appreciate that. Oh my, I hope Ryo doesn't have the Fox Flu himself," she adds worriedly, before turning and hurrying over to the nursing station.\n\nWhich would be a feat, since you just made it up. Of course when you're about a block from the hospital, you do take the time to actually make up the Fox Flu and fling it out to several people nearby. Highly contagious, it will manifest as a form of the flu... except instead of muscle aches and chills, it's arousal you can't get rid of. And every time you sneeze, you orgasm. Anyone under a certain age can't catch it, and anyone old enough to catch it and have their life threatened by all the other flu-like symptoms will instead find themselves getting gradually young and vital again... and turning into a big-boobed, big-dicked futanari.\n\nActually you probably should have come up with the Fox Flu at some point anyway, this is a hilarious idea for causing chaos! Still, you make sure all cases of it will expire in 72 hours (the Fox Flu, not the people infected with it)... don't need <i>every</i> old fart in the world turning into an H-doujin protagonist or something. \n\nNow, your work done to make sure that Mommy dearest will probably be sleeping at the hospital for several nights straight (you made sure that she can catch only the most benign strain with just the arousal and orgasm-sneezes instead of anything else, you're such a good daughter), you head back to the train station and head home. As you walk in the front door, you manifest a larger bag obviously stuffed with various objects in place of your purse, before closing the door loudly enough to make sure Ryo hears. Indeed, as you're removing your shoes, you can see him peeking down from the top of the stairs. Padding over barefoot, you point directly in front of you. "Get down here, degenerate."\n\nRyo slinks his way down the stairs, standing in front of you with head bowed as he squirms and fidgets nervously. "O-oneechan, um, about earlier-"\n\n"I'm not done with you about earlier by a long shot," you declare, making him wince. "And if you're expecting Mom to come home and save you, better forget it now. The hospital's going to be really busy with a flu outbreak for the next few days, apparently, and she might not be home for awhile. So it's just you and me, and all the discipline I can dish out for your perversion."\n\nHe swallows heavily. "... Okay. Um, what... what should I do first?"\n\n"Strip."\n\nHe flinches a bit... but he only hesitates for a moment or two before he obeys, pulling off his shirt and dropping it to the floor. After that his jeans and underwear are pushed down, and once he steps out of them he stands there naked in front of you, rubbing his upper arm nervously and looking off to the side, his hardening prick steadily jutting up more and more in front of him.\n\n"Tch. Look at you, getting all turned on and horny just from being naked. And in front of your own sister. You really are a disgusting pervert," you sneer, making him shudder... and a drop of pre well to the tip of his stiff dick. "Well, I've got something for you, mister..." You reach into your bag... which is really just an excuse to poof anything you want into your hand... and pull out-\n\n<hr>\n[[-panties.|Konko]]\n\n[[-a collar.|Konko]]\n\n[[-a latex sheath.|Konko]]\n\n[[-a small cage.|Konkoo]]\n\n[[-a nice suit.|Konko]]

"N-no, that's not true!" Ryo whines in protest.\n\n"Oh? So you're not like this boy here, and desperate to know what kind of panties his oneechan is wearing?" you ask, flipping over to another page and pointing at the drawn woman bent over, ass hugged by an apparently sprayed-on pair of panties.\n\n"No, no, I, I wouldn't, I-"\n\n"Well let's just see about that," you interrupt him, tossing the magazine onto the bed and starting to unbutton your pants. Ryo's eyes bug as you unzip them and push them down, stepping out of them once they're past your knees. He obviously didn't see what kind of panties his sister was actually wearing when she left this morning, so you couldn't recreate that part naturally... no no no, you can do something even better! You've created an elaborate and beautiful cobalt blue and black G-string, with an open crotch that leaves your (Kyoko's) plump pussylips on display. You force yourself not to smirk as Ryo's eyes practically bug out of his head, instead keeping up the solemn scowl as you fold your arms over your chest. "So, since you're not a degenerate pervert, the sight of your sister's panties does nothing for you, right?"\n\n"Of... of course not," he whispers, squirming miserably.\n\n"Oh? If that's true, then take that blanket away and finish pushing off your pants. Your dick should be completely limp, like a good brother's, if that's true."\n\nHe stares at you in horror for several seconds, but it's obvious that you've got him trapped... refusing to obey is as good as admitting it anyway. Whimpering a bit, he pushes aside the blanket, and finishes pushing his pants and underwear down... his stiff prick springing up free, jutting from his lap traitorously, a drop of pre welling from the tip like the final nail in the coffin.\n\n'Aaaa, it's actually really cute, this is a fun prank,' you think with smiles and sunshine internally, while externally you deepen your scowl. "I knew it. You despicable little slime."\n\n"I'm sorry, oneechan!" he cries, suddenly throwing himself to the floor and bowing until his forehead's on the floor, prostrating him in apology. "I-it's not like I can control it, it just OOF!"\n\nThis last is as you tuck a bare foot under his shoulder and use it to flip him over onto his back on the floor, his face shocked... and then showing a rictus of fear with just a little something else as you move to stand between his legs, and place a bare foot firmly against the bottom of his shaft, pressing it against his still shirt-clad belly. "Look at this filthy, disgusting thing, getting all hard at the sight of your own sister," you declare coldly, even as you rub your foot slowly up and down, applying just enough pressure for him to feel the danger without actually using enough to cause pain. "Honestly, you're pathetic, Ryo-chan."\n\n"Nnnh... ah... o-oneechan," he whimpers, shuddering in both humiliation and stimulation as you subtly use your toes to rub at his cockhead. A loud gasp escapes him as you move your foot up far enough to press your heel against his balls a bit, making his whole body shudder. You know he must have quite a view from his spot, especially with your leg raise and moved out a bit to step on him... he'll have a clear, unbroken line of sight to your pussy, framed by those gloriously lewd panties, as well as your breasts outlined by your shirt, and your disdainful face as you gaze down at him.\n\n"To think my little brother is such a worthless little pervert that this naughty dick of his would get all hard looking at me," you continue to berate him, rubbing your foot up and down, lightly twisting it back and forth, as if still moments away from deciding to stomp down and with nothing he could do to stop it. "You disgusting degenerate... aren't you happy, getting to look at my panties? Isn't this what you wanted, hm?" you continue, heaping on the scorn even as you deliberately stroke your big toe up and down the indentation in the underside of his cockhead.\n\n"Oneechan... oneechan, please, I... I!" he gasps out, back arching a little as you press your toes around his shaft just under the head. But a light press of your heel is all that it takes and he lets out a whimper of shame and pleasure as his cock starts spurting all over his belly and chest, thick splatters of creamy white jizz slowly starting to soak into his shirt where they land. You continue rubbing and grinding your foot lightly against him all throughout, forcing him to gush out every last bit and extending his orgasm literally under your heel.\n\n"Hmph. You trash brother," you snort, snatching up your pants as if outraged and then striding to the door, leaving plenty of time for his slightly glazed eyes to stare at your practically bare ass, accented by the embroidered blue accent above it and the string going between the cleft of it. "I'll have to think of a fitting punishment for a degenerate like you that actually cums from getting stepped on." With that, you slam the door behind yourself...\n\n... and quickly put up a silence spell between it and you so you can laugh. Konkonkon, the look on his face! All the looks on his face! That was priceless! You don't doubt you've awakened poor Ryo's "M" side, as they say, and it was absolutely phenomenal, what a fun time!\n\nAhhh... you're tempted to keep it going for awhile. Of course if you wanted to do that, you should probably go find Ryo's actual sister, Kyoko, and possess her for the duration... you'll have to live as a human but eh, you can still do whatever you want, let Kyoko sort it out once you turn the stick back over to her. Or you could call it a prank well done and enjoy Ryo's confusion and squirming as his sister seems to have no recollection of what she did (or his new kink). Either or!\n\n<hr>\n[[Possess Kyoko and continue the prank.|Konko8x3]]\n\n[[Consider the prank complete.|Konko]]

"It's just too much to risk," you finally decide, shaking your head. "Just the very concept of a data leak of this size could cause catastrophic societal consequences. The amount of paranoia and suspicion that would hit along with the exposed secrets could tear nations apart. We'll have to indulge Doctor Deathtrap and run her Labyrinth, for now."\n\n"Very good!" Warya immediately declares, bolting to her feet with a jiggle both of her tits and the outline beneath her loincloth. "You made the correct choice, Caliburn, I am proud of you! Then let us be off!" She instantly turns and strides towards the door, tail lashing behind her.\n\nThe rest of you at the table exchange a glance and some confused blinking, before getting up and following after her. You catch up to her in the hallway leading to the transporters and lean in. "Ah... did you not really want to do the direct assault?" you ask in a whisper.\n\n"What? Do not be foolish, of course I did!" she declares in her usual booming volume. She pauses in front of the transporter pad while Trickshot moves to program it, turning to you and assuming a smug expression as she folds her arms under her chest. "But you sided with your stronger and larger matriarch, as is the correct and honorable path! Had you agreed with my much better and more reasonable suggestion instead, I would have <i>punched you in the jaw</i>!" she adds, lifting a fist to shake it in the general vicinity of your face.\n\n"Hm, it's sort of a shame Avellon never established diplomatic ties with Tygaris, it sounds like we had a lot to learn," Excalibur muses, tapping a fingertip against her lower lip thoughtfully.\n\n... It's gonna be a looooong mission, you think with a sigh as you step up onto the pad.\n\nThe transporter shifts you to a point near the coordinates Doctor Deathtrap sent you. Excalibur flies ahead to scout, while you walk with the others... it just seems the more polite thing to do even if you could fly ahead. As you pass through the cold wilderness, you spot a single, mostly featureless white building, unconnected to anything but the ground it's sitting on. Yup, there it is, that must be the Annex of Annihilation. Excalibur sets back down next to you, fists on her hips as everyone ignores the jiggling her landing caused. "It doesn't look like there are any traps outside, or immediate ones inside the door, she must want to Menacelogue at us some more once we're inside."\n\n"HEY! SPOILER ALERT!" comes Doctor Deathtrap's voice from inside.\n\nYour group exchanges another glance, before you all file inside. The room within is fairly large and almost as featureless as the outside, save for the wall directly across from the entrance which has a protruding part about four feet tall sticking out of the lower half. The moment Snow Leopard passes through the entrance, the door snaps closed behind her with such suddenness and speed it actually makes her jump a little, clearly suppressing the urge to check her round rear with her hands to make sure she hasn't been nicked. The area above the protrusion on the wall lights up, turning into a video screen showing Doctor Deathtrap.\n\n"Oh, she's become so cute!" Marielle blurts, before pressing her hands to her mouth and looking sheepish as her brother gives her an amused glance. "... Sorry."\n\n"... So you've come, Guardian Sentinels," Doctor Deathtrap says, though you note that she's clearly not starting on quite the tone she wanted. Might have something to do with one of her eyebrows twitching like that. "Just as I expected! And when I say that, I mean I predicted within an extremely low margin of error that this would in fact be the team you'd assemble to challenge me, Caliburn! How delightful that you've performed as expected and brought me Excalibur as well, gyaaahahahaha!"\n\n"Adelaide, this is all unnecessary, can't we work this out in some other way?" your mother says reasonably.\n\n"HEY! You know that's annoying as hell, right?! Right?!" Doctor Deathtrap suddenly shrieks, leaning in close and clearly grabbing the sides of the camera. "I bet you'd say you're doing it to try to ground me, but you really do it just 'cause it pisses me of, huh?! HUH?! I call you Excalibur so the least you could do is call me Doctor Deathtrap or Deathtrap or something, I don't go around calling you Aur-"\n\n"I apologize, you're right, it's a breach of professional courtesy and it won't happen again," Excalibur interrupts evenly, managing to sound calm and reasonable despite the fact she's clearly in a bit of a rush to keep Deathtrap from spilling her own secret identity in front of the others. Man, nice tone control, Mom.\n\n"Hmph. ... Still, that just makes this all the more delightful." Deathtrap smirks as she leans back from the camera again, instead tapping her fingertips together, flesh and blood against blue metal. "You see, foolish heroes, this Labyrinth of Doom is not designed to take your lives! It is designed to take your pride, confidence, self-respect, and self-image! I'll pay back the humiliation and attack on self-image I endured due to your actions in kind, although maybe a bit different in tone! And it will start with this!" Sections of the top of the portion of the wall that sticks out slide open at the top, revealing seven empty receptacles, as well as seven round white bracelets with small black rectangles on one side that slide up into view near them. "You will take off your costumes and place them in these bins... I'll be nice and say that those of you wearing masks may keep them on. You'll get them back at the end of the Labyrinth, on my word as a scientist."\n\n"Bah! A Tygarian Gladiator strips of their armor only when defeated!" Warya declares, folding her arms and glowering defiantly at the screen. "I will not yield to such a demand, no matter the cost!"\n\n"I thought at least one of you might balk at either this step or the next," Deathtrap says smugly, since indeed no one's actually moved to undress, instead just standing about looking various levels of dubious or uncomfortable. "So I prepared these!" Another section of the wall portion slides out, this time a stand with six white computer tablets labeled with names rising up. "Each of these contains a secret that one of you definitely doesn't want to get out! Refuse, and I'll release them along with Caliburn's secret identity when the time limit's up!"\n\nThe others move forward to take the tablets, Trickshot seeming more curious than anything, Snow Leopard's hand shaking a little as she reaches for hers, the Twins mostly looking confused as they take theirs. Your mother, much like Trickshot, seems more curious than anything as she takes hers and hits the power button, though you see her scowl and quickly switch it off.\n\n"Bah! I have no 'connections' to this stupid planet, no secrets, you've nothing to threaten me with, fool!" Warya sneers loudly as she steps forward and snatches the tablet with her name on it. "You've wasted your time, I will never submit!" She brings the tablet up to her face and clicks the button. Her yellow eyes instantly go wide, her tail turning into one long puffball as she lets out a high shriek of "GYEEHEE!" just before she whips the tablet downward and snaps it in two over her thigh. Whipping her head back and forth as if desperate to see whether anyone might have had a view of the screen, she then clears her throat and straightens up, adopting a calm pose and starting to undo the ties at the sides of her top, her tail still a bit poofy. "Then again, a Tygarian Gladiator always dresses appropriately to the arena they fight in, and if this one's is nudity, then so be it!"\n\nSoon everyone's followed the demand, depositing their costumes in one of the bins which seal back up. Snow Leopard is obviously the one that's having the hardest time with it... she's covering her breasts with one arm and crotch with her other hand, hunched in on herself and wearing only her cowl, though her blush is obvious despite it; you can't help but note that she's got kind of a soft body with some nice squeezable bits despite being so athletic, maybe the padding helps her handle the cold. Your mother, though you're trying not to look too directly at her, seems to have decided she's going to act like nothing's bothering her, still standing with fists on her hips and feet slightly apart, huge firm breasts jutted out and the small thatch of golden hair above her mound on display, the little 'crown' all she kept of her costume. Trickshot, reduced to wearing only his goggles and showing a lot of very toned mocha-colored muscle, appears to be trying to act like nothing is bothering him, though he has a few little tells that say it's an act. The Twins, by contrast, actually seem largely unbothered, sleek, hairless elven bodies on display, Marielle's pert teardrop-shape breasts showing their pale pink nipples and Mazinon's slender cock swaying with the motion of moving back to stand at her side. Warya seems more sulky than anything, arms folded under her large, bare white-furred breasts and her large pink cock swaying with the nervous shifting of her powerful hips, tail still lashing behind her... you figure it's probably not the nudity that bothers her so much as suddenly realizing she's as vulnerable through some sort of secret as the rest of you.\n\nYou? You're having a competition with Trickshot. ... To seem the most unbothered, not that kind of competition.\n\nOnce Doctor Deathtrap has stopped breathing heavily and wiped the drool off her mouth with her sleeve, she resumes her smug look. "Good, good. Now, each of the bracelets sitting out has your logo on one side, and a screen on the other... logo goes on your outer wrist, screen on your inner," she explains as everyone starts picking up the devices, apparently past arguing at this point. "These are power suppression devices as well, by the way, tailored specifically for each of you, so there'll be no smashing through walls, <i>Excalibur</i>, or picking out microfractures in the equipment, <i>Trickshot</i>, or awakening the traps to sentience and making friends with them, <i>Marielle</i>!" she adds, her clear actual annoyance leaking through before she pulls her smug supervillain face back on. "Not that you could, this time."\n\n"What the...?" you murmur as your bracelet's screen lights up, displaying an icon of a crown.\n\n"Yes, you see, for I call this Labyrinth of Doom the King's Labyrinth." Doctor Deathtrap steeples her fingers again, sneering into the camera as she continues. "It has no hidden devices, no pitfalls, nothing to threaten your life. Instead, this Labyrinth is based on a party activity called 'The King's Game'. Normally what happens is that everyone draws sticks, most of them with numbers but one of them with a crown, and whoever draws the crown is King. The King then declares an activity... 'Number Five must kiss the King', or somesuch. With the twist being that the King has no idea who is holding the stick labeled five! As you can imagine, such a game can get quite naughty quite fast, and wind up expanding horizons for various people involved!\n\n"But this King's Labyrinth uses, shall we say, modified rules," she continues. "First of all, since he had the utmost luck of being the one to take my call and assemble you all, Caliburn is the designated King and will remain so until the Labyrinth is completed, barring some special circumstance. Second, he will not be the one to pick the activities, only the numbers. The activities will instead be decided by the rooms you enter... the text written on the walls is quite clear and should leave little ambiguity, and the rooms are outfitted with proper accessories and devices to enable its completion no matter what numbers are picked. Once you have entered a room, it will remain sealed until the activity is carried out, so Caliburn will have to choose appropriate numbers to do so, and you'll all have to participate, gyaahahaha! Oh, and just to be clear, I'm not going to cheat and mess with the numbers... they'll be randomly assigned when you enter a room, you can check for yourself. But only you can see them, and no telling or I really will start shuffling them!"\n\n"And how do we... win... this Labyrinth?" Excalibur asks in a rather sour tone.\n\n"Obviously by finding the final room! Or, hmmmm..." Deathtrap taps a finger against her cheek. "You know what? I'll be magnanimous. You'll complete the Labyrinth either by finding the final room and carrying out its challenge, or I'll consider it completed when I'm satisfied that my experiences have been paid back with your own. Once I hit the 'All Clear' button, the bracelets pop off, your costumes get returned, the doors open, and you can all leave! I'll delete the data I've stolen with my hack, I'll even promise to never tell anyone what I've seen here! That's it, that's the deal! So, let's begin, shall we?" At her words, one of the side walls slides open, revealing a hallway. Dang, she must have had the whole room lower down while she was Menaceloguing and none of you noticed, you've gotta give her props she's really upped her game.\n\n<hr>\n[[Enter the King's Labyrinth.|CalKLRoom1]]\n\n[[Challenge Deathtrap.|Cal]]

"I think I'm going to pop over to Earth," you announce, standing up. You use the thirty-second Demon Lord's power of Alter Form to change yourself into a human (which basically just involves hiding your horns, wings, and tail), and the 111th Demon Lord's ability of Alter Equipment to change your clothes into a loose black spaghetti-strap top, short, loose black skirt, and side-zip knee-high black boots. "Watch the Monolith until I get back, Xenith."\n\n"Of course, your majesty! I assure you it will be in the same sinful state you left it."\n\nGrinning, you focus on the listing from the scroll and the enchantment buried there, using it to guide the manifestation of a portal, which you nonchalantly hop through from where you're standing in front of your throne. You land in the midst of a mild, sunny day somewhere near the edge of Knightsvale. You rest your hands on your hips and just take a moment to look around, taking in the, well... ambience. You've never actually been outside in the Realm of Deviltry, but it's pretty much what you'd expect from the name... red skies, lots of blasted rock, flows of lava, other towering and imposing demonic castles and palaces and labyrinths all dwarfed by the Dark Monolith. Even being a demon yourself, you have to admit this is quite a bit more pleasant.\n\nAfter enjoying the day for a few minutes, you take a look around at what's nearby. After all, you're here to discover useful and/or entertaining new things for the Realm of Deviltry... if you bring things back you can use in the Dark Monolith it will increase the energy you get from hero souls; and if you bring things back to replicate and distribute to the populace of the realm for them to enjoy, their adoration of you will grow, which will <i>also</i> help with processing energy!\n\nThere's a nearby plain, unadorned brick building with a rather uninspired style of sign that reads "Needful Kinks".<<if $loreleigone is true>> There's currently a sign on the door reading "Closed until further notice". Looks like they haven't found someone to replace Lorelei yet.<<endif>><<if $loreleigone is false>> There's a simple, glowing red sign in the otherwise blacked-out door window that reads '[[Open|NeedfulKinksFirst]]'.<<endif>>\n\nThere's also a somewhat more slickly-designed building with odd structures featuring hoses and some sort of spigots at the end outside, and an inside that's brightly-lit and features a cacophany of colored items that sort of make you want to go inside and touch everything. The sign above it reads "[[Pump'n'Gulp|MaxCSStart]]".\n\nThere's a much larger structure that features a number of very big, long, squarish metal contraptions loitering about at one side of it... you have a vague comprehension of what a "bus" is due to information inherited from previous Demon Lords, who no doubt heard about them from some of the Earth heroes they snagged. This must be some sort of central gathering area from which to make use of them... a "[[bus station|MaxBusStart]]", as it were!\n\nThere's also a road with paved pathways lining it at the edges, which looks to head [[further into town|MaxTownStart]].

"I'm almost certain it was Professor Collins who cursed you," you say as Aarav finishes getting dressed, replacing his scrubs shirt with a 'Megadeth' T-shirt you... inherited from a previous boyfriend.\n\n"Why is that...?"\n\n"Well, for one thing," you answer as you heft your bag up onto your shoulder. "You died on a Friday... the one day of the week she doesn't have any classes."\n\nSoon the two of you are standing on the porch of the Professor's house, Aarav looking around nervously as you check your phone. "Okay, she should be in class now." You turn to the door, mming. "Damn, Schlage."\n\n"What's wrong?"\n\n"Even if she's not a witch, my opening spell won't work on Schlages, among other brands. They're just too heavy and too many people actually associate the name with security... my magic's struggling against the symbolism there and at that level it'll lose."\n\n"So what now?"\n\n"Now we use a more mundane type of entrance spell."\n\nA moment later wood cracks and shatters as the door goes flying inward, Aarav stumbling back a half-step as he swings his leg back, giving you time to slide right into the house while he's still off his guard. Of course he hurries to catch up with you as you slowly make your way in past the wavy clay-styled mirror in the hall and into the living room, past furniture in bright red, green, and gold cross-stitching, leering fertility fetishes and stiff-eared jackals staring at you from mantles and pedestals. You let your eyes skim over the bookshelves filled with grandiose titles about the reigns of pharaohs and Mayan kings, not finding what you're looking for. "She's segregated it off somewhere," you muse aloud as you stride through a near-stranger's house unselfconsciously, pausing to lift up a framed thousand year old prayer mat and glance behind it.\n\n"You're still sure it's her?"\n\n"My palms itch," you reply absentmindedly as you take another look around. Noticing Aarav staring at you, you nudge your glasses up on your nose. "It's the best way to describe when I'm getting close to another practitioner's workspace. There's lots of ambient energy left over from crafting and casting, and it's a combination of being a bit nervous like you're somewhere you shouldn't be and wanting to get your hands on something you know isn't yours."\n\n"Maybe that's just the breaking and entering," Aarav says dryly, glancing towards the door before he follows you deeper into the house.\n\n"No that feels different," you say dismissively, ignoring his look as you walk through the kitchen... then give a little 'aha'. "Basement. Now was she lazy and arrogant enough to..." You smirk as the door turns and opens up, revealing stairs down. "Didn't lock her workspace."\n\n"Yours didn't seem locked back at the house," Aarav notes as he follows you down.\n\n"Man, you give a zombie some head and he just won't stop sassing you," you bemoan dramatically, before snickering as he gives you a light thwap on the arm.\n\nSoon the two of you emerge into the basement, which looks like it was probably fairly large at one point but has since become cluttered with crates, workbenches, and scattered items. You make a bit of a face at the sight of what looks like several half-dissected animals on one bench, organs tucked neatly into tapered glass jars filled with clear liquid. You make your way over, glancing at the arrangement of entrails before looking at some pale yellow figurines lined up along the edge of the workbench. "Oh yeah, she's working on some seriously dark shit," you announce.\n\n"Why, what are those?" Aarav asks as he comes to stand next to you.\n\n"Soul prisons."\n\nYou and Aarav both whirl around to face the speaker, a tall middle-aged woman with long black hair and lightly tanned skin, wearing a long burgundy skirt and cream-colored blouse.\n\n"The souls of animals aren't much, but trapping them eternally between life and death using the amber still causes quite a bit of dark energy," the woman says evenly. "Plenty to set a building curse into motion."\n\n"Hey, Professor," you say dryly, trying to carefully edge your hand behind your back.\n\n"You go for that ritual knife and you'll regret it, Valerie," Collins says, raising her hand to reveal the pistol in her hand. \n\n"Why?" Aarav demands as you both raise your hands. "Why did you do this to me?"\n\n"And he wasn't the first, was he?" you add, frowning. "Those other figures are older. You've been doing this for awhile."\n\n"Of course," Collins says coldly, lips pursed. "As for the reason, that's simple... Amoli Laghari."\n\n"My mother? What has she ever done to you?" Aarav demands, scowling darkly now.\n\n"Gone into medicine. Her early work was amazing, she could have revolutionized the world of Indian art. But no, she had to go to med school, get married, have a child." Collins' mouth slowly curls up into a smirk on one side. "But tragedy demands an outlet for expression. The death of her son, with her history? Any therapist she sees would advise her to try painting to get her feelings onto the canvas, if she didn't decide to do it herself. With any luck, her marriage will fall apart as well, that would nudge her along nicely too."\n\n"You... you killed me, and you're hoping the loss destroys my parents' marriage... to get my mother to paint again?!"\n\n"Tragedy and death are often the greatest motivators of artistic expression, dear boy," Collins declares haughtily.\n\n"After all, look at the Egyptians," you say flatly. "They were virtually obsessed with death and everything surrounding it, and they left some of the largest, most impressive works of artistic expression in human history."\n\n"Good girl, Valerie," the professor says, smirking even more widely. "But then you always were one to appreciate a good example of a momento mori. You appreciate art too, after all, you know how important it is for drawing inspiration and knowledge of the past for our craft. Surely you understand the importance of what I've done here... each of those people I've cursed had parents, siblings, offspring, lovers who just needed that push to become great artists. What's a few lives measured against inspiration and beauty that will last for the ages?"\n\n<hr>\n[["You're a monster."|ValJobs]]\n\n[["You're a terrible art patron."|ValJobs]]

"Look, don't do this to yourself," you say quietly, getting up and moving to sit beside him on the bed. His letter jacket is tossed aside, so you run a hand up and down his bicep below the short sleeve of the scrubs shirt. "That doesn't mean anything."\n\nHe looks up at you, his expression lost. "Valerie, you know... so much about all of this. Is there... is there anything after?"\n\nYou hesitate, biting your lower lip. You take a deep breath, looking down as well and lowering your hands to run down the tops of your thighs. "... I know," you say slowly after a few moments. "That we have souls. And that there are planes other than this one. That closely resemble what a lot of people think of as Heaven and Hell. Whether they're really that, or if our souls go there when we die... I don't have answers for you on that, though." You look back up at him. "I do know that it's entirely possible for our minds to just not retain things that are beyond what we can see and understand. What our bodies can hold. So just because you don't remember what comes after when you come back doesn't mean it's not there."\n\n"... I'm scared," he admits quietly after a moment, letting out a soft sob. All it takes is for you to reach up and pull him into a hug for him to sag against you. He's not bawling, but he is crying, shuddering softly as he presses in against you.\n\nYou're not even sure who starts it, all you know is that suddenly the two of you are kissing, with a sort of desperation and intensity like you've never felt before. His lips are not-quite-warm on yours. But both of you are pulling and tugging at each other's clothing with a duality of purpose that soon has him on his back with you straddling his head, your hand gripping his short hair as his tongue goes to work on your pale pink pussy. Your hips twitch and buck, moans filling the small bedroom as you arch your back, breasts jutted out as his hands rub over your ass and hips, slide up your back, then back down to grip and haul you against his face, making you cry out. His hands move to your rear, gripping, squeezing and sliding you forward... leaving you to gasp out a loud "Oh FUCK!" as his tongue instead goes to work against your tight little pucker. \n\nBy the time you've enjoyed his tongue as much as you can stand and give him little nudges and start squirming to move off of him, you're definitely certain that no one would ever hex him for being bad in bed. You stand up, partly to try and calm your quivering thighs, prompting Aarav to sit up on the side of the bed... and glance down, looking at his still-limp cock. "I... I'm sorry, I-" he stammers, only to be silenced as you lean in and kiss him again, your hands resting on his shoulders.\n\n"It's fine, it's fine," you murmur, kissing your way down his chin, and his jaw. "Just a side effect of no blood flow." You grin up at him as you continue to sink down, kissing your way down his chest. "You'll still feel this, trust me," you promise as you kiss across his toned, flat stomach before settling onto your knees. You wrap your hand around his limp shaft, lifting it up as you kiss around the root of it, hearing him moan softly as you do. You duck your head down, dragging your tongue along his balls before starting to suckle lightly at them, looking up at him as you do. After the performance he gave you, you're dedicated to returning the favor... equivalent exchange, and all, so you spend quite some time mouth-worshiping his balls before you even move on to his shaft. Limp, yes, but it seems he was more of a shower than a grower... he's still decently long and thick, leaving you plenty to lick and suck at gently as he moans above you. You slip the head into your mouth and slide your head up and down... it takes a bit more work to keep it in properly than if it were hard, working your lips and tongue more, but he certainly doesn't seem to complain. In fact by the time you've slid your mouth all the way down to the root of it, you're fairly certain he's cum more than once.\n\nEventually you slip him out of your mouth and move to sit back down next to him, kissing his cheek, then grinning as he gives you a longer kiss on the lips. "See? Not all bad, huh?" you tease.\n\n"Still, I... well," Aarav huffs, wrapping his arms around you and squeezing you against his side.\n\n"If you decide it's what you want... when you become true undead, you'll have a lot more control over your body," you inform him quietly, rubbing at his bare thigh with one hand, keeping your eyes on that. "So you'll be able to again. If that's what you decide you want."\n\n"... For right now, I just want to be here with you," he says quietly, stroking a hand over your hair. "Please."\n\n"Yeah. Okay."\n\nEventually you catch a short nap leaned against his chest, and when you wake up it's midmorning. Excusing yourself after a few light kisses, you head into the other room to shower and change clothes, coming back brushing your hair. "Alright. Like I was saying, I'm pretty sure it must have been one of these two who cursed you."\n\n"But why? I don't know either of those people," Aarav answers with a frown. "Is this some vendetta at someone connected to me, or is it random?"\n\n"I'm honestly not sure," you admit, resting your hands on your hips. "I guess it's something we'll have to ask the guilty party."\n\n"But who? Which one do you think it is?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Montmorissey.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Collins.|ValJobs2x7]]

"There's a way," you say slowly. "You can't come back to life, but there's a way you can stay." You stop and turn towards him, waiting until he does the same to continue. "If a revenant has its own heart replaced with the heart of the one who murdered them, then they can become what's called a 'true undead'. You'll be just like you are now... no breath, no heartbeat, and you won't age or anything like that. But you'll also never have any of the other problems associated with being dead, like, y'know... rotting. Or laying unconscious in the ground forever. But it requires a pretty cruel price... namely, we need to cut the heart out of your murderer while they're still alive."\n\nAarav opens his mouth, then closes it. He shifts his shoulders and glances down the street, then looks back at you. "I... would need to think about that."\n\n"Yeah, figured." You turn and resume walking, with him once more falling into step with you. "Alright, was your car running before the accident?"\n\n"Yeah... yeah I'd gotten it fixed."\n\n"Then it's probably still parked where you left it, let's get it, we're going to need to head out of town. There's only one spot in the area that this could have been done from, and maybe we can find a lead there."\n\nSoon the two of you are driving along, Aarav behind the wheel and you settled into the passenger seat, the fall evening already dark around you. "This isn't what I thought I'd be doing with my life," he says after awhile, checking over his shoulder briefly before changing lanes. "... Or afterlife."\n\n"Not exactly how I thought I'd be spending my Monday either," you reply, checking your phone and going through your messages. "Though admittedly it was a possibility, I guess, considering."\n\nAarav can't help but laugh at that, glancing over at you. "You are really for real, huh? Which I guess is a dumb thing to say to the person who brought me back to life. Or, whatever this is." He fixes his eyes back on the road. "And how did that happen, anyway?"\n\n"My cousin taught me some magic a few years back. I was good at it, so, when I got to college, I started up my little for-hire thing." You shrug, settling back against the seat.\n\n"Must be nice. Having some focus. I say this isn't what I thought my life would be," Aarav murmurs, gripping the wheel a bit harder. "But I didn't know what it was going to be anyway."\n\nYou shift a little. This is getting... personal. But at the same time you've brought him back to this world, in large part for your own ego and anger... maybe you owe him to at least listen to him, let him speak. "So you weren't planning on going pro?"\n\n"Not good enough," he says frankly, without hesitation. "Like I told you that first day, I'm no starter. You think someone who can't even start college ball is going to become a big deal in the pros? Maybe malinger around in the minors for years before giving it up. No... no, if I'm honest, the ball thing was just killing time. Trying to find something. Anything. I knew I had no interest in medicine like my parents, but what I did have interest in beyond baseball... I don't know." He glances briefly over at you again. "Must be nice, knowing what you are, knowing you have the power to be that."\n\n"... Yeah, well." You turn your head, gazing out the window. You almost let that be the end of it, but eventually shrug and continue. "I have no clue what I'm going to do after college. My major's in history, with a minor in art history. Both relevant to being a witch but not much for career paths. And 'witch' isn't something you look through the want ads for. I mean my cousin got a job being witchy, but she's an exception to a lot of rules. This thing I do..." You prop your chin on your hand. "It works in college. With the structure. The word of mouth. People still young enough to have open minds. When it's done, when it's time to leave campus... I've got as little clue what I'll do as you do."\n\n"... At least you didn't say 'had'," Aarav comments quietly after a moment. You glance over at his grin, and both of you wind up laughing softly.\n\nEventually Aarav parks the car and the two of you start climbing up the very rough path vaguely carved in a spiral around the hill. There are no markers, no historical signposts, this particular bit of history isn't something generally talked about or that anyone wants to acknowledge. "This place was sacred to the Deviloka tribe," you explain with a glance behind you at Aarav. "They did lots of their ceremonies here. Prayers, dreamseekings, namings, sacrifice, ritual deflowerings, and a lot of different combinations of all those." \n\n"Are you saying the curse on me was some sort of... tribal spell?" Aarav asks in confusion. "I mean, I'm fairly certain my family's house isn't built on-"\n\n"Please don't say it," you murmur, suppressing a groan. Then, shaking your head, you continue up to the fairly broad, flat hilltop. "No, this place, like a lot of other sacred places to those who practice magic, was sacred out of practicality. An alignment of distant stars above, probably some veins of metal deep below, throw in some ley lines and geographic flow and this place is one big bullhorn. Magically speaking," you add, pulling out a flashlight and starting to shine it around on the ground as you walk around slowly.\n\n"What are you looking for?"\n\n"A focus. Once they realized you were charmed up, they would have had to craft a focus specifically to overwhelm the amulet I made you, and use it in their amplification ritual."\n\n"And you think they would have just left it here?"\n\n"Yeah, buried. For something like that you're going to want to bury it in the sacred ground and then get away from it fast, just in case your casting gets some backlash. With as far out of town as this place is, it'd be really easy for them to put off coming back out here to get it for awhile, if ever. This soon after, I bet it's still here." You pause and rummage in your bag, tossing Aarav a smaller LED flashlight. "Look for spaces in the grass or darker-looking spots, probably roughly the size of your hand."\n\nThe two of you look for almost an hour, lights flitting across the surface of the near-silent hill... you've noticed that there's virtually no animal life nearby, which says certain things about exactly how the power of this place is shaded, and makes you more certain than ever that this must be the spot. Eventually Aarav calls out and you find him already on his knees and digging with his hands. At a flash of your light on something metal, you kneel down as well, gently nudging him away and fishing out the object yourself. You brush it off with your fingers, then hold it up. "Ankh. That explains a few things."\n\n"Huh? It's... an Egyptian curse?" Aarav asks in confusion.\n\n"Not necessarily. You can use methodology and symbology without necessarily strictly abiding by the theology or pantheology," you explain, glancing in the hole to check before turning the ankh over in your hands. "A lot of the ritual is just for helping you focus, helping direct your mind and your power. But certain things about it do have relevance." You pause, glancing over at Aarav and flipping a hand through the air as you explain. "Most European-based witchcraft is stronger at night... it's when the faeries and other things were said to come out, and sunrise was supposedly what washed away a lot of the magic of the night. But Egyptian theology is dominated by sun imagery," you continue, giving the ankh a little wiggle. "They probably did the ritual when the sun was directly overhead, that's why your accident happened in the afternoon instead of in the middle of the night."\n\n"Okay, great, so what does this tell us?" Aarav asks, looking at you in confusion.\n\nYou blow some more of the dirt off the ankh and examine both sides of it under your flashlight. "It's cast in a mold... but the details are just sharp enough and of the proper style that the mold was probably made from the authentic product. This is someone who has access to actual Egyptian artifacts." Getting to your feet, you tuck the ankh into your bag. "Let's head back to my place, I need to do some research."\n\nSome time later you're sitting in front of your laptop, typing away, while Aarav sits on the bed behind you, staring at the ceiling. Things have been quiet for awhile, enough that it almost startles you a little when he speaks. "I suppose I don't sleep either."\n\n"... No," you answer, glancing over your shoulder at him. "You don't."\n\n"I'm not even tired," he says with a soft, humorless laugh, closing his eyes as he leans against the wall. "But then, I guess I was 'asleep' for two and a half days. Isn't that the saying, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'?"\n\n"Something like that," you murmur, shifting a little in place as you look back at the screen. "Alright, so, from my research it looks like there are only two real possibilities. Evan Montmorissey, he owns an art and antiquities gallery, from a look at his page he's got some Egyptian stuff on display, so he's got the connections to get stuff in from the country obviously. The other is one of the teachers here at the university, Kelly Collins, in fact I have some of her classes."\n\n"Yeah."\n\nPausing at the despondent sound of that word, you scoot back from your desk a bit and turn to find that Aarav has scooted forward to sit on the edge of the bed, hands flopped in his lap, head hanging. "... What's up?" you ask quietly.\n\n"... There wasn't anything," he whispers softly. "It really was like being asleep, without dreaming. There was just... nothing. Why was there nothing?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Snap him out of it.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Comfort him.|ValJobs2x6]]

You turn back to the body fully, just staring at it flatly for long moments... before grabbing one of the rolling tables and hauling it behind you as you walk back over to it. Setting your bag on the table and opening it, you first toss the sheet completely aside (and have to take just a second to think 'not bad' despite all the injuries). Pulling a few slender green candles out of the bag, you place them around the body's head before drawing out a vacuum-sealed plastic bag. Slipping your ritual knife out from behind your back, you slice open the bag and dust its contents liberally over the head and torso, sprinkling the dark purple powder inside over the body. While that's settling in, you take a glance at his clothes, setting aside the torn and bloody shirt and stuffing a scrubs shirt you find in another cabinet into the bag instead. Returning to the table, you draw out a black box and slip one of the blue wood matches out of it, striking the head against a porous piece of volcanic rock.\n\n"Oui fru yna eh dra haqd bmyla, rayn sa vnus drec uha," you murmur, gently blowing across the lit match, the faintly silvery flame at the end flickering... before identical silvery flames spring up from the candles, which soon begin flitting and sparking as the pebbled wax heats and melts. Forcing yourself not to flinch as you shift the match to your left hand, then drop it into your right hand and close your fist around it, you hold your fist in the air over the body's chest, the bruises covering its skin starting to fade, the gashes to close. "Ev ouin meva fyc dygah vnus oui po yhudran, neca ib yht fymg drec Ayndr ykyeh ihdem drao ryja paah zitkat!"\n\nVirtually instantly, Aarav's eyes snap open, and with a strangled cry he lurches into a sitting position, knocking your hand aside as he thrusts his hands out in front of him. Then he blinks in clear confusion, looking back and forth before staring at you. "I'm... alive?"\n\n"No," you reply flatly, before shoving the plastic bag with his clothes in it against his chest. "Get dressed, we need to clean up and get out of here before the medical examiner gets here and declares you a traffic statistic."\n\nShortly after, you and Aarav, clad in jeans, scrubs shirt, sneakers, and his letter jacket walk back down the hall and past the counter. The clerk blinks. "Uh, is that-"\n\n"No, it isn't," you answer with a flick of your hand, pushing the door and walking out into the late afternoon sunlight without a backwards glance. You fall into stride on the sidewalk, Aarav scrambling a little to catch up to you.\n\n"So wait, I... I feel pretty sure I was dead," he says, patting his body. "Like what I felt before, that wasn't... that wasn't a 'bedrest and some casts' hit."\n\n"You're still dead," you answer a bit flatly, glancing aside at him before sighing and continuing. "Look, you're what the book calls a 'revenant'. You're you, in every way that counts, but you're not actually alive. You don't breathe, you don't eat, your heart doesn't beat, you are strictly room temperature. Luckily you won't have any other 'side effects' of being dead for at least a good long while, and even those will come slower."\n\n"I... I don't get it, why would you do that?" he asks, still clearly reeling from both being alive and the revelation that he's, well, not. \n\n"Because the fact the spell worked and you're up and walking around proves that you were murdered," you reply with another glance around, checking for anyone staring at the two of you in a way that indicates they might recognize the tragically dead college baseball player. "Revenants only function so long as their murderers are alive. They can't be raised at all if they weren't murdered. It's a spell that inherently invites vengeance... a chance for you to get back at whoever did this to you. And for me to get back at them too."\n\n"You?"\n\nYou stop and wheel towards him, grabbing his arm and shoving it up towards him until his jacket sleeve pulls away from the pale burn mark on his wrist, the only one of his injuries that didn't disappear when he was raised. "Someone not only cursed you, but poured more power into it when they realized I was protecting you. The incidents stopped for awhile, didn't they?"\n\n"I..." Aarav stares at the burn mark, then nods slowly. "Yeah. They did. That was actually a really great week, things turned completely around for me. ... Until..."\n\n"Until a damn car hit you. There was probably a burning sensation on your wrist right then, yeah?" You release his arm and resume walking, Aarav scurrying to catch up a second later. "Whoever did this to you realized you were protected and deliberately poured so much power into their curse that it popped my luck charm like an overshaken soda with a mentos dropped in it. Charm gets destroyed, all that extra bad luck suddenly catches up to you, you die and so does my reputation." At his confused glance, you snort. "Everyone thinks either my luck charms are useless or that <i>I</i> cursed you for no good reason."\n\n"So you're doing all of this just to salvage your reputation?" he says with a sigh, shaking his head.\n\n"Look in case you forgot, you came to a witch-for-hire for help, not a priest. I don't really do 'selfless and kind'." There's several moments of silence between you, and you glance aside to see him looking lost and miserable. Sighing, you reach out to put a hand on his arm. "Look, it's not <i>just</i> that. What's been done to you is shitty. Just call it enlightened self interest... we find out who did this... and I don't suppose you're finally willing to offer some suggestions?"\n\n"... No. I still have no idea."\n\n"Damn. Well, we do, it's good for both of us."\n\n"Is it?" Aarav mutters, some bitterness in his voice as he shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and stares at the sidewalk. "Sounds like if we do that, it just means I go back to being all the way dead. I mean... isn't there any way I can come out of this and... ... stay?" he asks forlornly. \n\n<hr>\n[[... No.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[... Yes.|ValJobs2x5]]

Gritting your teeth, you shove up from the desk, grabbing your larger 'working' messenger bag and hurrying around the little set of rooms you rent in a house near the campus, grabbing up a number of things you think you might need and stuffing them in. Doing a quick check on the computer for an address, you slam the laptop closed and then stalk out of the house, heading for the morgue.\n\nSoon you're walking through the front door of the little squat building and up to the checkin counter. "I need to see a body that came in late Friday, Indian guy, about twenty."\n\n"Uh, you family?" the rather dull-eyed man behind the counter asks. "'Cause we're still waiting for the ME to get here and sign off on no foul play before we can release the body, and-"\n\n"The ME sent me," you snap in a terse voice, flicking your hand towards him.\n\n"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, right this way, then!" he blurts, scrambling up and showing you the way down the hallway. He unlocks a door and lets you into a room full of shelves and with several slab rolling tables, walking over to one of the trays and pulling it out, revealing a humanoid form beneath the sheet. "Yeah, this is the one."\n\n"Okay, get lost," you reply with another flick of your hand, sending him scurrying away again. You hesitate briefly, before folding the sheet back from the body's head. At least Aarav will be decent for the funeral once the parlor gets done for him... there's just a bit of bruising and a gash above his eyebrow, but his face seems otherwise untouched, a handsome man with deep tan skin and close-cropped black hair. After just taking a moment to examine his face, you toss the sheet back from his right side to bare his arm, and immediately scowl. "What the hell?" you whisper, carefully lifting his arm up and looking at the redness around his wrist, almost lost amidst the bruising. You set his arm back down and look around, quickly spotting a glass-fronted cabinet with a number of bags inside. The lock is pathetically easy for you to cast an Open charm on, rifling through the bags until you find the one with Aarav's name on it. Ignoring his clothes, you go for the smaller bag inside with his other possessions in it, including the bracelet... which looks charred on the inside, the knot in the center of the starburst cracked.\n\n"..." Gritting your teeth, you curl your hands around the bracelet and look over at the body. "Someone did this to you. And they thwarted me to do it."\n\nThe question is... who?\n\n<hr>\n[[You're going to find out.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Let's ask Aarav.|ValJobs2x4]]

"Look, Aarav," you say. "Someone might have directed a little bit of a hex or something at you, or it might just be one of those things. Either way, I think this can be taken care of with one of my luck charms. If nothing else, it will offset these bad vibes you're getting. They cost $100 and I can have it to you before tomorrow."\n\n<i>"O-oh. Alright, then, thank you."</i>\n\n"They work, I can give you the contact number of a few people who have used them before. But while I'm at it, let me give you my paypal address. Include your address with it, I'll leave the charm on your door once I get the payment."\n\n<i>"Yes. Okay. Thank you."</i>\n\nIt sounds like he was expecting something more dramatic, but then most people are. You politely bid him goodbye, and finish sorting and tucking away your notes. On your way back to your place, your phone buzzes and you check... payment already came through, good. You hurry a bit more to get back, and dig out one of the luck charms you already have made up. Honestly at $100 you're probably undercharging for it just on jewelry value... it's a two-wide chain link bracelet hooked to a silver starburst with a knot in the center. Of course, you cheat a bit in that magic lets you just slip the links together and it will subtly resize to fit its owner, and your castings all go perfectly with little effort, so you're putting far less labor into them than a similar piece would made normally. You tuck it into a small velvet drawstring pouch and head out to Aarav's dorm, bypassing the entry area and its attendant easily enough and slipping the strings of the pouch over the door handle. Once you've left the dorm you text Aarav to let him know it's there... that's how you prefer things for simple transactions like this, minimal contact, keeps anyone from getting too attached because they expected an exciting adventure from their brush with a witch.\n\nYou spend the rest of the week attending to a few other similar small jobs and studying, both the normal variety of studying and of your tome. The Monday after, your morning class gets canceled again, so once more you park yourself in the student center, waiting to accumulate a fresh round of jobs. And... no one comes by. You're frowning after the first half hour, and scowling partway into the second hour. This hasn't happened since the second semester you were here! There's always someone eager for your work, practically waiting for you... this long without a single person coming by is virtually unheard of. Eventually in frustration you scoot over to the edge of the booth, turning to get up on your knees and fold your arms over the back of it. "Hey, Raul, did something happen?"\n\nThe owner of Spuds McFrenzy looks a bit startled, then winces some before turning towards you. "Geez, kid, y'ain't heard? I actually kinda didn't think you'd even show up again."\n\nYou blink, straightening up a little. "What do you mean? What happened? I've been elbow-deep in studying all weekend, I haven't checked social media at all."\n\n"That Aarav kid who bought a luck charm from ya last Monday... on Friday he got hit by a car. Dead on the pavement. The rumor mill's sayin' ya might have even cursed 'im yerself."\n\nYour eyes widen and your jaw drops. Without another word, you grab your bag and scramble out of the booth, running back to your place. Throwing your bag on the bed, you open your laptop and start checking the news, confirming for yourself what Raul said. And while the "legitimate" news media might be above showing the body these days, social media apparently has no such qualms. You find some photos of a bloodstained sheet covering a lump... except for a flopped-out arm, clearly showing your charm around the wrist.\n\n"... Dammit!" you snarl, slamming a fist against the desktop, a mixture of guilt, fear, and fury twisting in your gut. Aarav is dead... and so is your career as a college witch. No one's going to come to you for luck charms now, let alone anything more serious. This is... some serious bullshit!\n\n<hr>\n[[You have to get to the bottom of this!|ValJobs2x3]]\n\n[[You have to... have a drink.|ValJobs]]

In some ways, it's mostly curiosity that makes you decide to take this job first over the rest. If he really did get cursed, you want to know why... and who did it would be an interesting thing to know, too. Not that you'll be guaranteed to find out if you break the curse, but still. Dialing the number at the bottom of the page, you bring your phone to your ear, waiting for him to answer before saying, "It's Valerie. You bought me fries?"\n\n<i>"Oh, hey, right. Um, thanks for calling. My name's Aarav, and I've just... I don't know where else to turn with this."</i>\n\n"Why do you think you're cursed, Aarav?"\n\n<i>"Things have been happening, they're a bit more than just standard bad luck. Because it seems constant... this isn't just a little thing every other day anymore, things were happening every day, now it's repeatedly every day, and it's getting worse. Yesterday my car wouldn't start... and then the engine burst into flames! I'd just had it serviced because it threw a belt the previous week!"</i>\n\nHm, that does sound like it's a little bit beyond the normal. "Okay. Now, not to be too indelicate, but have you pissed anyone off lately? Any bad breakups, steal a girl from somebody, take someone else's opportunity...?"\n\n<i>"Nothing I can think of. I mean... I get with a fair number of girls, casually, but I'm never less than respectful, honest!"</i> he hastens to add, as if he could hear your raised eyebrow. <i>"None of them ever indicated they were with somebody, so... I don't know, that's possible? I'm on the baseball team but I'm not really a starter or anything. I really don't know who would do this or why."</i>\n\nOkay, so it sounds like he's a fairly normal college athlete. Which means he certainly could have pissed someone off enough to hex him just casually in passing, but even then it might not be anything big. Or it really could just be a mundane run of bad luck.\n\n<hr>\n[[Tell him he'll be fine.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Give him a luck charm.|ValJobs2x2]]\n\n[[Meet with him.|ValJobs]]

[[Glossary]]\n\n[[Version History]]\n\n<a href="javascript:history.back()">Back</a>\n\n[[Patreon|https://www.patreon.com/DeviousSkooma]]

He's a very, very bad man... but there aren't any nice ones that pay like he does. You turn and make your way towards the stairs that lead to the VIP level... the guard there knows you as well, pausing only to blip you and check that you are who you look like before allowing you to make your way up.\n\nMost of the VIP level is, in fact, filled with people in nice suits wearing notable amounts of red... vests and ties, or the suits are red, or lots of red tattoos. The naked girls dancing on the tables are high-quality goods themselves... whatever their proportions, they're utterly perfect, whether it's perky little tits or big jiggly mangos, all of them intricately painted with glowing body paint as is the hallmark of the Glowworm's dancers for hire, and most of them in red to cater to the one who likely hires them most often. Horace himself is watching you from his table as you approach, grinning around his cigar.\n\nYou don't know if he's a human, or an alien, or maybe mixed, but he's big. A bit over seven feet, with shoulders that look like he could body check a fucking tank and hands that could completely enfold your head. A huge, shaggy near-literal mane of red hair that comes down the sides of his head and even in around his face a bit, forming into part of a beard along his chin, and almost obscene amounts of muscle, and all of it wrapped up in the most expensive, exquisite-looking crimson-trimmed black suit that blood money can buy. The girls dancing attendance on him practically vanish as you finish your approach, and you can almost feel the pair of enforcers moving up on either side and behind you as he lowers the cigar. "Kai, good to see you again."\n\n"Horace," you answer, again more feeling it than seeing it as the enforcers tense. Everybody's supposed to call him 'Mister Allfather'... the only ones that would normally dare to use his given name are other underworld bosses who are fairly secure in the knowledge that they could stand up to him in a show of force. That you have the audacity to do it as a nobody infuriates them every time... guess they don't understand that being a nobody is a certain strength on its own, because you just don't give enough of a shit. Besides, you're fairly certain he's not going to hurt you over some petty shit like that, even if he'd normally kill someone way more important.\n\nIndeed, his reddish-amber eyes are twinkling as he takes another puff of his cigar. "Such spirit, though you mask it well under that jaded contempt. You remind me of me so much that I sometimes wonder if some of my wild oats didn't wind up on the slave market at some point."\n\nYou keep your face composed, but as always there's a distinctly weird sensation in your stomach, because with your complete lack of knowledge of your past, you can't say for certain that he's wrong, even if he is just prodding at you. Still, it's a dance you do, so you gamely reply, "In that case, how about some allowance?"\n\n"Now now, you haven't done your chores yet. That is, assuming you're here for work? You're so bad about keeping up social visits and all." He takes a few puffs, eyeing you up and down, then grins again. "But why bother with temporary work? Why don't you tell me to buy you, Kai? We'll get that ridiculous chip popped out of your neck and have you dressed properly before the night's done. Not that you aren't already wearing the right colors."\n\nMaybe it's that he seems in a particularly good mood tonight, or maybe it's just your own frustration, but you let out a huff and decide to be honest. "Y'know I don't get that. Everyone else who asks me if I'd want them to buy me, they're asking because they care what I think or at least they're pretending to, or they think they'd need my help to convince the old man to sell me, or whatever."\n\n"You don't think I care about what you want?" Horace asks in a mock-offended tone, before chuckling lowly, smoke roiling out between his lips and combining with the reflected glow in his eyes to give him a particularly draconic look.\n\n"I think you care about what you want more than anything, and I know you sure as hell wouldn't give a shit about needing to rough up the old man to make him sell me, or even using a black market chip-changer if it came to that," you answer bluntly.\n\n"Mm. If you like, think of it as... ginger solidarity," he says with another chuckle, before tilting his head a bit. "But there's also this bit of management advice, my dear... put a chain around a man's neck, and you can drag him into Hell with you. Be the one who gives that man everything he needs, wants, and desires, and he'll charge barefoot into Hell at the asking." He reaches over, two big fingers delicately picking up a champagne flute. "Now, I'm feeling particularly effusive tonight, as Mio has managed to acquire my personal favorite brand of bubbly. I'll even let you put some conditions on my purchase of you, if you like. Go on, ask away. Or if you're still feeling particularly dull, we can move on to just tossing you some credits to get the heat back on, if that's as far as your ambitions go."\n\n<hr>\n[[Lay out conditions.|Kai4x2]]\n\n[[Just take a job.|Kai]]

"Help me! Hey, hey, old man! Old man! <i>Doonian</i>!" you shout, gripping his red-stained shirt in both hands. "Doonian, for the love of the Crystal Dragon you have to help me! For once in all the rotten, mean years you've owned me, actually help me for once!"\n\n"... what..." he gurgles.\n\n"You have to free me and leave everything to me!" Hearing the catch that causes him, you urgently continue. "You have to, it's the only way I have any chance of getting back at the guys who did this to you!" Looking around desperately, you spot the cracked screen of his comm nearby and snatch it up, using his unlock code to bring up the Guild's emergency Last Will app, hurriedly selecting the provisions before putting his thumb to it. "You have to say the confirmation phrase, you need to do this," you plead, gritting your teeth as he just hisses and gurgles, holding on with all the tenacity of a man determined to be a miser up to the last. "Dammit, if you won't do it for me and Zee, do it for revenge! Do it to get back at the bastards that killed you! I'll get them for you but I can't do it with nothing!"\n\nYou listen to that gurgling rasp, listen to him slowly drowning in his own blood, feeling your body start to tremble. Then blood trickles down his cheek as he manages to rasp out, "... aschente..."\n\n<i>"Phrase accepted, will filed,"</i> the computerized voice of the comm chirps.\n\n"Thank you," you murmur, your voice shuddery, the sheer relief you feel enough to make you repeat it. "Thank you."\n\n"... Kai... you... were always..." he rasps wetly, struggling with the words, one of his mangled hands twitching like he wants to raise it towards you.\n\nAnd then he's dead.\n\nYou stare down at him, realizing that he so abruptly lost the struggle he was fighting up to the last, gone without it even having been between blinks. You turn your head back and forth a little, as if searching for some sign of what happened in that instant, not even really knowing what you're looking for. There's no real name for the feeling causing the aching in your chest and the tightening in your throat. It's not grief... it's not love... not even really the shadow of those things. Or maybe it is... the grief that your life will never be the same, as shitty and hard as it was, that one of the only things you've known for your entire life is now gone and will never be there again. That as callous, selfish, and often worthless as he was, the closest thing you ever had to the concept of a father has just become a pile of bloody meat on the threadbare carpet in front of you. That for better or worse, he was the one who was ultimately responsible for everything you are, and now he's gone.\n\n"... I'll kill them all, old man," you murmur, reaching out to pick up your sword and his... now your... comm as you rise to your feet, feeling your expression going cold despite the faint burn in your eyes. "I won't do it in your name. I won't do it for you. But I guess if you wanna look up from Hell and enjoy it all the same, I won't hold that against you."\n\nYou trade the comm for the locator beacon in your pocket, already striding forward as you hit the button and wind up stalking into the portal annex of the Guildhall. Other mercs arriving or milling about glance over, and immediately start giving you a wide berth... someone returning from a job with their hands covered in blood isn't exactly unusual, but the naked blade in your hand and the look on your face apparently clues them in that you're best avoided. You halt inside the lobby, taking a few seconds to breathe and force yourself under control, before finally sheathing the katana. You can't waste any time. You need to take action, now. Even with time moving slower on the Guildhall compared to the places you can portal out to like Makarzia, you can't risk leaving Zee as Horace's captive any longer than possible. Which means no stalling, right this minute you need to-\n\n<hr>\n[[-call in a favor.|Kai]]\n\n[[-armor up.|Kai]]\n\n[[-list a job.|Kai4x6]]

You shoot out your off hand, grabbing his shoulder and wheeling him around before shoving him up against the side of the car. Fear is naked on your face as you bring the tanto up, pressing it into his throat and staring him dead in the eyes.\n\n"Get your family and get offworld," you snarl lowly, leaning in close to make sure he hears every word. "Not later, not in the morning, tonight, you go home, you get them, you leave on the first transport you can find no matter how far in debt you have to go, and you <i>never</i> come back. That's the only way you save both you and them, you got me? Nod if you understand me." At his half-panicked headbobbling, you step back slightly. "Good. Now-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-get the hell out of here."|Kai4x4]]\n\n[["-sorry about this."|Kai]]

"... You'd have to buy Zee too," you say after a moment of pregnant silence. "And free her, no gifting her off to some lieutenant."\n\nHorace smirks, clearly realizing he's already won even as he gestures for you to sit down across from him. Since you know he has too, you go ahead and sit. "Hm. Agreed," he answers after only the briefest pause.\n\n"And she gets set up with an apartment somewhere, and enough money to live on for awhile."\n\n"Well now you're getting into the realm of asking for rather more than just your own freedom, hm? After all, we haven't even gotten to the issue of you actually working for me once you are."\n\nYour jaw works a little, but you soon reply, "Five years. I get full pay and benefits as one of your gang members."\n\nHorace makes a little 'hm' motion with his lips, eyes rolling up slightly as his head bobbles, before he says, "Twenty years, and I'll cover her rent and expenses in perpetuity."\n\nDammit, you opened with Zee and now he knows she's your main weak spot. Unfortunately that's absolutely true, and there's only so far you'll yield. You can't help your voice being a little petulant as you respond, "Ten, just rent and utilities."\n\nHe repeats the earlier motion, lips taking a more thoughtful air, before he offers, "Fifteen, I'll also cover food and a drop-by maid so she won't have to clean anymore."\n\nGod dammit, he's really hitting the buttons now. More because you're just too stubborn to not at least try and get in the last word, you counter, "Twelve, pay the maid, take the money for food out of my checks."\n\nHis grin spreads across his tan, leathery face. "Done." He leans across the table to offer his hand, and you really have a concept of what people mean about making a deal with the devil as the heat and strength of it completely enfolds your own when you give it a shake. "Of course, before we can consider this deal finalized, it requires more than a handshake," he declares as he sits back. "You'll have to prove to me you actually intend to follow orders and do as you're told."\n\nSighing heavily, you slump back in your chair. "Fine, how many people do I have to kill?"\n\n"Just one. Not even a challenge for you, just some minor functionary who happens to have access to some data he shouldn't be seeing, and has probably looked at it anyway." Horace shrugs, gesturing negligently with his cigar. "Now, we don't <i>know</i> he's going to kick it upstairs, let alone to someone who's not already bought... but why take a chance? His subordinate in line for promotion is a distinctly uncurious young woman who's likely to stay in that position for the rest of her life, little chance for trouble there. Kelvin will give you the details of what the fellow looks like and where you can find him. Come back to me with a knife covered in his lifesblood, and our deal is sealed."\n\nYou need to take a momen to sort of gather and center yourself, make peace with what you've decided to do. But then you nod and stand up, turning and heading back for the stairs. One of Horace's enforcers is waiting, and passes you a brand new, high-end comm... red case, of course. And it's got a pair of feathers attached to a ring engraved on the back to match your earring. Feeling played though you can't quite identify how, you wait until you're outside the club to press your thumb to the screen to unlock it... yup, it works, goddammit. There are three things on the screen... a picture of a really stylish street bike, a picture of an almost wholly nondescript man whose only distinquishing feature is an obvious cyberear, and a map. With a heavy heart, you glance up and... yeah, there's the bike. 'Crystal Dragon, it's gorgeous,' you think sourly as you swing astride it and press your thumb to the starter sensor, feeling it vibrate to life beneath you before you plug in the comm and link the GPS.\n\nThe ride gives you time to think, of course. It's not like you've never killed anyone before... hell, it's not like you've never been hired to kill someone before. Just... not like this. Some nobody whose 'crime' was potentially revealing someone else's crime, who has all the chance of fighting back that a mouse does as far as you go. And not even for a paycheck, but something far more nebulous like 'sealing a deal'. And for the next twelve years, at least, that reason will become 'Because Horace said so.' It feels like your life just took a ninety degree turn when you decided to walk up those stairs and talk to him... but that's your fault, then, isn't it? 'I agreed to it. I said it,' you thought, narrowing your eyes and leaning forward a bit on the bike. 'Fuck it, time to do this.'\n\nThe bike stops about a block from the suggested ambush spot, leaving you to park it out of sight in an alley and make the rest of the trip on foot, actually pulling up the second hood of your coat to cover the ears of the other one and slouching in on yourself. Arriving at the address, you duck into the conveniently unlit entrance alcove of the building next door, waiting and watching the entrance of the cement block of a government building, doing your best not to think too hard about exactly what you're waiting to do. But eventually the door slides open, and the datamonkey in question walks out, wearing a drab grey anti-weather coat that's just transparent enough that you can make out the LED glow of his cyberear through the hood. Alright, time to do this, you think as you slip out of the alcove, keeping your steps silent as you approach from behind, shifting your hand inside your sleeve to slip out the generic little tanto you carry in there as a backup weapon.\n\nYou catch up to him just as he's reaching for the door of the plain, low-cost little autocar parked in the street, and as he does a motion from his wrist is enough to catch your eye... a silver bracelet, pricey for a government worker, the little bar attached to the links tumbling as it moves to reveal a picture of a smiling, almost-handsome man on one side and two very adorable beaming children on the other.\n\n<hr>\n[[... Thrust.|Kai]]\n\n[[... Grab.|Kai4x3]]

Your mouth curls in a grin, and you try to ramp it down to keep it from looking too wicked when it seems like Kyle might start getting nervous. He's just so cute and powerless, like an adorable little scruffy mouse that you can bat around for awhile before either letting go or putting out of its misery. Practically feeling a pair of cat ears twitch atop your head, you lean over and rest one of your hands over one of his. "Don't worry, Kyle, we'll get you back together with Luna."\n\n"R-really?!" Any nervousness that had started by your grin vanishes as he perks up, his eyes sparkling.\n\n"Mhm. But it's really important that you follow all of my instructions exactly, okay? I know exactly what I'm doing, and my methods are very tried-and-true. You can't reject any part of them or the whole thing won't work, and Luna could wind up never wanting to see you again." You have to admit, it's hard not to giggle at how he goes instantly from looking on top of the world to like he might cry at the very suggestion of that. He should never play poker, that's for sure. "You promise?"\n\n"Y-yeah, okay, I promise!" He nods eagerly. "I'll do whatever you say, honest! U-um, but what are we going to do...?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Make her jealous.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Make her dream of him.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Teach him to understand her better.|ValJobs3x3]]

Unbidden, the memory of Ammianda's smile when you apologized for doubting her when the two of you were in school swims to the forefront of your brain.\n\n"... Dammit," you mutter, shoving yourself out of bed and wobbling to your feet so you can stagger into the bathroom.\n\nAn hour later, actually showered and wearing clean clothes, you make your way through the park, hands once more in your jacket pockets. You're paying a little closer attention to where you're going this time, since you need to be within at least a certain distance of where you were before. Let's see, angle of the sun, direction of the trees, weird two-sided riding trainer...\n\n"Sipha-neechan! You came!"\n\nYou amble to a halt and grin. "Hey there, Makoto. Yeah, I did, just like I promised." He looks a little taller, but not much. Hm, from your understanding, humans should change pretty heavily over the course of a year when they're this size. Glancing towards the equipment, you think you recognize a few of the other kids from the time you were last here, and yeah, they definitely seem a good few inches taller, as opposed to Makoto's maybe an inch of growth. \n\n"So, you're gonna keep doing the cultivation spell, right? Um, I mean, please, thank you," he murmurs, glancing down as his face colors bright red.\n\nGrinning, you squat down again. "Yup! This year, we begin the real spell. You'll start seeing changes bit by bit after this... it won't be that much, but year by year you'll change more and more, until by the time you're an adult, the spell will be complete. I'm not sure how long that is for humans, so we'll just see." You bring your fingers to your lips again, closing your eyes and concentrating, feeling out the ambient energy of the world and beginning to draw it in. Part of the spell is forming it inside yourself, and part of it is giving it purpose with words. So once you've sufficiently shaped the energy, you murmur against your fingertips where you're getting ready to pass the energy into your lips. "Spirits of this world, heed my urging and answer my entreaty. I ask of you watch over this boy, Makoto, as we guide the future years of growth. Please answer this call, and see that this child becomes-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-what he wants to be."|SiphaKids3x1]]\n\n[["-the best version of himself."|SiphaKidsM1x1]]\n\n[["-an expression of his deepest inner self."|SiphaKids1x6]]

"The complete and total holdings, rights, and property of Doonian Elite Solutions," you answer immediately, tossing Doonian's blood-smeared comm onto the counter to let it slide halfway to the clerk.\n\nYou'll probably feel bad about the day you're giving the sweet-seeming girl later, but for right now you barely register how she's becoming steadily more flustered. "Ah, Doonian... Elite Solutions, yes, I think... um, didn't that dissolve years ago?" she asks, typing more hurriedly now.\n\n"The old man couldn't pay his upkeep on his properties here, but DES still has all the <i>rights and privileges</i> he purchased and earned over the years," you explain evenly. "Up to seven docking spaces in the vehicle bay with full maintenance at no extra charge, elite-level housing license, vault-to-site portaling, a lot more. Put it all in the listing," you add as from the slight widening of her eyes you can see that she's finally found the Mercenary Company's listing in the system and seen the very long listing of Guild privileges that your late owner was once able to afford and accrue. "The MC's full rosette, plus all the vault and storage contents listed under it."\n\n"Yes, certainly. Ah, what should I list as partial completion payment?" she asks, glancing at you.\n\nRight, for a job with a primary and secondary directive, you need to say what someone gets if they only complete the primary and don't manage the secondary. You hesitate a little... do you want Horace dead? Oh yes. Oh yes, very much. But you're confident enough in your ability to do that someday all on your lonesome, if necessary. Getting Zee back is the important thing. "The MC Rosette for primary," you reply, since it's ultimately the most valuable thing. In fact you're shocked Doonian didn't sell it himself years ago. 'Guess the old man still had dreams of getting back one day,' you think, unable to help feeling several layers of bitterness. "Secondary required for the vaults and storage and all their contents."\n\n"Understood. And is this an assistance contract?" she asks, daring to glance directly at you briefly.\n\nMeaning, when it's a Guild member listing a job, you can flag it as a request for assistance... that you want someone to come along and do it with you, as you stay right in the thick of it.\n\n<hr>\n[[Yes, it's an assistance contract.|Kai4x8]]\n\n[[No, just a bounty.|Kai]]

Let's see what this guy is like. You kind of want to get his story first, if for no other reason than to compare it to what the other side says later, should you choose to find out. You dial up the number at the bottom of the note, waiting for him to answer before saying, "This is Valerie, you bought me some fries earlier?"\n\n<i>"Oh! Oh, thank you for calling me back! My name's Kyle, I was really hoping you could help me."</i>\n\n"We'll see, Kyle. Tell you what, why don't we meet back up at the student center, and I'll at least hear you out?"\n\n<i>"Okay, sure. I'll be there as soon as I can!"</i>\n\nSoon you're settling back into your 'reserved' booth, and it's only a few minutes later you see Kyle hurrying towards you, recognizing him from when he passed by earlier. Well, you doubt he got dumped for being ugly... he's a little shorter than average, and his black hair could use a bit of a trim and a more thorough brushing, and his clothes look a bit too rumpled and worn, but you guess that could be a result of his getting dumped. He slips into the booth, practically vibrating. "Thanks, thanks so much for seeing me."\n\n'Hoookay.' "Yeah, well, I'm going to hear you out, and then decide, alright? So why don't you tell me exactly how you got dumped."\n\nHe sags a bit at the 'd-word', but after a moment he gathers himself and starts telling the tale of how his high school girlfriend Luna started seeming more and more dissatisfied once they got to college. At first he'd thought it was just the stress of adapting to being away from home and the new classes, but shortly before the start of their second year, she'd rather unceremoniously dumped him. You ask various probing questions, trying to find out if there's anything he's not telling you or just doesn't realize he did. Eventually you think you've got the picture... Kyle's clingy, that's obvious, and he probably could have stood to learn to take it easy and relax, but it doesn't sound like he was neglecting her (far from) or casually insulting or embarrassing her, as far as you can tell from your questions. If you were to guess, Luna decided she was tired of her less-than-amazing high school boyfriend and wanted to cruise around seeing if she could pick up a better deal or just some college guy dick. Kyle seems to be certain it's something he did, but seems to have had enough self awareness after his first few attempts at getting her back to realize that he was just pushing her further away.\n\nYou're torn somewhere between sympathy, pity, or maybe finding him sort of pathetic, and trying to decide which of them dominates. He's looking at you rather pitifully and asks, "So, will you do it? Will you help me figure out how to get her back? I mean... that's really what you do, right? Give advice or charms or... whatever?"\n\nSounds like he also doesn't quite realize the extent of what you can do, and thinks you're more some sort of life coach with a wiccan twist. So, how are you going to handle this?\n\n<hr>\n[[Help him get her back.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Help him get a new girlfriend.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[Toy with him for your own amusement.|ValJobs3x2]]\n\n[[Twist his meaning to torment him.|ValJobs]]

After considering it carefully, you come to a decision... you'll go ahead and start the cultivation magic. In truth it's a bit more delicate and chancy than you made it sound earlier, but it's also pretty much harmless early on. Figure, you just go ahead and start the spell, but being a kid he probably won't have the dedication and attention span to stick to the schedule. But maybe it'll make him feel better for awhile, so you say, "Alright, let's begin the cultivation spell. I'll make it so you can grow up stronger and healthier."\n\n"R-really?!" he blurts, pink eyes going wide.\n\n"Yeah, but here's the thing, Makoto, we can't just do this 'whenever'," you assure him, holding up a finger solemnly. "If you want this to work, you have to show up in this park again, right here, on this exact day, at this time." You glance at your phone, then show it to him to make it clear. "Got it?"\n\n"I've got it! Thank you, Sipha-neechan, thank you!" he gushes, bouncing up and down.\n\n"Alright, here goes." You close your eyes and concentrate, bringing two fingertips up to touch against your lips as you murmur the beginnings of the very first layer of the cultivation spell, the 'prep' as it were. Makoto watches intently the entire time, then blinks as you raise your other hand to take off his hat... then his entire face goes red as you lower your other hand and lean in, pressing your lips briefly to the side of his neck. Then you sit back again and plonk the hat back into place. "There we go, spell started."\n\n"O-oh." He just stands there, fidgeting and with a silly smile on his face, before clearing his throat. "Um, th-that's it? What now?"\n\n"Nothing. That's just the very beginning of the spell, it needs a year to settle in. As far as the spell goes, nothing will really happen this year, m'afraid," you admit, then grin as he looks crestfallen. "Cheer up though, that's just how it goes. I told you the spell takes a really long time, right?"\n\n"Oh. Yeah, once a year, like on birthdays," he allows, nodding his head once. "So... we'll meet again next year?"\n\n"Right here, on the same day, same hour," you repeat, nodding.\n\n"Okay, then! I'll be waiting, Sipha-neechan!" he declares, waving exuberantly as you stand up and turn to go.\n\n<img src="images/OYL.png" alt="One year later...">\n\nYou wince at the sudden blaring of triumphant battle music, immediately flailing around to the side of your bed where your old digital clock was before blurting out, "Computer, stop alarm!" The music cuts off and you stare blearily and hatefully at the little black disk with its flickering blue rim that's going dim even as you look. Why did you buy that thing? ... Oh, yeah, because integration with it kept coming up in new games you bought. More specifically, whyyyyy in the world did you set an alarm for this morning? You were up until barely three hours ago doing a rather intense raid, and yet for some reason you felt compelled to tell your AI assistant to wake you up in the morning. What in the wor-\n\nSomewhere under instincts somewhat dulled by life in this world, your brain sharpens up enough to spit out the answer. Oh, right, today's the day you're supposed to meet that human kid, Makoto, and continue the cultivation spell. You do have the finely-trained mind of a mage, even barely conscious and with eyes burning from monitor fatique last night, you must have remembered that today was the day. You even gave yourself enough time to get cleaned up and dressed before going.\n\n... But do you really neeeeed to? you whine to yourself. Surely Makoto forgot all about the spell himself, probably within days of you meeting him, even if it lasted that long. Ideas are mayflies in the heads of humans, especially small ones you're pretty sure. The chances of him actually being there seem pretty remote, why torment yourself when all you're gonna do is stand around for half an hour near the child combat training equipment? Time better served by rolling over and going back to sleep until... Tuesday, maybe.\n\n<hr>\n[[Blow it off.|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[Get up, you lazy NEET.|SiphaKids1x5]]

Probably best to fit yourself into the existing chain of command, that's the responsible thing to do. Locking on to what the sensors inform you is the other ship's bridge, you link up to the ship to initiate place-to-place teleport.\n\nYou arrive on a bridge designed with a lot of smooth, elegant curves, and multiple startled people scrambling for weapons or already pointing them at you. ... Oops. You raise your hands, smiling sheepishly. "Ah, I apologize, it's sort of my first day on the job and I forgot to initiate contact before beaming over."\n\n"Identify yourself, <i>intruder</i>!" the massive humanoid wolf at the raised station at the back of the bridge snarls.\n\n"I'm Commander Fiona Ni Donnghaile of the Space Interdimensional Exploration and Advanced Reconnaisance Authority, here by invitation of your science division to assist with the archaeological dig, and the search for the archaeologists."\n\n"You're with SIEARA?" the handsome bearded man that had been sitting in the center chair says, lowering his weapon. "Everyone, stand down."\n\n"Sir," the wolfman growls.\n\n"There is no cause for alarm, Lieutenant, despite the Commander's failure to observe cross-organizational contact protocols," the chrome-skinned woman at one of the forward stations says. "SIEARA is primarily known only to upper command staff and the sciences division, but it is a legitimate organization. Their rank is reciprocal with ours, so you should treat Commander Donnghaile as if she were a Starbeat Commander."\n\n"... My apologies, then, sir," the big alien grumbles, finally lowering his weapon.\n\n"Not necessary, like I said... and the Lieutenant Commander said... it was my error," you say sheepishly, lowering your hands.\n\n"I'm Captain Richard Stroker of the <i>USS Venture</i>," the bearded man says. "We're here investigating the archaeological team's disappearance, as well as the space hulk we think might be tied to it."\n\nYou turn around to take a look at the viewscreen, which is in fact showing a view of a large coppery-colored ship with a faintly predatory style to it. It does seem vaguely familiar, like something you might have seen before...\n\n<hr>\n[[Eh, can't remember.|FioTrek]]\n\n[[... Uh-oh.|FioTrek1x2]]

Yes yes, let's give these two a nice lover to boost their confidence and warm their pussies! ... Hm, put that way, it doesn't sound like very much of a prank. But it is! Especially if you spin the lover into something naughty! Getting people to cheat is automatically a prank anyway, it's a prank on someone even if it's not a prank on the one getting fucked!\n\n... Look at this point you're gonna fuck one or both of these horny frustrated MILFs and let's face it the amount of pranking is secondary, alright? Okay.\n\nNow let's see, let's see, what sort of lover to offer them? Well they were quite hung up on the whole matter of [[youth|Konko]]... a cute young neighborhood boy to stir both their motherly instincts and their loins could be fun! Hm, their jealousy of their husbands potentially lusting after [[hot young (foreign) co-eds|Konko]] seemed two-pronged, perhaps one or both of them could succumb to such a thing in a most delicious case of hypocritical irony! ... Oho. In fact, why not take the form of [[one of the husbands|Konko]], but suddenly possessed of a prowess and endowments they never displayed before? That should cause all sorts of delightful confusion once you've left and the genuine article shows up!\n\nOrrrr... you could get <i>very</i> mischievous and provide [[a lover who isn't even human|Konko4x4]]...

"Elves are not <i>lewd</i>!" you splutter with a scowl, feeling your cheeks heat. "That's a stupid internet meme and it's defamation!"\n\nMany of the humans get expressions like they'd like to 'aw' in disappointment again, but at least manage to suppress it. Apparently embarrassed they've made you mad, the crowd begins to disperse, at least some of them murmuring 'Sorry' or 'Thanks elf-neechan' as they go, which does mollify you a bit. Still, you give an annoyed huff as you turn to go. Elves lewd, the nerve!\n\n"U-um, miss... miss elf?" says a quiet voice.\n\nYou blink and turn around, still frowning, though you deliberately soften your expression when the human asking winces at the sight. He's smaller than the others, but you don't think that's because he's younger, he looks a little skinnier overall. You also realize now that he was at the back of the crowd earlier, you just didn't notice because his oversized hat made him look like part of the scenery from above. It's definitely something the other humans must make fun of him for, besides his build, not to mention his extremely pale skin, white hair, and pink eyes. The coloration wouldn't be that odd for a Snow Elf, but you're well aware that in other mammals, it indicates albinism. (The strong smell of sunblock kind of helps the identification.) "Yes?" you ask, keeping your voice light and polite, since he looks like he might bolt if you spoke too harshly, and you don't want children fleeing from you in fear to ruin your day.\n\n"Um, miss elf, that thing you said, about cultivation magic and... and making someone a hero. Could... you really do that...?"\n\nYou hesitate briefly before answering, but finally nod, deciding to be honest. "I could. It happens sometimes on Lytozia, though it's not all that common. Only elves really have the lifespan and patience necessary to learn cultivation magic, but it's hard to use on other elves because our lives are so much more stretched out. So it only really happens with elves using it on humans, and that's pretty rare. It's much more commonly used to enchant things like trees, structures that are being built, and works of art."\n\n"O-oh." The boy rubs his arm a little bit, looking down. "... But, so... you <i>could</i> do it to me? I-I mean, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble, like you said, but..."\n\nYou look at him for a few long moments. "The other kids must bully you quite a bit, huh?" you finally say.\n\nThat makes him jump slightly, before giving you a shamefaced look. "... How can you tell?"\n\nSquatting down a bit to be on better eye-level with him, you lean in and confide, "Elf kids are little shits too, they totally bully each other for being different."\n\n"R-really?!"\n\n"Yeah. I'm ashamed to say I did it too when I was small," you admit, clearly shocking him. "There was a half-elf kid in my class at school that had a lot of trouble with magic. And I kept telling her, 'Drop out, drop out, you're not cut out to be here.'" You sigh heavily at the memory, shaking your head. "At the time I just thought it was better for everyone if she did, including her, but looking back I see that I was being really mean."\n\n"What happened...? To the half-elf girl, I mean," the boy asks tentatively.\n\n"Well eventually she discovered a type of magic that they just didn't teach at that school because hardly anyone knew about it, and she got really, really good at it." You give him a smile at that. "To where I didn't have a chance of defeating her in sparring. She wound up becoming a big-time hero and helping us defeat the Demon King, and I was very proud to know her."\n\n"... I don't think that's gonna happen for me," he says after a moment, sighing heavily. "The doctors say my health problems are... I mean, I'll probably never be able to do sports or get any stronger, and even if I did I can't be out in the sun very long even with sunblock, and there's no magic to learn here, so..." He trails off, hanging his head.\n\nYou look at him for a moment, then reach out and nudge his shoulder. "Hey. What's your name?"\n\n"Um." He blinks, looking a bit surprised. "Makoto."\n\n"Well, Makoto, I'm Sipha, and don't think there's nothing you can do. Let's see..." You rub your chin, thinking. You feel like you've got to do something for him, even if it's a bit of a placebo... if for nothing else, to make up for a bit of your guilt at bullying Ammianda all those decades ago. But what to do?\n\n<hr>\n[[Start the cultivation spell.|SiphaKids1x4]]\n\n[[Teach him magic.|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[Give him some confidence.|SiphaKids]]

"No offense, Sakai, but I think I'll take the hired blade job," you say a bit dryly, doing your best to let your grin take the sting out of it. "Besides, don't want Doonian getting one big payday again after what he did with the last one."\n\n"Ah, when you have a point you have a point," Sakai says with a philosophical air. Must take the sting out of someone saying you don't want to fuck you when you've already got an F-cup in your hand and half a dozen girls ready to suck you off under the table at request. "But alright, you can come back to the compound with us tonight, and once we're there I'll arrange the issue of your payment. You've been keeping up with your Nipponzi?"\n\n"Yeah, it comes up more than you'd think," you answer, switching over to the language the Neokuza clans and the people who populate their controlled areas of the city tend to use.\n\n"Good good. Doonian doesn't know what he's mistreating," Sakai answers in same, tsking softly. "Really, once this week is through, let's talk again about the issue of you joining the Holy Dragons."\n\nTheoretically there's not that much to talk about, you think a bit later as you leave the club, you and the other blades falling into a less obvious defensive perimeter, letting the bigugles be the obvious one. Sakai could just buy you from Doonian if he really wanted to and could convince the old bastard to sell you. Then he could order you to fight for him or warm his bed as he pleased, and you'd have to. But you'd never be a Holy Dragon that way... you could be a soldier, a fighter, a toy, but never a Dragon. And there's a rule of Sakai's clan that, as foppish and irreverant as he might seem, you know has been etched into his bones... a Dragon can only ever trust another Dragon. So he could fuck you, have you fight, but if you didn't ask it of him he'd never be able to trust you. And when death is coming for you, there's nothing quite like being able to trust the person standing between you and it.\n\n'Been awhile,' you think, scowling into the fresh bout of cold rain, trying your best to ignore Sakai's girls squealing about the few droplets they're getting despite the biguglies forming a wall of umbrellas to protect them.\n\nSoon the lot of you reach the edge of Holy Dragon Lake, a large artificial lake right in the midst of the city, no park or vegetation ringing it to make it more eye-pleasing, just rippling dark water surrounded by towering monuments of glass and light. Everyone steps through the sensor arch before boarding the rounded-off rectangle of a hoverskiff, the interior apparently only having room for Sakai and his girls. You're used to that sort of thing, though, still leaving your inclement weather hood down, letting the damp wind flick the cloth feline ears atop your inner hood as the skiff makes its way towards the center of the lake.\n\nIt passes through three more large sensor arches before finally stopping seemingly in the middle of nowhere. You can't help but hold your breath just a little as you wait... jaded you might be, but this is always impressive anyway. The water begins to glow from beneath, as if some great bioluminescent leviathan were rising to swallow you whole. Much of the water around the skiff begins to churn violently, enough that were it not parked so precisely it would risk being overturned at the very least. A pointed spire is the first thing to break the waves, followed by a sloping rooftop that sends water streaming down it, lights lining the rooftop followed by others illuminating the squarish structure beneath it, followed by a second level rooftop, and then a third that spreads out to the long wings of the structure that rise up on either side of you, until the glowing pink-purple markers that indicate the proper water level rise to the surface. Apparently to mark the Holy Dragon Compound's completion of its rise, a circle of bright color is sent arcing into the night sky, framing the main building in a halo.\n\n<img src="images/HolyDragonCompound.jpg">\n\nThe skiff moves forward, docking at the main door and allowing everyone to start trundling inside. Everyone steams as the weather field cleans you off, Sakai now fondling one girl with each hand as he grins over at you. "Ah, before I forget Kai, Kyoko will of course want to see you. You recall the way?"\n\n"Yeah," you acknowledge, giving him a slight wave of agreement before setting off down one of the hallways. It's decidedly low-tech in here, the floors designed to look like high-end woven mats and the walls with visible quality wood studs. But you know you're being tracked by a number of cameras, sensors, and probably a stealth-field drone or two. You're not a Dragon, after all... you're only trusted as long as you're being monitored, watched, and silently threatened at all times. You arrive at a door with elaborate murals on either side of it, waiting for it to slide open before announcing "Knock knock," and walking through.\n\n"Hello again, Kai," the Holy Dragons' raven-haired chief tattoo artist greets, her voice coming out somewhat electronically modulated through the vaping mask that's one of the only things that she's wearing. That, a pair of red panties with black straps, and a pair of tabi socks are the only thing covering her... well, the only thing that's not ink. Because her entire body is covered in beautiful, stylized renderings of the ocean, its ripples and waves, in a style she once told you is called 'ukiyo-e'. Diving and rising amongst the blue and white waves are at least a dozen dragons of different colors and appearances... you can't quite tell if some of them are the same dragons and just different inks were used for different parts of them, or multiple dragons are entwined so elaborately that the only way to tell them apart is the use of flat, metallic, or pearlescent tattoo ink. "Nice to see you again."\n\n"Yeah," you agree in the most neutral way possible, shrugging out of your jacket and turning to hang it on one of the nearby hooks. Even working for the Holy Dragons temporarily, every hired blade is required to get a visible dragon tattoo. Practically, it's so that the Holy Dragons can pick out the mercs they've hired and not accidentally cut them down or blow them away in the midst of a fight... culturally, it's so that if a hired sword betrays them, they have to walk around wearing the symbol of who they betrayed etched in their skin until they can pay to have it removed themselves, with every body artist on Makarzia knowing what that means. "So, belly or lower back this time?" you ask, turning back to her.\n\n"Shorts off, first," she answers, glowing red precision cybereyes visibly shifting and adjusting.\n\nYou hesitate at that, before making a face. "Oh, come on, for serious?"\n\n"For serious. Shorts off, and lay down on your back," Kyoko repeats, raising one hand. The flesh and blood ends about halfway down her forearms, replaced by carbon fiber cybernetics, the printing style of the surface resembling scales and the delicate talons on the tip of each finger reinforcing the draconic look, the beautiful ukiyo-e style wave pattern continuing over the prosthetics in etched silver. She gestures along the long, comfortable reclined black leather chair, clearly intending to brook no argument.\n\n"... Fucksakes," you grumble, undoing your shorts and pushing them down, bending over to work them over your boots. Fighting not to blush, or squirm as you walk bottomless to the chair and climb in, feeling the cool leather on your buttocks, you lay back and try not to glower as Kyoko slides the gliding stool she's sitting on across the floor. "Was this your idea or Sakai's?" you ask in a bit of a huff anyway.\n\n"He asked that I make it a little more significant, I was the one that decided to start it a bit lower down than usual," Kyoko replies placidly, carbon fiber fingertips moving to touch gently here or there across your belly or the smooth front of your crotch, making you fight not to twitch. You'd get more annoyed about it, but her manner is always so consummately professional that you find it hard to imagine she might have even the slightest bit of prurient intent. "You have such beautiful skin, you know," she notes, glancing up at you, cybereyes adjusting again. Even that seems more like a statement of fact, a professional's admiration. "Not a bit of scar tissue, not even any microabrasions from the previous tattoos."\n\nYou shrug a little. "What can I say? I heal up good. Not fast, not from extreme shit, but apparently when I do heal up I heal up all the way. Talk about a superpower that's only good for impressing an artist like you," you add wryly.\n\n"Still, you are a skin artist's dream, Kai," she says as she draws over her neatly-arranged tray of implements. You're unable to help feeling just a little nervous as her fingers pass slowly above the selection of steel needles with bamboo handles, before relaxing as she plucks up the standard high-precision inkneedle and pulls the cable from the non-business end of it, plugging it into a small, almost invisible port on her prosthetic. "Which is what galls me about having to put art on you that I know I'll have to erase again. This is the fourth time."\n\n"I know, I know," you say with a sigh, looking up at the ceiling and trying to ignore the quick little stinging sensation that begins with the buzz of the needle, tracing lines over the front of your crotch just above your pussylips. At least your body knows better than to try and squirm now. "I'm not exactly much of a joiner, I guess, even with the whole 'slave' thing aside."\n\n"I don't do slave tattoos," Kyoko interjects, almost knee-jerk, even as she pauses for barely an instant to wipe the needle and your skin before she continues.\n\n"I know that too, you always say that," you prop your head up a little, unable to help taking a moment to watch the rich black lines appearing on the front of your crotch before focusing on her. "You're tattooing a slave, though, what's the difference?"\n\n"If your owner had sent you to work for us, there wouldn't be one and I wouldn't be sitting here, you'd be getting a very lovely and very adequate tattoo from one of my assistants," Kyoko replies, never looking up from her work, cybereyes no doubt zoomed in closely on very private parts of your anatomy, and all for the sake of her art. "I tattoo you because even though your owner sends you out to work, you choose what work you'll do, and you chose to work with the Holy Dragons. All true art is an expression of will and choice, Kai... in the case of skin art, that will and choice is shared between the one receiving the tattoo and the one etching it." She once again does a quick, almost reflexive wipe of needle and your skin, before starting to work her way towards your lower belly.\n\n"... So we both have to agree to it, huh," you muse aloud.\n\n"Yes. You know that being tattooed is part of working for my clan, and you accept that. In return I do my best to put art on your skin. Though I am tired of having to take it off again, so, consider this my little rebellion," she adds, some amusement finally entering her filtered voice. "You keep failing to commit, so I tattoo your pussy."\n\nYou can't help but snort at that. "Yeah, okay, fair enough. ... Sorry to make you waste your time, I guess."\n\n"Time making art is never wasted. I may lament my little efforts disappearing from your skin, but I don't regret the making of them with you. All the same, consider Sakai's offer this time, Kai," she says, actually lifting her eyes from her work to your face briefly before she resumes moving the needle. "Because I'd love to spend the rest of your life making art together as you rise from hired blade to Holiest Dragoness."\n\n'The fuck is a Holiest Dragoness?' you think an hour later as you walk down the hall again, adjusting your coat as you go, a ruby red long-bodied dragon now emerging from below the waistband of your shorts and coiling around your bellybutton. Shaking your head at the innate melodrama of the Neokuza and all the other gangs like them, you make your way into the female mercenary dorm, ignoring the several other lumps in beds to flop facefirst onto an empty bunk. Then abruptly having to muffle a yelp, before wincing and rolling over onto your back. Kyoko's fully modern-style tattoos may heal up quick, but that's still tender.\n\nThe next few days are really pretty normal, involving mostly the occasional assigned patrol through the halls, occasionally stopping to look out a window at the neon-lit lakewater outside, bioluminescent fish flitting by in ones or twos or tens. Every so often the compound rises above the surface again, and at those times you're often called upon to stand guard outside, the air particularly frigid on the lake and leaving you zipped up in your jacket and trying not to be too obvious about shivering. 'Glad Sakai told me about making the old man get the heat back on, hate to think of Zee having to make do in this,' you think as you watch a chunk of lake ice go drifting past. 'She needs pants. Maybe I could ask Sakai to buy a pair of pants and give them to me so I can give them to her. He'd want something in return but fuckit, pants.'\n\nFinally the day arrives, and you're on the same skiff as Sakai that heads for the lakeshore. No hot bitches this time, so you're able to sit down in the interior with him. "So, one more time for me, just to make sure I've got it."\n\n"The meeting will be in a social club that's in an area roughly between all the involved territories," he says, the other blades, both hired and proper Dragons, listening intently as well. "Most of our men will be in one of our businesses that's within a short run, but they're to stay there unless we signal there's danger. We'll have three people outside, two people inside. You, Kai, as well as Mikon, will be my inside accompaniment." You glance at the elaborately-attired woman with fox ears, a tail, and half her tits out and give her a nod of professional acknowledgement, receiving one in return. "We'll all mingle for awhile, competing to see who can be the most casual and unconcerned about the entire affair, before we all sit down and start discussing what needs to happen so that we can all deal with the primary issue."\n\nYou nod, then blink. "Oh, yeah, you never did say what the whole thing was about. What's got a bunch of gangs meeting up to talk shop?"\n\n"Ah, didn't I tell you? It's these Street Demons." Sakai frowns. "They call themselves a gang, but they're more like anarchic terrorists who happen to commit a few profitable crimes while they're at it. They've no code that we can tell, they'll target anyone... other gangs, common criminals, innocents, city officials."\n\nYou'd already made a face at the very mention of the name. "Yeah, I'd heard they were engaging in some stuff with serious collateral damage, but I didn't know it was affecting gang business bad enough that you'd all at least talk about teaming up to do something about it."\n\n"Well it's not just the business disruption, it's the effect they're having on innocents. The Neokuza clans at the very least believe in protecting the community," Sakai declares evenly, putting a hand to his face, then grinning wryly as you snort. "Yes, yes, think of it as just a pragmatic attempt at good PR all you like, but we've been doing it for over 2000 years... at some point, an attempt to get good press becomes actual tradition."\n\nYou decide not to question his clan's supposed beneficence any further, instead just rising as the skiff docks and filing out with all the others, falling into an inner defensive line with Mikon. No biguglies today... well, a few of the people with you are in fact big and ugly, but it's all hardened professional killers this trip, you included. There's a brief stop in front of a large karaoke club and net cafe where thirty or so of them peel off and make their way inside, before all of you continue on for another block. The remaining blades make their way to 'nonchalant' positions around the "classy" lotech-style building, decidedly not looking at any of the other number of obvious killers doing the same thing, all of them staring at each other without actually letting their eyes land. You and Mikon follow Sakai inside, the interior muted but still somehow screaming opulence all the same, all of you performing much the same not-staring as the people outside at all the other crime bosses and bodyguards.\n\n"Kai, go mingle," Sakai says after a moment of exchanging overly casual smiles, headnods, and waves with some of the other well-dressed people here.\n\n"... I mean, isn't the purpose of a bodyguard to kinda be nearby and guard your body?" you ask back quietly, looking at him out of the side of your eye.\n\n"Yes but if both you and Mikon hang right over me it makes me look weak. She's enough to guard over me for now, danger is more likely to come once the actual meeting begins, just return to me when you hear the gathering."\n\nTranslation: the dragon tattooed somewhere on Mikon's luscious body (sure isn't her left shoulder... or her cleavage... or her right hip and most of that asscheek, since she's got all of those on display) is some more proper color like green or silver or maybe even gold, not the red of a hired blade. So between her and you, she's the one to rely more on. You resist the urge to roll your eyes, instead just nodding and wandering away a bit. Well, what now?\n\n<hr>\n[[See who else is here.|Kai1x7]]\n\n[[Find a quiet spot to get some rest.|Kai]]

You turn and stalk your way to one of the further-down kiosks, needing the time to put your thoughts together. By the time you have, you spot a station just opening up and make your way up to it. The girl behind the counter is pretty, with short brown hair and reddish eyes, dressed in the same 'lightly professional' gear as most of the others. She smiles brightly as she sees someone coming up.\n\n<img src="images/Vima.jpg">\n\n"Hi, what can I do for-" Her smile falters as she sees your face, and as you set a bloody hand on the counter. "Oh, um, are you alright? Do you need a medic?"\n\n"No. I'm here to list a job," you answer evenly, keeping your gaze unfalteringly steady on her.\n\n"To... <i>list</i> a job?" Certainly while Guild members listing jobs of their own isn't that unusual, doing so in your current state has clearly thrown her. But she clears her throat and manages to put the professional look back on her face as she puts her hands to her input board. "Alright, the location of the job?"\n\n"Makarzia. City sectory 117-A. Dimtemp coordinats 99348."\n\n"Conditions for completion of the job?"\n\n"The safe return of Zee, a female human adult slave, to her owner, Guild member in good standing Kai. And the death of Horace Allfather, with his head delivered as proof of completion," you add, your voice icy even to your own ears. "The safe return is the primary. The elimination is secondary. Both are required for full payment."\n\n"I seeee." The clerk must still be a little bit on the new side, since she did pale a little when she heard you were straight-out putting a hit on someone, but she's professional enough that it doesn't actually give her pause. "And, ah, the payment?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Everything you have.|Kai4x7]]\n\n[[Everything Horace has.|Kai5x1]]\n\n[[Yourself.|Kai6x1]]

Jennifer Walters, AKA "She-Hulk". You call up various images of the tall, muscular green amazon-like woman, grinning with anticipation as you start going over her bio. Hm, smart (but not enough that it's a superpower), nigh-invulnerable, incredibly strong... eh, nothing you haven't dealt with before and in far more extreme forms. You should be able to handle her quite ably on your own, it's just a case of how you'd like to, you think as you plot a course through a connecting dimension and into the neighboring one where practically every Earth has a Jennifer Walters. Just gotta get one that's enough like the one in the listed coordinates, aaaand... there we go, convenient enough! Cloaking the <i>Infinite Decimal</i>, you pull into Earth orbit above New York City, pulling up a sensor feed rendered to video. Yeah, there's only one tall, muscular, huge-boobed woman with bright emerald skin and dark moss-colored long wavy hair walking the streets wearing a fashionable skirt suit and carrying a briefcase. Looks like she's on her way to court.\n\nYou steeple your fingers and consider. Your client is apparently very focused on the whole 'breaking' aspect... as long as She-Hulk winds up a quivering mass of green jello, her will shattered, he's apparently pretty open on the ways and means. So it's really a matter of deciding how best to handle it. \n\nYou could [[go right at her in broad daylight|KiSSH1x1]], basically challenging her to a fight and duking it out in grand superbattle style... very thrilling, lots of adrenaline pumping and buildup to the climactic moment where you rape her in front of everyone, you have a feeling that would earn you a pretty penny... and be quite fun too! \n\nThe other option would be to [[abduct her to the ship|KiSSH]]... here you could take your time toying with her, messing with her body, gradually breaking her down bit by bit, all within the privacy of your own vessel and able to take as much time as you liked. You're willing to bet a particularly long and thorough breaking would also appeal to the client.\n\nOr you could always [[impersonate someone she knows|KiSSH]], that's always a fun thing to do, especially with this sort of setup, it adds that extra sense of betrayal... especially since you never actually have to lift the disguise and can let her believe she was betrayed by a friend the entire time, if you like!

No one ever told you that you weren't allowed to tell anyone you were an elf, and it's not like you've been hiding it either. So you just shrug and nod to the crowd of humans. "Yep, I'm an elf. A Shadow Elf, from the Deepwood Fords on the world of Lytozia."\n\n"Whooooooa," the entire little crowd says in unison, seeming quite impressed and utterly sincere, apparently having any doubt erased just by you saying it outright with such easy conviction. You have to admit it makes you preen a little, standing up straighter and letting your chest jut out, ears giving a slight wiggle, which only seems to excite them further.\n\n"So you can really do magic?!" one of them blurts.\n\n"Yes, I do ritual magic, sorcery, alchemy, and cultivation magic," you answer, glancing at the little tousle-headed human that asked.\n\n"Can you fight with a sword?!"\n\n"I'm pretty decent with a sword, yes, but I sold the government my swords when I got here." Mostly true. Which also gets a few 'aws' of disappointment from kids who clearly wanted to see a real one. One of them shoots a hand into the air, and you point at him since that seems to be a very eager but polite desire to ask more.\n\n"What's cultistvision magic?"\n\nTwitch. Now now, these are young humans, they can't be expected to have fully working brains. "Cultivation magic. It's-" As if to a small child, now. ... Oh right. "It's where you do a lot of very small magical things over a very long time to lead up to a big effect." At the slightly blank looks from them, you consider before pointing at the question-asker again. "It would be like if every year on your birthday, I cast a little spell on you that didn't seem to do anything, but on your eighteenth birthday you turned into a magical hero."\n\n"ME ME ME ME I WANT THAT!" comes the immediate clamor, making you grin sheepishly and hold up your hands.\n\n"Um, sorry, guys, it's just an example, I'm pretty sure I'd get in big trouble if I did that," you insist, causing a much louder round of much more disappointed 'AW's to go up.\n\n"How'd you get from that Lytozia place to Japan?" another pipes up, apparently not entirely put off.\n\n"When my friends and I defeated the Demon King, an item was dropped that was supposed to send someone back here but I accidentally caught it instead. So I live here now."\n\n"You fought a Demon King for real and beat 'im?!"\n\n"That's so cool!"\n\n"Who else did you fight?! Orcs?! Trolls?!"\n\n"Dragons?!?!?!"\n\n"Hey, I heard elves are lewd, are elves lewd?"\n\n<hr>\n[[What? NO!|SiphaKids1x3]]\n\n[[... maybe...|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[Why, you wanna see?|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[Sorry, elves are only lewd with their own sex.|SiphaKids2x1]]

Fuck it... weird though the job is, the benefits of it are just way too tempting. You tap the acceptance box and get a popup informing you that you have to get a medical checkup before you can be approved. Again, slightly weird, but whatever. Slipping the tablet into a return slot, you get up and make your way to the medical level.\n\nThe checkup only takes a few minutes... you walk through a big scanner, the medtech pokes you in the abdomen a few times with a handheld one, you get one of your eyes blipped, and he informs you that you're cleared to accept the job. Without further adieu you head for the departure portal terminal... the listing specifically said there was no combat involved, so you decide to only take your sword. Y'know, just in case. Arriving at an empty booth, you lay your hand on the sensor plate and let it detect your currently accepted job, automatically programming in the associated spacial-dimensional-temporal coordinates. The portal swirls into being in front of you, and you give a casual hop through.\n\nYou instantly find yourself standing in a room that's both primitive and rather elegant... the walls are bare, dark stone but have been cleaned and dried immaculately, the furniture has a lot of hard angles and sharp edges but is also obviously of high craftsmanship, and the torches on the walls burn with a slightly 'wrong' red hue that is nevertheless smokeless and carries a slight floral scent. What you assume are the clients are standing there waiting... one of the benefits of paying to post a job with the GIPSE is that since portals are temporal as well as all the rest, hired mercenaries tend to show up within an hour of you posting the listing. One is a thin man wearing black and purple robes with very delicately and artfully embroidered skulls on them, the other is a wall of muscle wearing a spiky black chestplate with golden filagree that's obviously the work of a master artisan, and an immaculately clean and perfectly symmetrical loincloth the color of blood that looks like it's made of silk, to judge from how it drapes against the bulge of his cock. Both are green-skinned, pointy-eared, and bald, though the big one has a top knot tied with a rather pretty bow tipped with what look like vertebrae, and both have tusks, though the big one's are much larger and apparently engraved with what looks like a small mural of him slaying cowering enemies on one side and presenting toys made of their skin to orphans on the other side.\n\n"Oh! Oh how wonderful, we could not have asked for anyone better!" the thin one immediately gushes, clasping his hands together, black eyes dancing with delight. "Look at her, Laurence, she's just what we wanted!"\n\n"Indeed, though it's a shame about the ears," the big one rumbles in a gravelly voice with a perfect upper-crust accent.\n\n"We can tweak the ears, we can tweak the ears. Oh <i>do</i> forgive me, miss, we're being abominably rude, I beg your indulgence, we were just so excited to see you that our manners fled us entirely," the skinny one continues, clasping his hands together and bowing low to you.\n\n"Uh, no prob, don't mention it," you answer, still a little flummoxed. You've had way ruder greetings, anyway, you weren't going to sweat it as it was. "I'm Kai, I'm here from the Guild about the job?"\n\n"Yes of course, let me please make introductions, as I should have from the start." He bows again, then continues, indicating himself with a refined flick of his black-taloned green hand and its knob-knuckled fingers. "I am Voruk, Vizier-Chancellor of the Orcish empire of Fukkensleh. This is my associate, Head General Laurence Killbitches."\n\n"An honor and a pleasure to meet you, miss," General Killbitches grates sincerely, placing a hand delicately to his shoulder and executing a perfect 45-degree bow.\n\n"Please, won't you have a seat so we can discuss business matters?" Voruk gestures to the table, prompting you to meander to one of the chairs, the General bringing hands that look like they could crush your head in either one to delicately lift your chair and draw it out for you to slide into. The two of them round the table, Voruk settling in across from you in the other chair, General Killbitches standing just to his side. "Ah, I'm still forgetting my manners, would you like something in the way of refreshments?"\n\nLuckily your stomach doesn't growl on cue, but still. "Maybe something to snack on while we talk, yeah," you answer casually.\n\nVoruk raises his hands and claps twice, pauses, and adds three more claps. "It will be just a moment," he assures you with an easy, charming smile that shows off his sharp, slightly pink-stained teeth. And indeed it's not long before the door opens and a green-skinned woman wearing a spikey, fiendish-looking collar and a prim, proper maid's uniform sweeps in holding a tray. She lifts a bowl from the tray and sets it in front of you, displaying the contents of a large pile of red, uncooked meat. Then she sets down a plate of flattened lettuce leaves beside it and the scent of citrus hits you. 'Oh, hey, tartare.'\n\n"... Ah, there I go again, I've forgotten to make allowances for you being non-Orcish, would you prefer-"\n\n"No, this is fine, thanks," you assure him, using the delicate silver fork that looks like a weapon of war to scoop some of the meat onto a lettuce leaf and roll it up, glancing aside and nodding your thanks to the servant as she pours you a mug of something amber-colored. "So why don't you explain what this is all about?"\n\n"Indeed. Well, this all begins with misfortune, I'm afraid. You see, we recently lost our beloved ruler, Emperor Dragonraper IV, otherwise known as Dragonraper the Kind, to a sudden and unexpected heart attack."\n\nYou pause in your chewing, then make sure to swallow completely before saying, "My condolences."\n\n"Thank you, they are much appreciated. However, this has caused a bit of a problem with his succession."\n\n"His kids all fighting over it or something?" you ask before taking another bite.\n\n"Oh no, no no no, certainly not, all of the late king's 137 children are united behind Princess Doomstrap's rightful claim, it is uncontested. No, you see, the issue is more of a cultural one. It is our society's belief that our god, the War-Fucker, blesses and covets each of our rulers, it's one of the very foundations our culture is built upon. That blessing is meant to convey great wisdom and power upon the Emperor or Empress, such that they cannot die unless it be in battle against an armed opponent. A heart attack, well... that's not supposed to happen."\n\nNow everything starts to come together for you. You take a drink of what's apparently mead (if there could be said to be such a thing as 'lite mead') to clear your throat before saying, "So you need someone to take the fall for killing him instead of admitting he just died."\n\n"That is the sad truth, I'm afraid," Voruk agrees solemnly with a single mournful nod of his head. "Right now, while the people have been informed of the Emperor's death, they have not been told how... only that it is being investigated. Hopefully, with your agreement, we can today announce that the assassin has been captured and is in custody, and is ready for their public trial."\n\n"... Alright, I mean, I admit I don't get it," you declare after a moment, settling back in your chair and holding the goblet in both hands. "Why put up a high-priced job listing with the Guild to get an actual mercenary for this? Why not just find one of your own people who would volunteer? Or even, I dunno, pin it on some prisoner you've already got, or go out and grab the first random non-orc you come across to be the fall guy?"\n\nVoruk actually looks scandalized, his hand flinging much less elegantly to his chest. "Madam, we are a civilized society! We would not <i>think</i> of subjecting someone to a show trial and the abuse of the public without their full and enthusiastic consent!"\n\n"Besides moral issues, there are a host of more pragmatic reasons," General Killbitches says more placidly, giving Voruk a brief glance to settle him. "First that the individual in question be an outsider... it helps keep social unity if it's unquestionably a foreign element that caused strife. But we'd also vastly prefer that outsider's cooperation, so that things can go... more according to script. As for why a mercenary and not an actor... this will involve a certain amount of physical punishment, enough that someone not conditioned for combat might not survive for the full length of it, which we would vastly prefer them to."\n\nYou nod slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I get it. So. What's this 'script' involve?"\n\n"Once we begin, you would of course be placed in a prison facility near the site of the trial," Voruk explains primly, seemingly over his upset and falling back into professional mode. "In the morning you would be brought out, naked and in chains, and marched through the streets to the trial area. The crowds would be jeering, spitting, throwing garbage... nothing injurious," he adds with a little wave of the hand. "It's just not done, but we'll also keep an eye out to make sure. Then you would stand on the docket and the judge would read out your crimes, including the Emperor's assassination, and ask how you plea, at which point you would of course 'confess'."\n\n"And do my best to make him sound good while I was at it?" you ask wryly.\n\n"Preferably, yes! After which, you'd be placed in the stocks and left at the mercy of the elements and the public for the remainder of the day, as well as the next two."\n\n"... Mercy of the public, huh?" You frown. "So like... they keep throwing garbage and stuff, but also they probably fuck me, huh?"\n\n"No more than twenty or so a day, there are rules," Voruk assures you casually with another wave of the hand. "At the absolute most forty on the last day. The stocks actually have built-in medical fields, so you won't be injured or become ill from the experience, no worries! And then, on the fourth day, we execute you."\n\nThat actually makes your jaw sag. "... What?"\n\n"Most likely beheading, we've developed this lovely device, very scary, very showy, but utterly humane, kills in the blink of an eye," he continues, snapping his fingers while smiling brightly.\n\n"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" You lean forward, thunking the goblet down on the table. "What the hell is this about execution?!"\n\n"You buried the lead, Voruk," the General rumbles.\n\n"... Oh dear, I did, didn't I? No wonder you're upset, my apologies." Voruk makes a few placating gestures with your hands until you settle back a little, then continues. "You see the first thing we'd do before beginning all of this is use a cloning tank to create a clone of you. We'll install a small implant in your brain that will make a backup of everything up to your moment of death, and then upload that backup into the clone. You would come out of the experience quite literally without a scratch... in fact since your body would be brand new, it would likely be healthier and add a good twenty years to your lifespan." He pauses, then as if sensing you're not entirely convinced, adds, "I would not wish to pressure you in any way, as from the start I have been adamant that your consent is important to this entire process, but from the moment you arrived I have been prepared to offer a substantial bonus. You are, as noted, almost exactly what we need for this... your sex, your looks, everything but your species is everything we could have asked for this, and that's only a minor tweak away from perfection."\n\nThe words 'substantial bonus' are exactly the hook he probably meant them to be to tug you back towards still accepting the job now that you know the details. It was already quite a payday just for a few days' non-combat work, but with extra on top of it? "... Could I see the clone and implant, before I get thrown in prison?" you ask after a moment. "Seriously, nothing personal, just experience and paranoia."\n\n"Perfectly understandable, of course you may, we wouldn't dream of you having to just take our word for it," Voruk assures you.\n\nHm. Definitely... a very weird job, but you're already here and you need the money, and they seem on the up-and-up, plus if they actually did kill you the Guild would come down on them like a dropship full of anvils... still, <i>executed</i>? And what's more, you'd <i>remember</i> it?\n\n<hr>\n[[Accept.|KaiGuild]]\n\n[[Refuse.|KaiGuild]]

Mekor blinks. "The what?"\n\n"I mean, I just assumed that most of the workers here are slaves, right?" You glance over at a few of the scantily-clad and collared workers, then glance back at Mekor, who nods in acknowledgement but still looks confused. "So where do you breed more of those?"\n\nHe opens his mouth, then closes it. "Usually they're just captured, and sometimes they do breed with each other, but that's usually of their own account." He brings a hand up and scratches in his beard thoughtfully. "Though now that you mention it, it seems a bit silly that I've never thought to actually try and breed slaves and soldiers. The ones born to it <i>are</i> usually way easier to train and less likely to try something foolish." You're surprised when he puts a big hand on your shoulder, actually giving you a fond look. "Look at you, not here a day and showing me where I've been blind to the potential of my own facilities."\n\nYou blush and duck your head, then smile up at him. "Well, shall we give it a try, then?"\n\n"Aye, aye let's." Mekor considers for a moment, then snags one of the passing slaves, a dwarf who's actually wearing pants rather than just the usual briefs. "Go to the main house and get Moira, bring her to the breeding room and put in the support frame. Probably best not to tell her that's where she's going though. And send a runner over to the barracks and tell Kovan to report to the breeding room too, tell him he doesn't need to bother with his armor."\n\nOnce the dwarf has gone hurrying off, you follow Mekon over to a short flight of stairs that leads up to a small room with a lightly-tinted pane of glass, next to which is a metal bar with a number of colored glass domes set atop it. Outside the glass is a very large room, with a number of blocks and bars with various leather straps and chains attached to them, as well as a few areas that look more machinery-like. "Moira and Kovan...?" you prompt.\n\n"Aye, a buxom housemaid, body very much meant for breeding and mothering now that I think about it," Mekon muses aloud. You quirk your eyebrows... you'd be jealous if you didn't think he meant it purely in terms of livestock now. "And Kovan's a young buck guard, good fit body. Both prime breeding age so whatever we get off of them should be decent, but we'll judge how much the spell needs tweaking after."\n\nYou almost ask 'Spell?' but assume that will be answered soon enough. After a few minutes the large doors open and the dwarf slave leads in a female slave, a tiger woman with large, full breasts, a slightly outward-curving tummy, and wide hips. She looks around in obvious confusion, flicking tail betraying her agitation as she nevertheless follows the dwarf over to one of the setups, the main part of which is a low T-shaped bar with upward curves at the edges of the top, and a cluster of other rings down near the base. When the dwarf attempts to bend her over it, her eyes widen in realization and she begins to struggle, but his stout strength is apparently more than a match for her and she's shoved forward, her belly pressing against the bar and those outward curves immediately swinging together, snapping closed against her back. She's immediately lifted upward and off her feet, kicking and squirming in the air as the rings at the base lift up and extend outward on thin armatures, fastening around her ankles, thighs, upper arms, wrists, and her neck. Her legs are forced to spread wide open, her arms bent and fists pointed ahead of her... one of them even fastens close to the base of her tail and holds it lifted and high as the dwarf steps in and unties her leather briefs, pulling them off to reveal her pink slit covered in white fur and the pink pucker of her ass. The dwarf takes a moment to give an appreciative look of his own, then turns and walks away, just a bit of sadness that he wasn't picked for this particular assignment showing in his stride.\n\nThe tigress continues to wiggle and struggle in her bonds, but it's not doing much good... the little bar-shaped arms of her restraints may look thin, but they're obviously incredibly strong and don't shift in the slightest, her struggles accomplishing little other than making her white-furred tits wobble heavily below her. It's another few minutes before a young olive-skinned man in boots and a red loincloth walks in, his otherwise well-muscled body on display. He looks more confused than anything else by the sight of the struggling, captive tiger-woman in the restraints, although he whirls in obvious surprise as the doors slide closed behind him. Mekor unhesitatingly reaches over and taps on several of the glass buttons, rune circles blaring to life on the walls and floor of the chamber below.\n\nThe change is immediate, Moira gasping and arching in the restraints, her nipples instantly hardening and her white-furred pussylips swelling and growing damp. The effect is even more obvious on Kovan, his eyes glazing, then igniting with a brutish fire as he clenches his fists and arches his back, letting out a feral roar as his cock surges to such extreme hardness so fast that the loincloth simply snaps off, his cock jutting out before him, veins standing out starkly across its surface. He pounces forward more than anything, grabbing the tigress's waist and thrusting into her pussy like skewering a wild boar with a spear. He immediately begins pounding into her, not a single sign of intelligence or thought on his wild, snarling face, just a pure, bestial need to breed, to plant his seed in the female in heat before him. By the way the tigress's eyes have rolled in her head and her tongue has lolled out, any thoughts she had left in her head after the activation of the spell have quickly been fucked right out of her brain, her body twitching and shuddering with the desire to be impregnated by the rutting stud behind her, her heavy tits jiggling energetically below her as the human buck slams his hips against her generous furry ass. Both are grunting and drooling, a pair of intelligent beings instantly reduced to nothing but mindless animals trying to make more animals.\n\nYou bite your lower lip, sliding a hand under your improvised skirt to start stroking your fingers over your own damp pussy as you watch the magically-induced breeding session below. You glance over at Mekor, who seems to be watching the scene with about as much mild interest as you assume he'd have watching a pair of horses go at it... but maybe it's your imagination, but there might be a bit of an outline of his cock in the front of his leather apron, indicating it is having <i>some</i> effect. Maybe he'd be willing to, ah... 'fool around', as he called it.\n\n<hr>\n[[Present to him.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Just enjoy the show.|ValWP]]

Eh, what could it hurt to stop and see who's calling? You cease walking and turn towards where the call came from, the array of somewhat odd training equipment that humans apparently let their young use unattended. Seeing you actually stop, a number of short humans come running over, gathering around in front of you as you look down at them. You're really bad with knowing how old humans are... you know they age more quickly than elves since they don't live as long, but they also mature differently, so these are what... maybe twenty? They're all staring up at you in fascination, though, which is sort of weird but interesting... most humans in the world you came from have usually seen at least a handful of elves by this age so you've never experienced such a clamor over your very presence before.\n\n"Wooow, she's seriously an elf!"\n\n"Dummy, she's just some shut-in cosplayer!"\n\n"Nuh-uh, nuh-uh, there's no seams on those ears, she's for reeeeal!"\n\n"I'm not a shut-in," you note with a bit of a huff. How can you be a shut-in, you're <i>outside</i>! Humans, they never think. Your comment seems to have gone mostly unnoticed in the chatter, though.\n\n"Look at her eyes and her brown skin, she's gotta be an elf!"\n\n"She could just be a gyaru, <i>stupid</i>."\n\n"Gyarus do blue eyes and blonde hair not yellow eyes and black hair <i><b>stupid</b></i>!"\n\n"She's an elf I know it I saw her do magic the other day!"\n\n"You did not!"\n\n"I did, she's an elf!"\n\n"Is not!"\n\n"Is!"\n\n"Is <i>not</i>!"\n\n"Hey dummies, why don't you ask her?!"\n\nAs one, every head in front of you turns towards you and stares intently. You blink at the sudden scrutiny, but they definitely seem to be waiting on an answer as to whether you're an elf.\n\n<hr>\n[[Yup.|SiphaKids1x2]]\n\n[[Nope.|SiphaKids]]

The game studio's name is 'Lovely Elf Studios'... heck, you kind of have to go check <i>that</i> out, don't you? You tear off one of the little strips, which has an address in lieu of a phone number... must be angling for drop-in interviews. Well, you didn't have anything else planned today, and the address is actually relatively nearby, they must have their offices in one of the buildings here. It's a bit of a walk, but you soon find the building and yup, there it is, 'Lovely Elf Studios', floor eight. Wow, an entire floor? Well, you guess that's still the standard for an indie studio, it doesn't have to be just two people in an apartment anymore these days, does it? Or at least there are a lot of arguments about the subject on some of the boards you frequent, you're not particularly invested in the issue being such a recent arrival. You hit the button and wait for a moment, until a woman's voice emerges from the speaker attached to the box. "Lovely Elf Studios, may I help you?"\n\n"Yes, I'm here about the voice acting position?" you answer, leaning in a bit closer to do so.\n\n"Oh! Yes, please, come on up and I'll buzz you in!"\n\nShe sounded enthusiastic, you think cheerfully as you head for the elevator. Maybe you have a nice voice by default? You ride the elevator to the sixth floor, emerging into a small room with a single door ahead that has a card reader and a window. As you walk up to it you hear a buzz, so you turn the handle and walk in. The actual lobby area isn't very big, but nice enough, the desk ahead manned by a pretty, almost stereotypical young OL-looking sort of girl with a fashionable, shortish haircut and wearing a suit.\n\n"Hello, welcome," she says. "I've called up the person in charge of your interview, if you wouldn't mind waiting for just a few minutes?"\n\n"Sure." You turn towards the nearby seats, but don't sit yet, instead taking a look at the framed game cover art. Hm, they really do all seem to feature elves, you muse as you skim over them. Scantily-clad elves, too... well, not like what you wore when you were an adventurer covered a lot more. Actually some of these outfits are downright conservative compared to what some of your contemporaries wore. \n\nYou turn at the sound of another door opening, the receptionist looking over as well as another woman emerges, yawning and rubbing one of her eyes under her red-rimmed rectangle glasses, her brown hair and ponytail both disheveled and obviously in need of a trim. She's wearing an off-the shoulder black sweater and... nope, that's it, the bottom of it raising up enough to flash her pussy at the two of you as she rubs her eye. Well. Okay then!\n\n"Ki-chan!" the receptionist hisses.\n\n"... Mm?" The new arrival blinks blearily, looking over at the desk, then down at herself. "Ah. Yeah. Oops." Her cheeks only pink a little as she glances at you and holds up a finger. "Sec." She turns and hurries back through the door, albeit not that quickly, apparently unconcerned that the sweater is still only barely covering her ass. She closes the door behind her, and about three minutes later opens it again, now wearing blue jeans and a pair of slippers. Making her way back over to you, she grins in a thoroughly unsheepish way, tongue poking out in the general direction of the beauty mark on her chin as she adjusts her glasses, seeming more amused by her own absentmindedness than bothered.\n\n<img src="images/Kiyoshi.jpg">\n\n"Sorry about that," she says cheerfully enough. "I'm the head writer here at LES, Tamashiro Kiyoshi, though my pen name is 'Unlok-Ki'. You're here about the voice acting job, right?"\n\n"Yup, that's it," you confirm with a single nod. You've gotta say, the experience has already kind of been enough amusement to be worth it.\n\n"Great, come this way, we'll do the interview in the break room. And sorry about earlier, I've been writing since five AM and my brain's currently as underpowered as a cheap phone charger." She shows you the way down the hall into a nice little room with several vending machines and small appliances, gesturing for you to take a seat at the table. "You want anything to eat or drink? Tea, Ramune, instant noodles?" she asks as she swings open a cabinet stacked with containers of the latter and takes one down.\n\n"Oh, hey, I love that brand of udon, yes please." This interview is turning out fantastic already, you think happily as Kiyoshi uses the hot water dispensor to fill both containers and bring them to the table, setting chopsticks atop both.\n\n"I sometimes forget to get meals, so every time I come in here I have some ramen. I figure the days where I eat four or five times probably balance out the days where I forget," Kiyoshi explains as she fiddles with the cap of her bottled tea. "Anyway, if you're curious why the lead writer is interviewing you, it's because I'm also the voice director, which leaves me in charge of casting too."\n\n"I see, I see." You nod along, picking up your chopsticks and fiddling with them a bit, then opening up your udon and picking up some of the noodles to let them drip. "The girl at the desk outside seemed pretty surprised that someone was here for the job, even though a lot of the other tabs have been torn off."\n\n"Ah, yeah, that figures." Kiyoshi eats a mouthful of her own ramen before she continues. "See, one of our big selling points at LES is our voice acting. Specifically, our <i>female</i> voice acting... there aren't that many voiced male lines anyway, but before we formed this company we did studies and polls and stuff, and having male voices in games like ours is actually a huge turnoff for a lot of people. I mean if we were making otome games or something, yeah, but no one really wants to hear some dude bellow out 'Your resistance only makes my tentacles wrigglier!' or whatever in the middle of a scene." She shrugs. "I wouldn't mind if it was good acting, but that's the reality of the thing. Still, we get a lot of guys that turn up anyway, I guess thinking it's some ticket to lewdness doing voice acting scenes with girls, and not many female applicants."\n\n"Ohhhh, I see, I see," you nod along, stuffing your own face with udon noodles. You pause partway through chewing, and swallow a little early, but. "So it's mostly hentai games, then?"\n\n"Yeah pretty much all of them. LES prides itself for its variety of content!" Kiyoshi declares cheerfully, puffing her chest out. Then she shrugs. "I mean, they're all about elves to some extent, but branding is important too and there's always a market. Besides, I really love elves."\n\nA-awww? Still, you're processing this development a little bit as you munch on your impromptu lunch. You resist the urge to drink the broth despite doubt caring Kiyoshi would hold it against you, instead saying, "So you need more actresses?"\n\n"Oh yeah, we always need new blood, it's partly why our studio stays successful, we have a stable of regulars but also bring in at least one or two new girls for each game so that it doesn't get stale. I mean, you don't want someone thinking 'Hey, <i>Elf Tree House Home</i> is just reusing moans from <i>Elves in the Dark</i>!' and going on a huge internet forum rant about it. Oh, here," she adds, passing you a bottle of tea as well. "Now, what would you say your qualifications are for being a voice actress? You don't necessarily need experience, but still, what do you feel would set you apart?"\n\n"Well." You look at her, then down at your tea bottle as you try to open it. "I'm an elf."\n\n"... Eheh, yeah, the ears are cute, but I mean besides being an elf otaku," she urges, giving you a slightly grimace-y smile.\n\n"Hm?" You glance at her again, before refocusing on the bottle. Man, you hate this brand, it's like they weld the caps on. "No, I mean seriously, I'm an elf. A Shadow Elf from the Deepwood Fords, on Lytozia." Just to show that you can, you give your ears a wiggle, just as the cap finally makes a snapping sound and spins free. Aha!\n\n"Eh?" Kiyoshi's eyes widen as you bring the bottle to your lips, before suddenly bolting to her feet, hands slapping to the tabletop as she shouts out "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!", startling you enough to spray some of the tea you'd been trying to drink over your hand.\n\n"A REAL ELF?! A REALLY REAL ELF?! A SHADOW ELF FROM LYTOZIA?! FOR REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALS?!" she shrieks, grabbing two fistfuls of her hair as she stares at you. "A REALLY FOR REAL ELF?!"\n\n"Really for real," you confirm with a bit of a cough, your voice hoarse from almost drowning in a mouthful of milk tea.\n\n"... Waaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!" she cackles, clenching her fists near her shoulders and looking upward. "This is perfect! Finally! An authenticity beyond everything I've been trying for before! An actual lewd elf for my lewd elf games!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Hey! You're not lewd!|SiphaJob]]\n\n[[Well. You're not <i>un</i>-lewd.|SiphaJob]]\n\n[[It's true. You are an authentic lewd elf.|SiphaJob]]

Hm... been awhile since you've done a sense-recording mission... they're actually pretty fun, since the more exciting and thrilling you make the mission, the happier the client is. Ever since you became effectively unkillable you've enjoyed occasionally indulging a flair for the dramatic too, which is also something expected of these, so overall you look forward to them, especially if there's a particularly large payday at the end like this one looks to be. Almost idly you shove kit out of your lap, ignoring it as she thuds to the ground with a fresh yelp, instead leaning back in your chair and spreading your legs. You let your pants fly open and a nice, thick cock grow out as Kit starts to reorient herself. The girl may have some things to learn about assembling a job list for you, but as far as this goes she's obedient and well-trained, immediately scooting up between your legs and sliding her mouth over your cockhead as you start working the comm controls mentally, her ever-so-slightly rough tongue dutifully working over your flesh.\n\nA moment later the comm is answered... audio only, which is convenient since you don't have to focus the camera just shoulders-up that way. <i>"You are Ms. Lorde the mercenary, then?"</i> the slightly electronically-rendered voice says.\n\n"That's me," you answer with breezy cheer, your voice giving no indication that you're currently being sucked off by an enthusiastic and at this point rather skilled catgirl. "And you must be Mr. Client, since I understand you wish to be as anonymous as possible."\n\n<i>"Correct. The go-between company I'm utilizing has all my information and accounts, but will keep them in strict confidentiality. They will also be the ones insuring you get paid, making sure we are both covered adequately."</i>\n\n"I'm familiar with the Double-Blind Bank, Mr. Client, I've worked with them plenty of times. I agree that their services will suit both of us just fine." Without looking away from the screen showing a set of bars undulating with the audio, you put a hand on Kit's head, scritching around her ears a bit to entice her to purr... right before pushing her head down and making her abruptly deep-throat you. Smirking a bit at her light struggling, you continue your conversation. "I also understand you'd like me to make you some sense-recordings."\n\n<i>"Correct. I understand yours are some of the best and most thorough."</i>\n\n"Not just some of the best, I guarantee they're <b>the</b> best," you chuckle. "Tell you what, why don't I send you a very brief one right now, as a quick free sample?"\n\n<i>"Very generous of you. Yes, please."</i>\n\nYou access your memory files, copy one into the computer, and spend just a moment editing it to remove anything compromising before making a few small tweaks, then sending it down the comm line.\n\n<i>"Thank you. One moment while I replay it."</i> The screen shows a red 'Hold' appear as the bars go flat.\n\n"Mmmnf." Kit squirms a bit more purposefully, so you lift your hand and let her come up, the blonde catgirl panting a little as she lifts her mouth off of your now gleaming pale prick. "N-not that I doubt you, ma'am, but how come your sense-recordings are the best?"\n\n"Because every single cell in my body is capable of recording what it's feeling at the moment I make them, sweetie," you coo at her, giving one of her ears a gentle tweak and making her 'mewp!'. "So they're extremely thorough. I can also edit them a little to maximize enjoyment."\n\n"Oh, that's really cool," she chirps, smiling as her ears twitch. "So what recording did you send him?"\n\n"Since it was so recent and convenient, I sent him the sense recording of spanking you and then you sucking me off just now, of course," you reply breezily. "All five senses."\n\n"... Eh?" Her ears twitch as her eyes go a little blank with the shock. "Y-you mean... right now he's sitting there... experiencing me laying on his lap... s-spanking my butt and... and squeezing it, and, and... and me sucking his dick?" she says, her face getting steadily redder and her voice squeakier as she goes. \n\n"Mm-hmm, he's seeing your cute little butt, he's feeling it under his hand, he's smelling you get all turned on, he's listening to all those cute little noises you make... which, by the way," you amend, pushing her head back down onto your cock.\n\n"Mmnf, mmf, mmn, mlmn!" Kit wriggles as you urge her back to work, obediently starting to lick and suck again, though from the even cuter noises it sounds like she's highly embarrassed. You hold up a finger across your lips to shush her as the 'Hold' disappears, replaced by the 'Open line' text again.\n\n<i>"Most excellent, definitely the most fully immersive sense recording I've ever tried. There was even a slight taste of female arousal on my tongue to go with the smell."</i>\n\n"I aim to please," you chirp, pushing Kit all the way down and stuffing her throat entirely with cock to make sure she can't make any embarrassed noises that the mic will pick up. "Now, were the sense recordings you had in mind somewhere in that same vicinity?"\n\n<i>"After a fashion, yes. I have a list of extremely attractive females from across the multiverse. I wish you to track them down, making full sense recordings starting from the time you arrive in their dimension."</i>\n\n"And when I find them?"\n\n<i>"Rape them. I wish them to be abused, humiliated, their pride crushed to dust, their minds broken. I understand from the rumors you have a broad range of creative methods to do so with... I would like to experience your creativity for myself. Double-Blind has my taste profile on retainer... when you deliver the sense recordings to them, each will be appraised for its match to my interests and its quality, and you will then be paid the standard rate for each one as mentioned in the initial contact message, as well as bonuses for how many of my taste matrices it touches upon and how intently."</i>\n\n"Hm... I see. But you don't wish to pass along that taste matrix to me so I can cater the experience?" you ask a bit curiously, letting Kit have a breather by just sucking and licking at the underside of your shaft since she seems to have quieted down. \n\n<i>"No, I would rather the experience be... organic. I feel if it were catered too precisely to my desires, it might lose a bit of zest, seem a bit too artificial."</i>\n\n"Ah, a man of culture, I understand. How long is the list?"\n\n<i>"We'll begin you with a short list of several names, and once you've completed it, I'll add on some others for more variety."</i>\n\n"That works. Hm... do you want duplicates at all?"\n\n<i>"You mean, multiple recordings of different versions of the same girl? Hm... yes, once the initial list is completed, I believe multiples would be fine, as long as you intend to make each recording unique."</i>\n\n"I imagine that's doable." You use one hand to push Kit's head back down over the head of your cock, and the other to stroke yourself off, starting to pump a load of cum into her mouth, still not looking at her as she hurriedly tries to swallow it all. "Do you have any preferences for what I should do with the girls once I'm done with them?"\n\n<i>"No, my interest is in the breaking. Once you've broken them, feel free to do as you like with them. If it's included in the sense recordings, that's fine... even if it's not my particular interest, I suppose I can still enjoy your creativity."</i>\n\n"Understood." You push Kit back a bit, actually bothering to take a glance down and look at her cum-smeared face as she pants softly, face flushed and eyes a little glassy. You smirk briefly at her before looking at the screen again. "Anything else?"\n\n<i>"That is all, for the moment. Unless things change, all further communications can be directed to Double-Blind. Good day."</i>\n\n"Good day, Mr. Client," you say cheerfully before closing the line. "Well well, quite a fun little job I've netted for myself. Good work putting it at the top of my list, Kit, even with the mistake of the other three that shouldn't have been there. Here, go take a reward," you add, using your nanites to generate a clear green thumbchip in your palm and holding it out to her. "A little lewd fun in the virtusuite to take care of that needy pussy of yours."\n\n"Thank you, ma'am," she murmurs, face going red again as she stands up and hauls her tights and shorts back up over said wet, dripping sex. She heads to the door, pausing as she glances at the chip and sees what's written on the side. "Ah... sim DF-12?"\n\n"Mm-hmmm," you coo, ungrowing your cock and closing your pants while steepling your fingers over your smile. "And I want you to go and use it right now."\n\n"... Yes'm," she almost whimpers, a shiver that clearly mingles fear, disgust, and anticipation running through her as she leaves the room to go run a simulation of having a train of a dozen dogs run on her.\n\n'Ah, the joys of having underlings,' you think happily as you turn your attention back to the screen at the notification of a transmission from the Double-Blind Bank. They're more 'facilitators' than a proper bank, since as noted they do things like assessing whether something turned into them is particularly valuable to their customer. But they're invaluable to people like your client, and yourself. You pull up the list they sent you, along with each having several potential dimtemp coordinates... you suppose as long as you get a semi-accurate version of the individual, it doesn't really matter if you use these or your own. You look over the three listings as you have your ship, the </i>Infinite Decimal</i>, prepped, and have your aides prep information files to be sent and cued up. Once you've transferred over and settled yourself on the bridge, you decide which of them to go after.\n\n<hr>\n[[Kimberly Anne Possible|KiSKP]]\n\n[[Agent Red, Agent Yellow, and Agent Green of WOOHP.|KiSTSStart]]\n\n[[Jennifer Walters|KiSSHStart]]

"... I need some time to think about this," you murmur.\n\n"It's a lot to take in," Sakai agrees with a single nod. "Why don't you take a walk, get your feet back under you? You have the full privileges of the compound now, feel free to make use of them as you like. Niobe is staying with us until you make your decision... when you have, let someone know to alert us both." \n\nAfter a few seconds you get up, neither of them saying a word as you walk out and into the hall. You set off with no real destination in mind, just a head full of whirling thoughts. All of a sudden you're free... and the weight of the entire city sector is on your shoulders, you think as you open cabinets in the med room until you find the simple glass cylinder with its stopper that has an ugly black square nestled near the bottom of it. You pluck it down, staring at it as you resume wandering the halls, thinking of how it once nestled at the base of your skull, capable of delivering pain or compelling obedience at the press of a button, and how you'll never have to do so again.\n\nNo... now it's all in your hands, you think a little miserably. It's completely, entirely, 100% your decision whether to stand up and fight or cut and run. Your last fight with that Demon... Cyanide... almost killed you, despite the fact that you <i>won</i>. What would a second be like, when she has an entire year to prepare for you, tweak her cybernetics, get new ones installed, analyze your fight patterns if she's got a neuro-playback implant? Freedom suddenly doesn't feel very free, with the lives of Niobe and her gang and however many other people would die in the fighting hanging over your head... and even agreeing might only delay the war by a year, win or lose. Could you maybe be throwing your life away for nothing?\n\nYou find your feet carrying you to a place in the compound you've never really been before... the garden. Every other time you've passed it and peeked in through the glass door, it's remained staunchly closed... this time when you turn and walk towards it, the door slides open for you. You walk along the path of stones set perfectly together amidst genuine earth, beautiful flowers and plants and vat-grown trees transplanted into the ground. Above the water of the lake shimmers and ripples, held up by a thick layer of ceramiglass that's lit from within to give off a close match for sunlight, the shifts of the water almost like clouds drifting across the sun on an otherwise clear day. You walk along the paths, with the cultivated cherry trees constantly shedding utterly holographic sakura petals, each one 'perfect' and thus utterly uniform. You walk towards the bridge over the small flowing stream that runs through the garden... both scaled-down recreations of the bridge and fake river in Big Sakura Park. You lean against the ledge of the bridge, looking up towards the glass 'sky', then down at the water running over smooth, polished round stones with android coi flitting amongst them, then at the glass bottle in your hand, turning it in your fingers so that the slave chip rattles gently with the shifting.\n\n"Free," you snort softly, then give the bottle a contemptuous little toss with just your fingers and a flick of the wrist, sending it to 'plop' into the water and slowly sink down to nestle among the stones. "Yeah right."\n\n"So what was going through your head?"\n\nYou blink a bit at the voice, turning your head towards where it came from, and spotting Mikon standing at one end of the bridge. She's dressed the same as she was for the meeting... red decorations in her hair (a shrine emblem on one side, a flower blossome on the other), just below her large vulpine ears. A vaguely kimono-style dress that bares a significant amount of her (very significant) chest, and is cut high enough on her left side to show the tie of her panties just above where her swords are draped, one longer than the other. It's all very elaborate... left arm wrapped and with a leather armor bracer, thigh strap with kunai, fancy thigh-highs and high-heeled boots with folded tops. She's even still got that blue jacket that she wears just draped over her shoulder and completely hiding her right arm. Her large, fluffy tail gives a flick as she looks at you expectantly.\n\n<img src="images/Mikon.jpg">\n\n"Huh? When I was fighting that Street Demon, you mean?" You look at the weird Holy Dragon enforcer for a long moment, before shrugging and redirecting your gaze back to the water. "I dunno. Nothing really."\n\n"If it had been nothing, you'd have ended that fight a lot sooner and if she were still alive, she would have acknowledged it as her total loss and not be asking for a rematch," Mikon answers, her tone and face unflappable as she just looks at you. "There was something. Something you couldn't get out of your head. A thought you couldn't stop. What was it?"\n\nYou turn your head and even your shoulders now to stare at her, leaning on just one elbow. You open your mouth, close it. Frown. Then you take a deep breath and huff it out before you give her the answer she seems to not just want, but need. "'Faster'."\n\n"... You got it down to one word," Mikon murmurs, nodding, something almost like awe in her dark golden eyes. At your confused headtilt, she shakes her head. "I've never been able to get it below three. 'Faster. More elegant.'"\n\n"You've... lost me. My teacher never told me about... minimizing words?" you murmur, groping for a term.\n\n"Your teacher likely was on another path than yours. Some who are destined to be swordmasters choose their path and work tirelessly to move forward on it... some succeed through their perserverence, others forever linger at the edge for lack of talent or because they chose a path that was not meant to be theirs. Others discover their path on the day they begin their journey... you, Kai, are on the same path as I, though it seems either through instinct, natural skill, or the manner of your awakening to it, you have taken at least one step further down it."\n\nYou straighten up. "Er, are you saying... I'm better with a sword than you?" Which, all arrogance aside, you find hard to believe... you've seen Mikon fight before. She does it with one hand and has always made you feel like a street thug who's particularly good with a thigh-knife in comparison.\n\n"Let's not be hasty," she replies drolly, immediately making you feel like an idiot, though her small smile takes some of the sting out. "Technique is technique, but skill is skill. The two must be in harmony and equal before you ascend to full mastery. My skill and my technique are equal, which is why I am a master... your skill lacks, even if your technique has edged ahead."\n\n"You keep talking about this 'technique'... I don't even get what that means," you huff, folding your arms.\n\n"It has many names. Those who discover it on their own struggle to define it, and some aspect of it appears in numerous schools. 'The Trackless Step', the 'Heartless Blade', 'Aruku Seishin'. My own teacher had a much simpler name for it... the Void."\n\n"... The Void," you murmur, looking down, feeling both a chill and a thrill run through your body.\n\n"You know what I mean now, don't you? The feeling of emptying yourself of all thought, to become pure skill and nothing but your sword. To discard pain and worry, to set aside all consideration of the future and live entirely in the moment which you are fighting. The Void... the point at which you cease to be anything but a blade."\n\n"... It's how I won, yeah." There's no point any longer to denying the truth of her words, despite your jaded heart wanting to reject such mysticism-shrouded terms. "I gave myself over to it. I made myself stop thinking as much as I could. ... Now I realize that I was afraid that if I gave up that one thought, urging myself to go faster, I... well, it felt like I needed that thought, or I wouldn't have been able to push myself."\n\n"You might not have. Then again, your opponent was about your own skill level, fully attaining the Void might have made all the difference."\n\nYou realize now that you've set aside the pretenses that Mikon is already your teacher... that a connection has been forged, over the course of a few sentences, that will last you the rest of your life. You actually feel your throat tighten a little as you look at her, tears stinging in your eyes as the burden of everything you've learned today presses in around your mind. "... What should I do?"\n\n"I can't tell you that, little one," Mikon answers gently, both her tone and the diminutive assuring you she understands and feels the connection the same as you. "I can tell you what I think you should do... that you should train to achieve the Void. No swordmaster set to record has ever truly attained it, at least not and lived to tell their story. I believe you have that opportunity. The heavens have presented you with a unique set of circumstances given only to swordmasters of legend... a worthy and honorable opponent whose desire for mastery is entwined with yours. A teacher who walks the same path to help show you the way. Family and allies to support you as you strive to achieve your victory. The souls of hundreds of thousands of years worth of those who have wielded the sword look upon you now in envy."\n\nThen her golden eyes shift, turning towards the stream. You follow the line of them... to where the water dips slightly as it flows over the glass bottle containing your slave chip. "But you would not truly be free if I told you that you must do this, nor would you ever achieve the Void. The most important step, Kai, is setting aside all thoughts of external obligations... do not ask what the honor of others compels of you. Do not ask what others beg of you. Do not look ahead to tomorrow or the next day for what might happen then. The Void is as much a thing from within yourself as anything else, and it is within yourself that you must find the answers. Look within and ask what your own honor compels of you. Ask yourself what your soul begs of you. Look to what feels right to you to do, here and now. If it says you must turn and walk away, then that is what you must do, however much it might cost you or anyone else. If it says that this fight is your destiny, then that is your truth, and I will share it with you as long as you will allow."\n\nYou look from her, to the catch in the otherwise perfectly-flowing surface of the water, and then back up to the "sky" above. You realize that you have to make this choice... the first completely, utterly, and unquestionably free choice you've ever made in your life, if you're ever to be free a single other second from this moment on.\n\n<hr>\n[[Walk forward.|KaiCy]]\n\n[[Walk away.|KaiCy]]

Eh, best stick close to home. Don't want to wander too far afield over a minor thing like this, that can always lead to distraction. Even as you're thinking about it, a vehicle whirs up to the curb, the passenger side window rolling down and the late thirty-something guy in a suit behind the wheel leaning over. "Hey, you working?"\n\nYou bristle for a second. Geez, this keeps happening, guys think just because you're walking along wearing a skimpy top and booty shorts that you're a-... oh, wait, you are tonight. Shaking off the brief reflexive annoyance, you walk over and lean in, resting your forearms on the edge of the open window. "Yeah, what're you looking for?"\n\n"Just a quick one right here in the car," he answers, obviously fairly practiced at this himself, a bit of gleaming neon from one of the nearby signs glinting on his wedding ring as he lightly rubs and squeezes his hardon through his pants.\n\n"'Kay, hundred credits," you answer.\n\nYou can see him hesitate just a second, like he was thinking of trying to talk you down, but the asking price is just too reasonable, he must know he'd risk offending you if he tried to barter. So he just nods and leans his seat back a bit, prompting you to straighten up and go round the car, his door swinging open for you. You undo your shorts, wiggling them down your hips and then slipping them down while still standing in the street, bending over to quickly work them over your boots. 'I gotta get a skirt for when I do this,' you think as you tuck your shorts into a pocket before climbing into the car and straddling his lap as he pulls the door closed behind you.\n\nIt's not the most comfortable position in the world, with the steering wheel digging into your back, but you know that will get a bit better here in a minute, and it's not like you'll be at this for long. You unzip his fly, keeping your eyes slightly towards it rather than his lightly grinning face, fishing out his already mostly-hard cock and giving it a few quick, gently twisting strokes and tugs. That's really all it takes to get him fully ready, before you lean up and in, scooting forward and draping an arm over his shoulder and around the headrest, reaching down with your other hand to aim him. Feeling the tip of his prick push up between your pussylips, you ease yourself down, making sure he's actually sliding inside before you bring your other arm up to drape over his shoulder as well. Sliding all the way down, you give your hips a wiggle, as if just to confirm he'll stay in by working his cock around against your inner walls, before starting to work your hips up and down, a quick, easy pumping motion that has him immediately 'mmm'ing and moaning lowly.\n\n'Not the worst position in the world,' you have to admit as you let out a soft, breathy moan or two of your own, not particularly out of artifice. Johns who make it clear they're wanting a quick pump and dump don't usually care about getting the full package of sex noises and compliments, they just want to wet their dicks and empty their balls before going home to the wife and kids. Still, he's hitting some decent spots for you, enough that you're actually getting pretty wet, and when you start working your hips some more, shimmying them and twisting them, it seems to be doing both of you some good. His hands move to grip your bare ass, squeezing and kneading, then starting to haul you down on him faster.\n\nYou're actually starting to get a little close when he gives a particular groan and yanks you down harder on him, and you can feel him twitching inside you. 'Dammit,' you think with a mental sigh, feeling a particular edginess of denial already starting to set in a bit. Still, business is business, so you hold up one hand expectantly. After a few seconds he plunks a chargeable credcard in it, and you check the amount on it while he opens the door. Then you swing off of his lap and step out. At least he waits until you've stepped fully back to close the door and drive off at a normal speed, you think as you take out a sanitary wipe and quickly give your pussy the once-over while still there in the street, since it's basically deserted. You hop back into your shorts and haul them up, feeling the material stick a little against your crotch as you make your way back to the sidewalk and start walking along again.\n\n"U-um, hey, are you... are you working?"\n\nYou pause and half-turn at the voice from behind you. Definitely not practiced... in fact, judging from where he's standing, he probably overheard you talking to the john in the car. He's sort of hunched in on himself, hands tucked into the pockets of the oversized black hoodie he's wearing, a set of "fin" style wireless antennaes emerging from slits in the side of the hood. Baggy pants, too, but here and there you can see the hookups and cables of various bits of gear. Still, it's mostly the high-end antenna-hookup headphones, the expensive cables running from them to the back of his neck, and the fact that he's wearing dataglasses despite already having cybereyes that tips you off to the type. 'Geeker.'\n\nCyborgs aren't exactly uncommon on Makarzia... even you have a single all-purpose cyberjack that you can use for basic hookups and injections. While many use cybernetics to replace some lost or damaged bodypart or correct some issue, others get elective cybernetics to increase their abilities... usually 3D printed plastimuscle, weaponized limbs, cybereyes that can see in pitch black, stuff like that. Stuff that increases their physical abilities. Geekers, on the other hand... a lot of them start off with something like a dyslexia correction implant or a neurostabilizer that necessitates a high-grade datajack right in the neck. Then they start using the datajack for netbrowsing and netdiving and netgames, and soon they're hooked, getting more implants and more gear to enhance their ability to be online constantly, unable to live without a flow of data and input.\n\n... Works for you, though, because they're also usually loaded. "Yeah, whatcha looking to do?" you ask, turning fully towards him, looking right in those glowing green cybereyes and unable to help but feel a bit amused when he nervously averts his gaze down. He might actually be almost kinda-sorta cute if he weren't a bit longfaced and so awkward.\n\n"I... I wanted, a... would you do a dumbfuck with me?" he finally blurts after a few false starts.\n\nYou can't help but make a bit of a face. Should've known. You've only heard a little bit about 'dumbfucking', which doesn't necessarily involve actual fucking even. What it actually is, is using neurostimulator devices to simultaneously do a temporary disruption of your brain's processes, while providing some near-direct stimulation of the pleasure centers. Meaning, you stop thinking entirely and just feel pleasure. You don't know a lot more about it than that, other than the rumors that 1) it's probably highly addictive, 2) if someone fucks up the calibration you could legit fry your brain, and 3) it feels even better if you have at least two people in a passive neurolink when you do it. ... Still. The gawky fucker is obviously desperate to try it, since he worked up the courage to approach you. You could probably charge him out the toxin extraction port he probably has for it.\n\n<hr>\n[[Agree to the dumbfucking.|Kai]]\n\n[[Suggest an alternative.|Kai]]\n\n[[Turn him down flat.|Kai]]

* <b>Main</b>: Added Kiara and Maxia.\n* <b>Main</b>: Kai can now [[focus on taking out Street Demons|Kai1x10]] when the meeting is attacked.\n* Maxia can now [[summon Tifa|MaxKnownSouls]]. \n* <b>Main</b>: Caliburn can [[pick a hallway|CalKLRoom1]] in the King's Labyrinth.\n* Added Yami.\n* <b>Main:</b> Konko can now prank [[the boy looking at porn|Konko6x1]].\n* More of Konko pranking Ryo.\n* Maxia can now summon Red.\n* <b>Main:</b> Kai can now [[find Niobe|Kai1x10]] after the Street Demons attack the meeting. Back at the Glowworm she can also go speak to the [[Transcendants|Kai1x4]].\n* Kiara can now have the Totally Spies put in a 'play bay'.\n* Yami can go to the 'High Fantasy' chargen area.

"W-what?! No, don't curse meeee!" he wails, the word curling up into a gasp as you give a firmer, faster thrust for emphasis.\n\n"Ohhhh but what would a surprise visit from a fox spirit to punish your wickedness be without a curse?" you purr back, giving his cute butt a quick spank and making him yelp (and clench around you, ooo~). "And I think this curse will be to-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-change your body!"|Konko6x5]]\n\n[["-change your mind!"|Konko]]\n\n[["-change your sexuality!"|Konko]]\n\n[["-change your luck!"|Konko]]

What exactly is the point of being awake if you're not going to be gaming? That is an excellent question, one you're not really interested in looking for an answer for as you settle back into your chair and pull your feet up into it. Yes, you are awake, so it is time to play. The question is, play what?\n\n<hr>\n[[Online shooter.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Portable.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Mobage.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Console.|Sipha]]\n\n[[VRMMO.|Sipha1x3]]

Ah, yeah, these games are super expensive but they're definitely one of the coolest things you've played since you've gotten here. Really you'd probably play nothing but, but their nature means you can't multi-game, or snack while playing, or take easy shlic-, er, eyestrain breaks, or any of that. Still, they're pretty great, and you're fairly certain you've got a new one or two you haven't even played yet.\n\nNow, which one to play...?\n\n<hr>\n[[Savior of Other World.|Sipha1x4]]\n\n[[Kamenin Akagi: Dark Dimension.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Blade Skill Connect.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Aberrant Planet.|Sipha]]

Yawning wide, you scooch out of the bed and flump facedown on the floor, trying to stir up the energy to actually stand. You vaguely recall a time in your life when you only needed two hours of sleep and could then leap to your feet ready to do battle for ten hours straight. 'Boy to be ninety again, amirite?' you think to yourself as you finally push yourself upright and then wobble to your feet.\n\nYawning again and absently scratching one buttcheek, you take a bleary look around, trying to get your brain booted up. Alright, you're awake. You're upright. ... Now what?\n\n<hr>\n[[Gaaaaames!|Sipha1x2]]\n\n[[Food, plz.|Sipha]]\n\n[[How about... outside?|Sipha3x1]]\n\n[[... wait, what's that smell...?|Sipha2x1]]

While settling a bit in your throne after taking care of the last matter, you glance over at Xenith. "Anything to report, dear?"\n\n"Yes, your majesty, that I love you and worship you with all my heart! Other than this unworthy Xenith's continuing devotion, however, there's not much to say. The heroes you've captured are still providing energy as normal, the worlds available to you to explore are still waiting. You are, as always, free to do what you like without worry."\n\nYou nod happily, then consider. So, what <i>do</i> you want to do...?\n\n<hr>\nBrowse [[Known Souls|MaxKnownSouls]].\n\nBrowse [[Origin Souls|MaxOriginSouls]].\n\n[[Release a Soul.|MaxSoulRelease]]\n\nGo out and [[explore|MaxExploreWorlds]].\n\nStay in and [[have fun|MaxTowerFun]].

Yeah, there's a reason you play a lot of 'SOW', as a lot of people tend to call it. Specifically because it's the game the Hero was playing when he was transported... in other words, it's <i>almost exactly like your world</i>! You even have a high-level Shadow Elf mage to hang out in the Deepwood Fords area with... you log her in whenever you're feeling particularly homesick, though usually walking around and seeing even more underdressed elves than usual dancing beside mailboxes or yelling about selling gold takes care of that pretty darn quick.\n\nLowering the VR helmet over your head, you lay back on your futon and boot up Savior of Other World. Normally you've got it tweaked to send you right to character select, but instead today you're sent to the landing page... tch, must have been an update. Still, you admit it might be worth having to tweak some of your mods when you see what this update involves.\n\n'Private Instance Shards'... in other words, apparently they've figured out a way to give people their own little versions of the game world without mirroring the entire giant VR server for each one. A great idea... but more than that, you notice that there's two tiers, Gold and Orihalcum. Gold just gives you the option to use the new system to avoid other players... the Orihalcum actually treats your version of the world as <i>your world</i>... meaning you've got admin privileges or "god mode".\n\nIt's expensive, though... even the Gold version. The Orihalcum... ow, you might actually have to start watching your spending if you got that, even if just a little.\n\n<hr>\n[[Log in normally.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Buy Gold.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Buy Orihalcum.|Sipha]]

Yes, there's a sense of something familiar, but it's not down here, it's up closer to the shrine proper. Thoughtful now, you take to the steps and head on up, following the overgrown path upward through the trees, the daylight quickly growing dim and making it seem like early evening at midday.\n\nSoon you walk through the torii into the long-neglected shrine grounds, the buildings crumbling and in some cases collapsed. Your hands tucked into your pockets, you gaze around... yes, there are a lot of fading spirits here. Most are hazy wisps, having already lost their memories and faces, just a lingering impression of power. But there's at least one... yes, you see it now. Walking a bit closer to the old shrine building proper, you fix your eyes on it... yes, this one is actually the closest of any of them to fading out completely, but it's struggled to hold on to the last shreds of its identity and memories all the same. It's vaguely familiar to you, but so indistinct it's hard to say how.\n\nFrowning a little, you slip a hand out of your hoodie pocket and hold it out, urging just a little energy into the spirit, allowing it to become more distinct. Its glow brightens and it wanders towards you... yes, now it's starting to be clear enough you can sense emotions from it...\n\n<hr>\n[[Fear and guilt.|KonFren1x2]]\n\n[[Loneliness and regret.|KonFren2x1]]\n\n[[Hunger and desire.|KonFren]]

You hesitate briefly, then shake your head. "No, sorry, still not interested in any of your sons." You're not entirely sure what's going on, but you do know one thing, and that's that you and the Witch Princess character share a desire not to be pushed around and forced into anything. You're not going to hop to and do what Thule wants just for the sake of averting the story, no matter how much you might have to gain by it.\n\n"Then mark my words well, Witch Princess!" Thule thunders, scowling down at you. "You had best find your interest before the next rising of the sun! For this is your ninety-ninth day in the Tower... on the morning of the hundredth, the spells I have worked upon it will come to maturity, and you shall be robbed of all will and mind! I would prefer you marry one of my sons of your own will, but I'll not be bested and humiliated by you, and you'll serve as nothing but a decorated member of my harem if nothing else!" With that he storms out, hooves slamming on the stone and then receding into the distance through the once more closed door.\n\nYou blink. Wait, did they mention that part in the book? ... Damn actually they did, but it was so briefly and in passing that you didn't take particular note of it at the time. All the focus was on how brave and strong the Witch Princess was for refusing to even hear Thule out in the first place, apparently the writer thought putting too much emphasis on the potential consequences she was defying detracted from that? Either way, you now have a much more pressing issue to figure out... whether to keep following along with the story as you read it, or to try and branch off from it. You nibble your thumbnail a bit as you look around the room, then eye the window. ... Right. Because that's where the story goes next. The Witch Princess... tries to kill herself by leaping to her death from the window.\n\nOf course that's not what happens. But. If you're going to keep following the story, you're still going to have to do a swan dive out the window. And fairly soon too, that whole thing is supposed to happen just as the sun crests over the horizon, and it's rising right now. So if you're going to go with the flow, you'd better hurry up and do it.\n\n<hr>\n[[Jump.|ValWP3x1]]\n\n[[Don't jump.|ValWP]]

The Dragons are close enough to 'your kind of people' that, frankly, you just feel more comfortable seeing them for work. Besides, Sakai's never done you wrong... done you a little dirty, maybe, done you a little cross, even, but never outright wrong. Which is better than you can say for some. You make your way over towards his table, and at least he looks happy to see you, his short, spiky-haired head lifting and showing off the just-almost-handsome pale golden-skinned features, as well as the stubble of pale scar tissue running across his forehead and then back towards his nose, his eye on that side black scleraed and golden-irised with a slit pupil, the way the pupil shifts shape slightly as he focuses on you a tell that it's cybernetic, not the 'true dragon eye' he insists that his people spread rumors it is. "Kai! It's been awhile! How are you?"\n\n"Can't complain. Well, I could, but who would listen?" you reply, same as usual when you see him, earning a chuckle from him (and thereby prompting giggles from the girls around him).\n\n"Looking for work?" At your nod, Sakai taps part of the table. "Here, have a seat and let's discuss it, girls, scoot over if you would." Parts of the table retract, part, and lift, not so much spilling a drop or jostling the food inside of the containers they wind up shifting around, providing you a path to the booth seat beside Sakai, which several of the scantily-clad and heavily-accessorized women scootch over to clear, albeit pouting as they do. You pass through the little passage thereby opened up and settle down next to him. "Please, feel free," Sakai adds as the table closes back up, gesturing to the assortment of high-end bar food scattered about.\n\nHe waits for you to pick up a seasoned beef skewer and eat half of it while trying not to just ravenously tear through it, then speaks again. "So, let me guess, Doonian drank his way through all the money in the account again."\n\n"Drank and whored," you correct with a cheekful of beef, swallowing before stuffing a dumpling in your mouth as well.\n\n"Ah, noble pursuits for a man," Sakai declares half-jokingly, lifting the very large silver silk-clad right breast of the woman on his other side and letting his fingers run up and over it to flick her stiff nipple as it drops. Her smirk says she certainly doesn't mind being paid for her time. "But not so noble when they keep him from caring for his household. What is it this time, the water?"\n\n"Heat," you grumble, sitting back in the booth after picking up another beef skewer.\n\n"Mm, with a cold air system moving in over the next few days as well. I suppose he'll keep himself feeling warm with the bottle, but your fellow-"\n\nScowling a little, you toss the little metal tine the skewer was on into the bowl. "Yeah, my circumstances are super sad, I'm a huge softy who tries to take care of my fellow slave, can we skip to the bit where we talk about work?"\n\n"Sorry, sorry... you know how it is in my line of work, a bit of melodrama, it's expected," Sakai says with a half-apologetic grin, gesturing with his free hand while still fondling the woman beside him with the other. "As luck would have it, there is something coming up. A big meeting is coming in a few days... but we think someone might try to disrupt things and either keep it from happening, or punish its happening. So really we could use a few extra blades for the whole run, though we'll need you to stay close at hand the whole time."\n\nWhich means a whole week away from the apartment. Not like you don't do it sometimes anyway, and you enjoy being away from its shabby interior, your shitty bed, and Doonian for sure. But that also means not being able to look in on Zee for an entire week. You waffle a little, finally asking, "What's the pay situation?"\n\n"Kai, you've always done good work for me, and frankly I'm still hoping one of these days you'll let me buy you and make a proper Dragoness of you," he says with a smile, before his face becomes the closest to actually serious you've seen tonight. "Look, like I said, there's that cold front moving in... we'll pay you by the day, and have it delivered daily to Doonian's account so he can't splurge it all at once. And I'll have one of my people subtract the heat bill from the first day's and pay it out of that, so he can't avoid it. He might be upset, but with one of my men explaining how it works to him, he should still accept it."\n\nYeah... yeah, you can't argue with that, too much. Sakai does have a lot of guys who are better at looking scary than they are at actually fighting, and you'd be willing to bet Doonian can't tell the difference at this point. Intimidating him into letting the bills get paid should keep him from lashing out at Zee... you'll catch a real screaming-at when you get home, but that's a minor problem for next week you. Still, you turn it over in your head and ask, "Anything else? If I wanted to make a quicker cred?"\n\n"Well, you could always stick close and be my personal bodyguard until the meeting day." Sakai grins again, this time the glitter in his organic eye almost making it a leer. "You wouldn't have to go to the actual meeting, but I'll still pay you the full amount but for only two days' work."\n\nYeaaah you know what Sakai expects of his 'personal bodyguards'. There's a reason the big ugly ones are only his outward guard and not the household one. Still, making a week's pay (and good pay, considering the job and employer) for two days' work instead is a pretty sweet deal, and gets you unentangled faster.\n\n<hr>\n[[Be a hired blade.|Kai1x6]]\n\n[[Be a personal bodyguard.|Kai]]

"So how are the crossbreeds made?" you ask, glancing over at the odd bear-bird thing. "Do you milk the semen from one creature, enchant it, and inject another? Seems like there would still be a lot of compatibility issues..."\n\n"The answer's both a bit more simple and a bit more complex. Here, this way, I'll show you." Though Mekor is still a bit reserved of demeanor, as is his usual, you think that he does seem rather pleased that you've taken such an interest in his work. You follow as he leads you through the building and around to a short flight of stairs, which go into a small room with a long, wide pane of lightly tinted glass. Beyond that is a very large room, with a number of blocks and bars with various leather straps and chains attached to them, as well as a few areas that look more machinery-like. "That's the breeding room," Mekor explains, tapping lightly on the glass. "This lets me monitor things but blocks any of the spell energy from bleeding through. These are the controls," he continues, gesturing at a number of polished colored glass 'buttons' set to one side of the window. "They let me fine-tune the adaptation spell."\n\n"Adaptation spell?"\n\n"Yeah. The method of extraction and implanation takes a lot of time and as you said, has a bunch of problems of its own. So instead we bring the animals in here and use an adaptation spell that puts them into heat and modifies them to allow them to breed with each other 'naturally'. Sometimes anatomy is modified, sometimes it's just altered to be more resilient, sometimes sizes are altered to match, but however it takes effect, the dam is infused with enough magic to allow her to carry to term. The result is always a viable lifeform, but whether it's what we want is another matter. Here, I'll show you." He touches a simple clear button on the panel, one slightly removed from the others, and says, "Breeding pair A5."\n\nA few moments later the large doors at the end of the room open, and a human male slave guides a chestnut-colored horse in, walking ahead and leading it by the reins. He moves to tie the reins to one of the blocks so that the horse is faced partly away from you, a flick of its black tail showing that it's a mare. The slave leaves, and soon after several more of different species enter, these leading a large male elephant. Rather than tying it up, they simply make sure it's come to a stop before hurrying out of the room, the doors sliding back closed behind it. Without any ceremony, Mekor reaches over and taps several of the glass buttons. Instantly large glowing rune circles appear on the walls and floor. You watch with interest as the mare's sex almost instantly swells, the rubbery black lips thickening and starting to drip with something viscous, while the elephant trumpets, its massive trunklike cock unsheathing below it, jutting forward and wriggling a bit in the air as it turns and makes its way towards the mare.\n\n"I've been trying to breed a creature with a horse's speed and agility, and an elephant's size and strength," Mekor muses aloud as the two of you watch the elephant more come to stand over the mare rather than really mount it, that thick cock waving around a bit before the thick head finds those slimy black pussylips and pushes in, the mare giving a long, loud whinny as she's spread and stretched beyond what any stallion could ever do. As the big grey beast begins humping its hips lightly, driving its immense prick into its new equine mate, your own mate continues. "But so far no luck. Gotten a lot of horses with trunks, short skinny elephants, that sort of thing. Not sure if it's the breed of horse I'm using that's wrong or if the spell just needs some more tweaking."\n\nYou nod a little absently, feeling a little flushed at the display below you. It's just two animals mating... and yet between the perversity of the crossing of species lines, and the reminder of your own rather bestial impregnation recently, it's certainly enough to get you going. You bite your lower lip and glance over at Mekor, wondering how best to do something about your state.\n\n<hr>\n[[Try to seduce Mekor.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Suggest something even more lewd to watch.|ValWP]]

"Thanks, Vima," you answer, grinning and giving her a little wave with the tablet and a wink before you turn and head off. No need to hold up the line and try to monopolize her attention, you doubt that would endear you much, and you'd hate for her to lose that perky smile when she sees you.\n\nMaking your way over to the nearest seating area, you flop down to sit and open up the job listings, starting with the top level category.\n\n[[Retrieval|LeoJobListRetrieval]] - Basically, you go and get something or someone, and you bring it back to a place or person. It's a pretty broad category, covering everything from bounty hunting and stolen property retrieval to kidnapping and stealing. (The Guild doesn't make moral judgements about the jobs it lists.) \n\n[[Escort|LeoJobListEscort]] - No, not that kind of escort. (Well, generally not.) Like Retrieval, it's a fairly broad category that covers bodyguarding, transport security, arranging covert travel for VIPs, and even just straight-up guard duty.\n\n[[Task Completion|LeoJobListTask]] - Probably the very broadest of the categories, since it covers any sort of "go place, do thing(s)" jobs that don't fit in the other categories. It can either be quick money or a long, involved job, with pay compensating for time spent and complexity (or sometimes depravity).\n\n[[Removal|LeoJobListRem]] - And the narrowest category of jobs, because everything here is getting rid of something or someone. Everything is either vermin/monster removal jobs like the NP Bugs, assassinations, or "forced relocation". Well, very rarely there are jobs for destroying objects or places too, but those don't come up much. Virtually everything in here involves a... darker moral choice.

You tap the 'Escort' selection, watching as it brings up a new long list of potentials. Some of them are so low-paying and routine that you safely dismiss them out of hand... you're not that badly in need of a quick credit. You spend a few moments setting the sort fields, so you can highlight just the jobs actually worth your time. Let's see... your potential clients here are...\n\n[[Tanya Kwestlyne|LeoKwestStart]] - The Guild's minibio on her says she's some sort of adventuring engineer in a fairly high-tech dimension. According to this the whole family usually goes along, but on this particular adventure she's leaving her kids at home on their deep space satellite. She only has one bodyguard, so she needs a second one temporarily. You'd be more dismissive of an almost literal babysitting job, but 1) it sounds like she might be open to leaving the usual bodyguard home and taking you instead, and 2) even if you do get stuck with the kiddos, they have their own minder for day-to-day bullshit, you just have to hang out in case some space pirate breaks in and tries to kill them or something.\n\n[[Princess Amanielle|LeoAmaStart]] - Hel-lo~! A princess! Not only that, an <i>elf</i> princess! Oh, the princess isn't the actual client, apparently that's some duke, the princess is the one you'll be escorting. Apparently it's on some low-tech, high-magic world... it's not super rare for those to know about the Guild and have contact methods, but it's not particularly common either. Interestingly this one specifically asks for someone wielding firearms, so looks like they're not looking for one of the Guild's own more mage-y members.\n \n<hr>\nThese all suck, [[go up a level|LeoJobList1]].

Yeah... best stay nearby. You always feel a little more comfortable when you can theoretically drop in to check on Zee at any time, plus this way you won't have to listen to Doonian bitch about the portal charges.\n\nYou take another look up and down the street. Okay, jobs jobs jobs. First obvious choice is heading down to the [[Glowworm|Kai1x3]], one of the most popular local bars, and see who might be looking for extra hands. For the most part that's going to involve working for some criminal underworld mover and shaker, but what the fuck ever, not like it'd be the first time. There's always the chance they'd screw you over, though, so if you wanted closer to a guaranteed payday (and avoiding even the slim chance of being arrested at some point) you could go to one of the [[Employment Kiosks|Kai]] the city put in as part of some official or another's crime reduction scenarios. On the complete other end of that, you could just [[fucking steal something|Kai]]... arguably the fastest and most direct way to cash, since at the most it involves the steps of theft->fence->money.\n\nWell, you guess there is one method that's even more direct to receiving cash than that, which is [[turning tricks|Kai2x1]]. Spend a night or two on your back with relatively low chance of getting sliced, shot, or beaten bloody (at least compared to mercenary work), and while you wouldn't make nearly as much as a full-fledged job, it should be enough to keep Doonian grumbling for awhile rather than shouting.

The Glowworm seems the best option, you think as you head back into the rain. At the least the climate control always works, the music is good, and if you get lucky someone might buy you something to drink (or better yet, eat).\n\nGradually more and more people are walking along the sidewalks with you, though they give you a polite amount of personal space... uniquely-garbed people openly carrying weapons tend to get that in the city, which is one reason so many people do it. Soon you're approaching the front of the club, the thick, writhing ribbed letters proclaiming its name pulsing with colors numerous and flashy enough to give any epileptic without a corrective implant a wave off into the hereafter. You join the steady flow of people getting eyeblipped and waved in, blinking as one of the armorjacketed bouncers puts a hand in front of your chest.\n\n"You need to head to the weapon surrender station," he says in that overly professional manner that speaks of someone freshly trained, pointing at the nearby kiosk that's largely deserted, since most of those heading inside are just patrons looking to dance and drink and hook up, and thus relatively few are actually carrying.\n\nSighing heavily, you look up at him. Do they grow these guys in a vat? ... Ah, wait, this guy was actually grown in a vat, you realize, his face is symmetrical. Best not think that again, then, it would be birthist. "You a new hire?"\n\n"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I don't know the rules, and rules are, you surrender your weapon first, <i>then</i> we see if you're cleared to enter the club," he insists, folding his arms over his chest.\n\n<hr>\n[[Argue with him about it.|Kai]]\n\n[[Turn in your sword.|Kai]]\n\n[[Convince him. Nicely.|Kai]]\n\n[[Call one of the other bouncers.|Kai1x4]]

Hm hm hm, are you some beggar pranker? Will you take the first obvious targets to fall into your lap? No no, you are more discerning than that! ... But you make a note, even if they're not here later, you bet they do this most days. They'll be a good target eventually~!\n\nYou set off again, humming some more, getting to another block before you pause and sniff. Hmmm... mischief! Yes, someone is doing mischief nearby! Obviously not proper fox spirit mischief, more something small and lame in comparison, but still! Let's see what's up?\n\nYour cute nose wiggling as you sniff, you wander back and forth a bit before zeroing in on one of the nearby houses. Getting a good solid whiff, you flit off the ground and fly up to one of the windows. Oho~, what have we here? Why, it's a boy skipping school! Maybe junior high, to guess? And look at what he's skipping to do... looking at porn! Specifically it looks like a 'big sister' themed porno mag, konkonkon, no wonder he's hiding out while his mother and big sister aren't home to possibly catch him! It doesn't look like he's polishing his knob just yet, but between his age, the obvious hardness of his prick, and the hotness of the magazine (it actually is pretty lewd, you approve!), you doubt it will be long.\n\nTsk tsk, young human! It's wicked to skip school, and even more wicked to look at porn! Which obviously you approve of, but also, didn't Mommy ever tell you that if you're a wicked child, some fox spirit will prank you? Well... they may not have said exactly that, but you bet they said something like that!\n\n<hr>\n[[He's asking for it!|Konko6x2]]\n\n[[Nah, let him have his fun.|Konko]]

Yes yes yes, wicked boy who stayed at home to look at oneechan porn, you're just asking for a pranking! Begging for it, gagging for it, konkonkonkon~! \n\nAh, but what to do, what to do? So many options, an embarrassment of riches!\n\n<hr>\n[[Impersonate a cute oneechan.|Konko]]\n\n[[Impersonate a family member.|Konko7x1]]\n\n[[Have him really get into his doujin.|Konko]]\n\n[[Just pounce 'im.|Konko6x3]]

You scowl thoughtfully at the spirit for long moments, before sighing. "Well, I suppose in the end, it's the humans' and gods' fault you were put in that position, Mushiko. It's true you were never a strong spirit... you were a lot of fun to prank, too," you add with a bit of a grin, rubbing your chin.\n\n"I had fun too," Mushiko's fading impression answers. There's a hesitant flicker of the spirit, before it adds, "I mean, not always while you were pranking me, but after when you'd give me shaved ice and tell me about it from your view."\n\n"Mmm." You rub your chin a bit more, then smirk. "Okay, you know what? Maybe it's not your time to fade away after all."\n\n"R-really? You'd MOOP!" The faint, indistinct voice cuts off as you hold both hands, pulling not just the energy you gave it but the rest of the spirit's energy along with it, condensing it into a nice tight little glowing white ball that flickers with surprise and worry as you tuck it into a pocket.\n\n"Really! Now, let's go home, but first, a stop at the convenience store!" \n\nShortly thereafter, you trot into your home's main room, a bag swaying at your side. You snap your fingers to poof a metal farm bucket into existence. Rummaging in the bag, you pull out a container of milk and pour it into the bucket, then another, and finally one of heavy cream. Taking a few seconds to infuse a significant amount of power into the bucket full of dairy, you then draw out the little ball of spirit and drop it into the liquid with an offhanded negligence and an announcement of "Doink!"\n\n"There, you just marinate in that overnight. Now, I've used up a fair bit of energy on you, so Iiiii am going to go eat these twenty puddings and then go to sleep!" you announce cheerfully, hefting the bag as if to show it off to the bucket, before trotting into the bedroom. "See you tomorrow!"\n\nIndeed, in the morning... slightly earlier than yesterday... you wake up from sleeping in solid form, yawning widely as you sit up and smack your lips. ... Hm? Were you waiting on something today? You have a vague sense of anticipation, sort of like when you set up a prank to go off during the night but different. You get to your feet and pad into the living room, blinking briefly at there being someone sitting at your table, then snort. "Oh riiiight, I resurrected someone yesterday!"\n\n"Good morning, Konko," Mushiko answers in a mournful tone. Of course she was always kind of like that before anyway... she was generally either sort of mopey or sort of panicked, with very few moods in between other than maybe 'content', and even that usually had a sort of morose feel to it. He hadn't been invented yet, but you kind of would have compared her to a particular stuffed donkey if he'd been around at the time. Her black hair hangs down to her shoulders, falling over her pale brown eye on one side, heightening the rather depressive look of her and making her look like a different fictional character that tends to lurk in wells. Looks like she dug up some clothes somewhere while you were asleep, specifically one of your tanktops... though it's more like a sports bra on her due to her particularly large breasts. Other than that looks like she found some grey sweatpants, though even those are short on her due to her height.\n\n<img src="images/Mushiko.png">\n\n"Konko, if it's not too much trouble," Mushiko continues in the same somewhat depressed-sounding voice... again, she always sounds like that, so you doubt it's about this particular issue. "Where are my horns and tail?"\n\n"Ha, you didn't think I'd make you a proper spirit again after what <i>you</i> did, did you?!" you declare, putting your hands on your hips. "No, you're a human for now, Mushiko! And you'll stay that way until I decide otherwise, konkonkonkon!"\n\n"Oh. Okay," she says with a sigh, otherwise unperturbed by being informed she's been brought back as a lowly mortal instead of a proper spirit.\n\n"Hmmm... while I'm at it..." You pop over behind her, looming up and grinning wickedly, letting your body turn into a black silhouette and your eyes glow red. "Whooooo was the one who gave the humans the ritual?"\n\n"Moop!" Mushiko hunches in on herself, quivering visibly. "I-I don't know!"\n\n"GYAAAA TELL ME YOU STUPID COW!" you yowl, dropping your intimidating demeanor and instead slamming both hands on her head for high-speed hair-ruffling.\n\n"MUMUMUMUMU I DON'T KNOOOOOOOOOOOW!" Mushiko wails as she writhes around under the assault, panting some as you stop, her hair even messier than before. "I-If I ever knew it must be one of the memories I lost when I was fading away... s-sorry, Konko, honest, I'd tell you if I knew!" \n\n"Hmph. Well." You eye her a little balefully, then shrug. "If you don't know, I guess you don't know! Hm hm hm... well, anyway, until you've proven yourself to me sufficiently that I feel like giving you your full spiritness back, you will be my live-in-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-prank target!"|KonFren]]\n\n[["-slave!"|KonFren]]\n\n[["-best friend!"|KonFren]]

"... Niobe, I'd really love to talk. About anything, not just that," you admit, glancing over as you notice people starting to move purposefully towards a central area. "But I can't ditch out on Sakai."\n\n"Oh, c'mon, Kai, this is the old man sending you out to pay his fucking booze and whore tab, isn't it?" Niobe says, scowling as she sits up straighter. "You're really gonna go scurrying off to do his work even now?"\n\n"He may've sent me out to get paid, Niobe, but this is what I chose," you answer, some firmness entering your own voice now as you stare back at her challengingly. "<i>I</i> made a promise to Sakai, not to the old man. And if I don't keep the promises <i>I</i> choose to make, then that's taking one more thing away from me because I'm a slave."\n\nNiobe is quiet for a long moment, just staring at you. Then she lets out a sigh and grins ruefully, raising her hands in a shrug. "... Shit, kid, when you're right, you're right." She stands up, taking a brief moment to fasten her belt before walking over, slipping a hand under your hood to ruffle your hair. "M'proud of you." Then she walks off, leaving you in distinct danger of standing there giving a fuck.\n\nBut you snap out of it quickly enough, hurrying to the very long table that's been set up with enough room between the seats for each representative to be flanked by their guards. You settle in to one side of Mikon as Sakai takes his seat, doing your best to look all solemn-faced and dignified like she manages to despite the combination samurai-streetwalker looking outfit she's got on.\n\n"Under the rules established by the Unofficial Business Owner's First Summit, let us call this meeting to order," Horace Allfather declares, causing many of the others to look grumpy since he's immediately snagged the closest thing to a leadership role the meeting is likely to have. The massive, leathery-skinned man with his flaming red near-literal mane of hair and beard smirks in a way that says he knows it and doesn't care in the slightest about being obvious about doing so, instead lacing his fingers and resting his hands on the table in front of him. "The issue at hand is, of course, the Street Demons."\n\n"Something needs to be done about them," Pink-neechan immediately speaks up, the fall of hair over one side of her face brushing over the medical-style mask that covers the lower half of it, eyes narrowed as she thumps a fingernail against the tabletop... all of those things (except the tabletop) being various shades of pink, of course. "You all may lose one or two people in each 'incident', but I've lost a girl in <i>every one</i>! Sometimes more than one! The collateral damage is too much, whether my girls are in one of your places working when they get hit or they're on the street when the violence starts, they're just too at risk! If you don't do something, I'm going to pull them all off the street!"\n\n"Much as I hate to agree with Pink-obaasan here, I gotta back her up on this one," the scarred and cybered woman from earlier declares while shrugging dramatically, while Pink-neesan very obviously fights the urge to strangle her. "The Crazy Hos are crazy but we ain't crazy, dig? We're way better set up to fight than her girls but that just sets 'em off harder, and they've got waaaay better gear and are just way better at killing than any of my psycho babies. We'll pull out too, and between her and me we've talked to all the good little street girls'n'boys, they're all in agreement, ya exorcise the Demons or you can go back to getting your sausage dipped and rugs cleaned the old-fashioned way... with your wives."\n\nA ripple of distinctly troubled expressions passes around the table, before Sakai clears his throat and speaks up. "I think we all understand the urgency of doing something about the Street Demons without the necessity of such statements, Pink-neesan, Rirorera. You are not the only non-combatants losing people to them."\n\n"Yeah well you start a war with these bitches and they won't be the last." This time it's Niobe who's spoken up, and you notice some shocked looks... she's probably the newest gang leader here, after all, most wouldn't expect the 'audacity' of someone like that to speak up. "Because that's what you're gonna get if you step to them, a war. And I'm not talking these little flings we all have in the streets now, couple of people pull blades, maybe there's a shootout between four or six guys, we all go scurrying off when we see the sirens flash. I've seen these types before... the violence just gets 'em worked up, they feed on it, crave it, they'll always step it up and seek it out. We step to them, and it will end with pitched battles in the streets, shit like you only see in war movies, big tough gang punks bleeding out from gutshots crying for their moms while mortars hit buildings."\n\nAn entirely different type of discomfort is shifting through the table now, seemingly split between those who don't believe her and think she's too fresh to be here, and those who do believe her and are extremely unsettled at the thought of a gang war turning into an <i>actual</i> war. "What do you suggest we do, Niobe?" the android from before asks, still sitting with hands folded in front of his lower face, though his pixel eyes have shifted over towards her. "So far every attempt at diplomacy with them has failed. I myself have tried three times, and three times I've been sent back to the Golden Cloud to be reborn."\n\n"And if Adam can't have a calm and reasonable discussion with someone," Moore mutters from a bit further down the table, scratching at her cheek above her mask in an awkward, fidgety way.\n\n"Look, I'm not saying we do nothing," Niobe says, flicking a hand through the air. "I'm just saying that <i>when we do</i>, we all need to understand what we're getting ourselves into. They're not going to fight by any sort of code, and we're gonna hafta take that into account about how we choose to go at 'em."\n\n"Yes, thank you for the assessment, but I do believe the rest of us have more experience at handling an upstart group of street anarchists, Aer," Horace speaks up again, chuckling jovially as he stares right at her with a smile that reaches his eyes in only the nastiest of ways.\n\nThe table goes silent. Everyone knows that Something Has Been Said, if not exactly what. You watch with dread as Niobe stares back at him, murder in her purple eyes, her hands flexing repeatedly against the tabletop as she quite literally fights with her body's instinctive impulse to launch herself down the table and quite literally rip Horace's head off with her bare hands. Instead, she silently stands up, stiffly turns, and heads for the door at a measured space, her now cold-eyed attendants following after her as much of the table stares in confusion.\n\n<hr>\n[[Say something to Sakai.|Kai1x9]]\n\n[[Keep silent.|Kai]]

Snorting, you declare, "Sorry, boys, girl elves are only lewd with other girl elves." That gets a sort of confused murmur out of the lot of them, most apparently not quite old enough to find the idea of two women together titillating. Then you smirk, slipping your hands out of your pockets and make a rather suggestive gesture with your fingers. "And boy elves are only lewd with other <i>boys</i>." That apparently has more of an effect, if nothing else because they're apparently of an age to still automatically think 'gay stuff is ew', causing them to make various ridiculous noises and disperse quickly.\n\nSnickering softly to yourself, you tuck your hands back in your pockets and decide to turn and head for home, damage done. Messing with kids is kind of fun, but no need to push it too far, and you've been deprived of unhealthy amounts of blue light for too long. You make your way back down the street, mind almost entirely on your video games, just sort of instinctually navigating to cross the roads and avoid cars and other pedestrians. You're about to step onto the stairs that lead up to the second level when you hear a voice from behind you say, "Hey. Miss elf." Blinking, you stop and turn to look. Standing between you and the little garden trellis the owner tries to keep to make the outside area of the apartments look better is another human child, though this one's a girl and looks at least a bit older than the boys gathered around earlier. She's got long brown hair and clear brown eyes, part of her hair caught up in the plaid scarf she has wrapped around her neck. She's wearing the winter uniform of one of the schools around the general area... middle school, you'd guess by her flat chest. She's just tugging on the cable of the earbuds she's wearing, apparently having been listening even as she followed you.\n\n<img src="images/Kimiko1.jpg">\n\n"Is what you said before true?" she asks, looking at you with a serious expression that's rather undeniably cute on her.\n\n"What I said before?" you repeat, mind a bit blank after having been yanked away from the thought of your games.\n\n"Yeah. Y'know." Her cheeks color a little bit, though she's obviously still trying to maintain her serious look. "That girl elves are lewd with other girls."\n\n"... Ah?" You blink a few times, a little surprised at her bringing it up, then shrug. "Well, yeah, pretty much. Sex is only even close to a big deal if it's romantic or for procreation, which it's implied to be if it's with the opposite sex... so if it's with your own sex, it's assumed to be just for fun or affection and it's no big deal." You give a little 'heh', brushing a fingertip at the corner of your mouth and glancing up as you muse aloud, "In fact I remember when I was younger, this half-elf girl Ammianda and me, we didn't get along at all back then, but every so often we'd still go to one of our rooms and she was <i>really</i>-" You pause, then clear your throat and shrug, just a bit of color in your cheeks. "But yeah. I guess we're pretty lewd if it's same-sex."\n\n"Okay. Well. I wanna be lewd, then," she says, bluntly enough, though you can see her hand squeeze on her bag straps as she says it.\n\n"... Oh?" you say slowly, mostly just trying to process that.\n\n"Yeah. Let's go up to your apartment and do lewd stuff, I want to," she declares, just a bit louder than before.\n\n<hr>\n[[Hm. Sure. C'mon up!|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[Youuuuu're a little young.|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[... How about a chat, instead?|SiphaKids2x2]]

You hesitate for a moment, then clear your throat. "Tell you what, we don't we have a talk instead?"\n\nThe girl frowns a bit more, glancing aside nervously. "But you said..."\n\n"Yeah, I did. But just because we're lewd when it comes to some lesbian fun doesn't mean we can't set aside our lewdness when it looks like someone needs something more than sex." The slight blanche she gives tells you that you've hit the nail on the head. "So why don't you come up and sit down and let's chat about stuff? Just friendly-like."\n\n"... L-look, if you don't want to or were just blowing smoke, that's fine, I'll just go," she murmurs, gripping her bag straps with both hands now as she turns, apparently actually intending to leave.\n\nSighing a bit, you put your hands on your hips. "Okay, okay, look, I'll make you a deal. Let's come up and talk about what's obviously bothering you. If, once we've talked about it, you still wanna do lewd stuff, we can do whatever lewd stuff you want." That makes her stop in place, and you can't help but grin as her ears turn pink. That actually is pretty darn cute. "You can be totally in charge, in that case."\n\nShe turns her head to look at you over her shoulder, expression suspicious. "... You promise?"\n\n"I promise." You lift two fingers solemnly in a gesture of pledge, then gesture to the stairs. "You just have to promise to actually talk and be honest."\n\nThat seems to make her hesitate, and you see her eyes flick between the stairs and the street a few times. But finally she huffs and gives a little nod, turning and making her way up the stairs. "Yeah, okay, deal, promise, let's go."\n\n"I'm Sipha," you say with a grin as you follow close enough behind to avoid any upskirt action. You bet they're cute, but you want to keep your mind on your goal for now.\n\n"Kimiko," she murmurs back.\n\nSoon Kimiko is sitting in your apartment, her bag, scarf, and jacket resting on your bed as she glances around, looking somewhere between amazed and disgusted as you rummage in your small fridge. "You have tons of otaku stuff," she notes, a bit of a grumble in her voice.\n\n"I inherited a lot of it from the guy that used to have this apartment," you explain as you walk over, setting a can of juice in front of her on the table, before settling down across from her and popping your own. "Sorry, I forgot to buy tea for like... the last three weeks."\n\n"It's fine." Kimiko picks up the can in both hands, seeming more interested in just holding it than in actually drinking at the moment. "But it was a guy's apartment, huh? Guess that explains the stupid plastic figures," she mutters, glancing at the shelves displaying various anime and video game women, obviously from a rather low angle since they're higher up.\n\nGasp! She has blasphemed against your plastic waifus! But you shove down your instinctive response, instead grinning wryly at her. "I mean, some were, but I bought plenty of them on my own. I don't just do lewd stuff with other girls because it's social or something, I genuinely love beautiful women of all sorts of shapes and sizes."\n\n"Oh," she says quietly, staring down at her can.\n\n"Why do you hate statuettes, anyway?" you prompt gently, keeping your voice soft.\n\nKimiko's quiet for so long that you start to think she's not going to answer you, but finally she sighs and speaks, though her eyes stay on her juice can. "Because that's what started this all. My stupid otaku brother has shelves full of them too. My parents were giving him hell over it because he spent his entire paycheck on a particularly lewd one. It was just sitting there on the table while they were chewing him out, and they didn't even notice me pick it up and take a look. I mean, mostly I was just going to tease him over it myself later, I guess," she adds with a shrug, before adding, "But..." and trailing off.\n\n"But?" you prompt after a few seconds.\n\nShe sighs, and finally takes a drink of the juice before she continues. "But as I looked at this stupid, silly anime figurine, I started feeling funny, like I'm genuinely staring at it. It was pretty detailed, I think it was from some hentai animation, and then I just dropped it back on the table and rushed upstairs. I think they legit smacked my brother around some because they thought he'd scandalized me. ... But... I mean... I couldn't get some of the stuff from the figure out of my head. Her nipples through the painted-on top were all puffy and detailed, her panties were sticking to her... her pussy, and outlining her ass with all these little detailed wrinkles around the edges, and her legs were... really nice." Her cheeks go red again, and she quickly takes another gulp of her juice.\n\n"Aha." Grinning, you prop your chin up on one hand as you look at her across the table. "I begin to see the root of it."\n\nKimiko scowls at you, but with the blush still in place it looks more like an adorable pout, before she sighs again. "... About a week later after not being able to get it out of my head, I went on the internet and started searching for things like I kept thinking about on the figure... 'nipples through top', 'tight panties', 'great girl legs'," she continues, sinking in on herself a bit more with embarrassment with each term. "... And then I started learning even more terms like 'cameltoe' and 'fetish' and 'miru tights' and before I know it I'm leaned back in my desk chair in broad daylight, a hand down the front of my panties, all red-faced and sweaty and breathing hard while I finger myself looking at two girls in wet pantyhose kissing. ... I mean, at least they were real girls, not 2D," she adds in a grumble.\n\nAh yes, the internet, the great enabler of sexual awakenings, even you who grew up without it can see how it would be such. You let Kimiko calm down from some of her embarrassment over her revelations, waiting until she's a more normal color before asking, "So you realized you liked girls... ah, no, you started to wonder if you <i>really</i> liked girls, maybe?"\n\n"... Yeah, that's it," Kimiko admits with a bob of the head. "Like I'm not an idiot, I know what lesbians are, just... I'm not sure if I'm really, actually gay, or if it's like I hear adults talking about and I'm just confused or going through a phase."\n\nYou'd seen much the same talk online. Apparently this country tends to expect gay youngsters to 'grow out of it' as part of becoming adult and having the traditional lives they're expected to. While you'd like to claim superiority to these Japanese humans, elf society being much more pragmatic about sexual attraction, you'd only be able to do so about that particular subject. If you're honest, there's plenty of other places where you were taught 'tradition above all'. But anyway, your focus needs to be on the confused and obviously rather upset girl in front of you. "So you thought maybe if you had sex with me, you'd understand if you were really gay or not," you say out loud, in a thoughtful tone that leaves it open for her to contradict you.\n\nInstead she nods slowly, peeking up at you through her lashes in what's clearly a different kind of embarrassment, though she's got some of her serious mein back on now. "... Yeah. I'd seen you around the neighborhood before anyway, and lately I'd been noticing how... how great your butt and legs looked, and then today I was passing through the park on my way home, and heard you talking to those boys. I thought... if it was true you... did lewd stuff, maybe I could just ask you and... y'know."\n\n"I see, I see." You nod along with her, then smile gently as she sets down her can. You reach over, covering one of her hands with yours. "Listen, Kimiko, I can't say I understand exactly what you're going through. But I've had to reexamine my identity before too, and I can tell you there's no easy way to do it."\n\n"I mean... it seems pretty easy," she protests, though she doesn't sound very strong about it. "If I have sex with another girl and like it, I'm gay, right?"\n\n"Or you just like sex. Or you're bisexual. Or what if you don't like it, but it's because we're not very compatible? Or you don't enjoy it because you're nervous?" You can see her growing more uncertain, which you think you're just going to have to push through to get her there. "The thing is, Kimiko, having sex with a girl might clear things up... or it might just make you way more confused. It could make it take even longer to find the answers you want, and then you might wind up feeling bad about it later. What if you threw away your first time just because you were in a hurry to get answers, and it not only didn't give you answers, but later on you found someone you really wanted to give that first time to instead?"\n\n"... But... but... I'm so confused," she whispers, actually starting to tremble a little.\n\n"I know, honey." You scoot around the table to settle in next to her, then gently pull the girl against you, wrapping both arms around her and leaning your head in. "And if I thought sex with me would give you the answers you want, I would be happy to. But I can't be sure of that, and I don't want to hurt anyone. Least of all a sweet girl like you who's already hurting."\n\nKimiko is silent as she stares at the wall out of your hug, tears starting to slip from her eyes. She's crying, but not sobbing or weeping... obviously she's a kind of stoic kid, and you've known the type. You always thought that they were stronger than everyone and didn't need anything, until your adventure with the Hero and his companions taught you otherwise. You just stroke her hair, and hold her, and let her cry for awhile as she thinks things through.\n\nEventually she sits up, using her sleeve to wipe at her cheeks. "Hey," you say, waiting until Kimiko turns her slightly reddened eyes to you. "I promise that as you work it out, I'll be there for you. We just met, but every friendship has to start somewhere, and I'll be the friend that you can talk to about this. Okay?"\n\n"... Okay." She nods once, then adds quietly. "Thank you."\n\n<hr>\n[["Feel better?"|SiphaKids]]\n\n[["Still want to have sex?"|SiphaKids]]

<b>Devious Mundanity</b> Build Alpha 2\n\nDevious Mundanity is a spinoff from Devious World. Like its original, it is a Choose Your Own Adventure story-based game. There are no stats, no grinding, just your choices and where they lead you in the story.\n\nIt is also an adult game, intended for mature audiences. It is entirely a work of fiction; all characters are fictional, all situations are fictional, nothing is drawn from real life. Fantasy is heavily stressed over reality. All characters are written by a legal adult, so should be considered to be portrayed by legal adults whatever their stated ages in the narrative may be.\n\nDevious World is based off of the concept of normal people who grew up leading normal lives suddenly having to deal with a very strange world. Devious Mundanity focuses on the inverse... people who are already "out of the norm" who have to deal with a (nominally) mundane world, or for whom the deviant is everyday. In Devious World, it's the people who are normal and the world that's the challenge... here in Devious Mundanity, it's the people who are devious and, well, the world can still be a bit of a challenge. Of course it's not guaranteed to stay normal for long... not after these characters get ahold of it!\n\nOnce you the player make a choice, the character lives in a world where only what happens and what they learn from that choice exists... the world as it is following one choice could be completely different than the one in which they made another choice. Storylines are not canon to each other.\n\n[[I am over 18 and I wanna play!|CharGenMain]]\n\n[[Useful information|IntroInfo]]\n\n[[Fetish List]]\n\n[[Acknowledgements]]\n\n[[Version History]]\n\n[[Disclaimer]]

"Why, I'm going to greet her myself, of course," you coo. "She is the very first tenant of this Dark Monolith after all... it seems only fair she receives a bit of personal attention."\n\n"Your majesty is far more gracious than any creature in existence deserves," Xenith coos adoringly. "I would caution you to be careful, but of course such an adventurer has as much chance of defeating you as a gnat does of defeating a moon."\n\nYou pause briefly, finding yourself considering the logistics of a gnat actually knocking an orbiting planetoid out of the sky, but decide not to bring up any theories you might develop to Xenith. You love her dearly, but she can be a bit much with the assuring you that she's perfectly fine with being tormented for her impertinence all the time. Instead you snap your fingers and pop yourself into the room you've crafted beyond the door at the end of the hall, shaping it into an opulent bedroom in the part of a moment between your disappearance and reappearance, then sinking to sit on the edge of the crimson-sheeted bed.\n\nIt's only a few moments before the door handle rattles, and then swings open, Effiel raising her bow to the ready. Whatever she was expecting, it clearly wasn't a beautiful woman with wings sitting in a lavish bedchamber. She's clearly flummoxed for part of a second, during which you smile and say, "<b>Drop that, please, it's not very polite.</b>"\n\nThe bow and arrow tumble out of her fingers which immediately open, and it clearly takes her several heartbeats to realize she just obeyed you. "Wh-... what?!"\n\nIt's quite simple, really, though you don't feel like explaining it in depth to the poor confused elf. The first Demon Lord of the Realm of Deviltry, Astaroth, had an ability called 'Wicked Command' that allowed her to issue orders that must be obeyed to anyone with a lower Will score than hers. And the tenth demon lord, Akkabar, had an ability called 'Lord's Will', which gave him a bonus equal to his Demon Lord incarnation to his Will score for the purposes of determining ability and spell effects. Necessary powers for those first tempestuous handful of incarnations where the Realm of Deviltry was an anarchic roil of demon energies and the Dark Monolith had not been properly established as a central stabilizing force. Of course, as the 666th Demon Lord, you have access to both... and both of them work together. "Welcome to the Dark Monolith, Effiel," you continue genially to the shocked elf. "I am Demon Lord Maxia. <b>Take off your clothes, please.</b>"\n\n"A demon lord?! How have you kidnapped me here? And of course I'm not going to-!" Of course about that time Effiel realizes she's already stripped off her panties, completing slipping them over her boots and tossing them aside. You can see from the slightly panicked look on her face that she's trying to struggle, but with +666 to your Will versus hers, well, that's just not happening. She unfastens the clasp of her mantel and collar, allowing the mantle to drop backwards and the collar to drop forward, baring her pert tits to the air, both of them jiggling slightly as she reaches back to undo the clasp of the gold band around her chest as well. After that it's simply a matter of undoing her quiver belt and stepping out of her boots, leaving her to snap back to being in control of herself and flinging a hand across her bare tits and smooth pussy. "H-how are you doing this to me?"\n\n"Oh, that's unimportant, just a bunch of powergaming rules-lawyery stuff," you announce dismissively, waving the question off with a flick of one hand. "The important thing is, you have the honor of being the very first heroic soul to be interred here in the Dark Monolith, residing within it forever and lending your power to the Realm of Deviltry. <b>Cum a little at the thought of being my possession forever.</b>"\n\n"Nnnnh!" Effiel shudders all over, her hands involuntarily clenching against her pussy and against her breast, her cheeks and the bridge of her nose going pink at the sudden forced orgasm. "Y-you monster!"\n\n"Yes, obviously." Smiling, you stand up and stretch briefly, before explaining, "Don't worry, you'll soon be enjoying your stay very much. <b>Climb up on the bed on all fours, present yourself to me, and shake your ass like a bitch in heat.</b>"\n\n"No! No, I mustn't! Lenaraelle give me strength to fight this perverted creature's demands!" Effiel cries out. It looks like Lenaraelle doesn't get reception out in the Realm of Deviltry, however, since Effiel is already walking towards the bed even as she's crying out for salvation, walking right past you (and giving a yelp as you swat her affectionately on the ass). She continues to call out to her goddess for aid as she climbs up onto the bed, ass lifting as she goes onto all fours and swaying back and forth, displaying her pink pussy to you even before she stops in the middle and juts it back in more deliberate fashion, shaking her hips wantonly even as she cries out "Th-this is obscene! Foul demon, release me from this despicable cruelty!"\n\n"Aw, it hurts my feelings for you to call it cruelty, dear," you coo as you climb up onto the bed behind her, manifesting the Dark Scepter... the inheritance of the 130th Demon Lord, it could fire blasts of dark energy that caused corruption, as well as corrupting any hero foolish enough to try and disarm the Demon Lord by taking hold of it. It can manifest in any form as long as it's a 'rod'... so of course you manifest it as a strapon~! One with two long, jutting black rubber members, gleaming darkly with flickering shadows that hint of their purpose. "I promise you're going to enjoy every moment of this, whether you want to or not, and once I'm done, you'll feel muuuuch better and lewder!" You run your hands back and forth over her generous ass, squeezing the yielding flesh and letting the feathery ends of your sleeves tickle her enough to make her squirm some more. Then you bring your hips forward, just barely bumping the tips of the Dark Scepter up against her pussy and pucker.\n\n"GYEEEEK! W-what is that?!" Effiel demands, no doubt hit with the sudden shock of demonic energy against her low-level divine aura... and no doubt by the way her pussy instantly becomes absolutely drenched and her asshole starts twitching eagerly.\n\n"Just a family heirloom," you answer cheerfully, running your hands up and down her back some, giving her a few moments to experience the dark energies kicking her libido into overdrive as the very beginnings of corruption start. "Here, let me further demonstrate its power, Effi!"\n\nYou thrust forward, simultaneously claiming her vaginal and anal virginity, the elf crying out in a mixture of surprise, humiliation, and pleasure as she instantly cums hard enough to make her arch her back and roll her eyes. Giggling softly, you take hold of her slender waist and start thrusting in quick, easy strokes, your hips smacking her ass firmly enough to send ripples through the yielding flesh and making her tits sway beneath her, your own jiggling merrily in their skimpy top. "Mmm, evil feels good, doesn't it?" you purr, watching as her pale skin gradually starts to darken, and the roots of her hair pale, the petals of the flower in it dropping away. "The sooner you give in to it and accept your new form, the better it will feel, love," you assure her further as you drive both long rubber rods into her unwillingly eager holes.\n\n"Nnnh, nnnnh, no, I... I... oh goddess it feels so good," she whimpers, shuddering beneath you. She gasps as you lean forward, pressing your breasts against her back as you reach beneath her to fondle her own tits, which are now also beginning to change, growing a bit larger against your palms with every thrust of your hips. Her nipples, previously small pink nubs, grow longer and thicker, the areola puffing out and darkening to match the rest of its skin as it turns a rich caramel color, her hair now almost entirely snowy white. "No... no, I must resist," she whines, eyes rolling somewhat again as you pinch her newly thick and sensitive nipples, tugging them and twisting not particularly gently as she helplessly starts to buck against the twin shafts spearing her hot little holes. Her sclera are starting to darken, black pooling in around the edges like spilled ink. "I... I must... I must!" Her eyes shoot wide open as you slip a hand down her belly and start furiously frigging her clit, her whole body shocked into stillness for a single instant before she screams out in utterly shameless pleasure, her eyes blazing with infernal light even as they roll in her head, her tongue stretching and elongating as it lolls out from between her new fangs, a glowing pink womb-and-heart tattoo appearing just above her crotch. You straighten up and grab her waist again just in time for her new wings to spring out of her back and her tail to pop out and start writhing sinuously in the air. "YESSSSSS!" the newly-turned succubus squeals in delight, instantly starting to writhe sensually and fuck back against you with instinctive skill and enthusiasm.\n\n"Theeeere, didn't I promise you'd feel so much better, Effi?" you purr as you continue to fuck your newest loyal servant, delivering another affectionate smack to her ass that makes her yowl with pleasure and cum around the rubber shafts pumping her infernal ass and corrupt pussy.\n\n"Oh yes, your majesty, it feels sooooo good," she moans without the slightest hint of shame or restraint, a near-brainless smile on her now ruby red lips. "Being your slave is sooo much better than serving some worthless stuck up bitch of a goddess!" \n\nThat gets a giggle out of you. "I thought it might be." You pull the Dark Scepter out of her and dismiss it, instead elegantly flopping onto your back on the bed and pulling your panties to the side, revealing your own dripping pussy. "Now come, show your queen your appreciation for crushing your will and enslaving your soul."\n\n"Mmmm, with utmost pleasure, your majesty," Effi coos back, slinking between your legs, hands resting reverently on your thighs as she leans in, kissing at your plump folds lovingly. Then that long tongue snakes out, sliding along the cleft of your pussy before slipping inside you, seeming to just get longer and thicker as she starts working it about inside you, putting her everything into bringing pleasure to the demon that enslaved her as she gazes up at you with nothing but adoration and worship in her glowing green eyes.\n\n"Ahhhh... yes, good girl, that's a very talented tongue you wound up with," you moan softly, closing your eyes and leaning your head back, stroking her soft white hair with one hand. You wrap your legs around her head, gently fucking against her face every now and then, grinding your plump pussylips against her pretty red mouth, feeling her tongue-fuck you deeply and lovingly, with the sort of dedication she must have once reserved for prayers to her goddess of chastity.\n\nAfter a few dozen orgasms, though, you decide it's time to get back to work, so with a sigh you order Effi to stop and tug your panties back into place. You rise to your feet, Effi doing so as well and creating a black leather version of her previous outfit, albeit minus the quiver belt and mantle. You pop the two of you back to the control room, and gently shoo the new succubus to join the rest of Xenith's crew. Summoning yourself a throne, you settle down into it and fold your legs, taking a few moments to revel in a job well done, since of course you did it yourself.\n<<set $effibus to true>>\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|MaxFirstThroneroom]]

Good ol' bounty hunting. One of the best ways to make a reputation for yourself in the Guild and even beyond, since it's widely viewed as the coolest and sexiest mercenary sub-profession. So let's see who's decided they'll go to jail (or the afterlife) tired. Or, who needs something and wants someone else to go get it for them, but eh, it's mostly bounty hunting in here, usually.\n\n[[Comet Lion|LeoNovaStart]] - Now this is interesting. The 'client' field is the G.I.P.S.E. itself. That doesn't happen, which means that this Comet Lion guy must be a former Guild member that trespassed against the Guild rules. Considering the size of the bounty, and the fact that he's listed as Dead or Alive (with Alive having a bonus, but not a very big one), it must have been one heck of a trespass.

"Tell me a little more about this scientist, is this someone who's a threat?"\n\n"Well, depends on how seriously you take people not knowing about real magic. She's pretty open about wanting to find the 'real thing' and experiment with it, so I don't doubt she'd publish a paper with proof if she could." Orrin shrugs. "I mean, you can go over and check her out if you want, I guess. Her name's Rina."\n\n"Okay, yeah, I'll take a look at her, see if she checks out."\n\nAfter a bit more talking, you bid Orrin goodbye and head back out of the store, following his directions down a few streets to the less cleaned-up and rennovated area. There is indeed a somewhat dilapidated-looking shopfront, though someone's put up a decently-printed posterboard sign over the (cracked) glass of the window reading 'Practical Magic Investigation'. You glance around for any other signs, or a doorbell, and see neither one, so after a moment's hesitation you just try the door, which turns out to be open. The inside is a bit dusty, the old linoleum floor in poor condition and mostly being held down by the stacks of cardboard boxes, it looks like. There's an old countertop, devoid of anything for doing business with and apparently currently only good for holding a scattering of electronic components. "Hello?" you call, shifting your bag a bit on your shoulder.\n\n"Yes! One second please!" comes a voice from the back of the shop. "I'm just in the middle of something, I'll-!" There's a crackling noise, and you scent the release of the mystical blue smoke that makes electronics work. "... I am no longer in the middle of something, I will be right out."\n\nSeconds later a woman a few years older than you walks out, dusting off her hands. She looks a bit like she's on her way out to an anime convention, her long hair dyed bubblegum pink and what you assume are color contacts turning her eyes the same color, her clothes black and vaguely 'cyberpunk' in style, the sleeveless top high-collared and with several straps clicked over it, disconnected zip-up sleeves on her arms, and snug pants that look like they're some weird cross between rubber and spandex with a stippled pattern on them, and clasp-up boots. She adjusts her own glasses, then gives you a little wave. "Hello there! Can I help you?"\n\n<img src="images/Rina.png">\n\n"You're Rina, right?" At her cheerful nod, you continue. "I'm Valerie. I'm a local, and I heard you're trying to... investigate magic?"\n\n"Yes indeed!" She beams at you, clasping her hands in front of herself. "I very much want to harness what I understand magic can do, so it can be replicated and used via technology! That way it will be accessible to everyone!"\n\n"Assuming magic does what it's said to, isn't that kind of dangerous?" You quirk an eyebrow at her, folding your arms. "You want to hand just anyone the ability to turn someone else into a frog?"\n\nShe blinks back at you, raising a fingertip to her lower lip. "Well, right now just a handful of people have that sort of power, to my understanding. Is it really any more dangerous for everyone to be able to do something than for a few select individuals that no one else have any real control over to be able to do it?"\n\nYou open your mouth, then close it, not able to respond right off the top of your head. Something seems wrong with that reasoning, but then between witches and wicked witches, it's not like people don't get messed about with via magic plenty as it is. And these aren't exactly carefully selected individuals either, as your own induction into being a practicing witch shows.\n\nWhile you're puzzling that over, Rina continues. "I mean, I suppose there will definitely be some bad things to come of it if you can buy a 'magic wand' remote control in any store, but that's true of any new revolution. But I think a lot more good would ultimately come of it! It could help solve hunger issues, revolutionize medicine, lessen our impact on the environment, not to mention the simple quality of life improvements! But, the simple fact is that I need someone to help me discover more about magic. Is that why you came here?" she adds eagerly, leaning in a bit. "You're a witch, aren't you?"\n\nYou do your best to no-sell your reaction. "What makes you say that?"\n\nRina grins and taps the sides of her glasses. "I may not have made a ton of progress, but I <i>do</i> know that magic is definitely real, and that it has an energy signature. The sensors and displays built into these show me your 'aura', as it were, and it's two to three times as intense an energy reading as the average I've measured. I really do hope you've come to help, I think we could help a lot of people together! And, you know, quite likely get rich as a nice little side benefit," she adds with a giggle, putting her fingertips over her lips.\n\nYou frown thoughtfully at her, trying to decide what to do. She has some decent arguments, and... well, you'd definitely like to be rich, so there is that. What she's talking about could also be intensely dangerous... you have to admit that part of you just has a gut reaction that no non-practitioner should know as much as she already does. What to do?\n\n<hr>\n[[Help her.|ValNA]]\n\n[[Eliminate her.|VAlNA]]\n\n[[Wait and see.|ValNA]]

"We believed you'd perished in the dimensional rift trap you created," you continue. "I'm actually relieved to see you alive, believe it or not. Though you're a little more..." You glance the rather diminutive, obviously shortened figure of the mad scientist up and down briefly. "... compact... than the last time I saw you."\n\n"Gyeheheh, Caliburn, my old nemesis!" she replies... which sounds super cute, actually, her age regression hasn't done her evil cackle any favors. Instead of bordering on 'granny blue' her hair is now a bright ocean blue (wait that color was natural?), tied back in a long ponytail. She's still wearing 'casual lab wear' including the lab coat over a button-up shirt and slacks, but of course has accessorized out the yin-yang with an overengineered tool belt, data projector clipped to the side of her eyes, and even some sort of teched-up ponytail holder. Of course if those and the little square spectacles didn't say 'mad scientist' enough there's also the blue metal cybernetic left arm with obvious attached laser, one of her control drones hovering above it menacingly. ... Ah, actually, it still kind of looks like a genius kid playing with their new toy at Christmas, really.\n\n<img src="images/DrDeathtrap.png">\n\n"Your relief that I'm alive is appreciated, but it will earn you no quarter, my old nemesis!" Actually you only really fought her for the first time like three years ago and she's really more of a 'shared' nemesis of the Guardian Sentinels but you guess there's not really a good way to convey that while you're Menaceloguing. "When you and your fellows tossed me into that rift, I was doomed to the fate that was so rightfully yours... tumbling for all eternity in the void between worlds! Too bad for you, I was able to set up an energy feedback loop in my prosthetics that repeled against the energy frequency of the void, and ejected me forcibly into the nearest parallel dimension! But not only did the process destroy my cyberlimbs, the temporal forces at work twisted my body into the form you see before you! I assure you however that my delightfully devious mind is wholly unchanged, even if it <i>is</i> being constantly bombarded by puberty hormones!"\n\nOh. Oh shit.\n\n"But now I'm back in my rightful dimension after the Hell that was surviving across multiple other ones, gradually finding my way home, having to rebuild my arm and leg as I did! And now I'm ready to make you go through a Hell of my own making, for I've built-!"\n\n"'My most diabolical Labyrinth of Doom ever,'" you murmur along with her exclamation, in a slightly exhausted tone.\n\nDoctor Deathtrap pauses in mid-adorable cackle. "What was that?"\n\n"No, nothing, go on," you say quickly, Serious Hero Face back in place.\n\nShe eyes you suspiciously for a second before continuing. "And you'll enter this Labyrinth of Doom and complete it on my conditions this time as well!"\n\n"And why would I do that?" The words are almost out of your mouth before you think them, partly because that's what this part of the 'script' almost always says, but also because you're wondering why the hell you really would do such a thing.\n\n"Let's just say that I've prepared several very good pieces of incentive, Caliburn!" she replies instantly, leaning in close to the camera with a sneer. "Or should I say... <i>Morgan Mekborne</i>?!"\n\nYou freeze your expression, which is probably its own sort of tell, but frankly you've never had this happen to you before. You've had other heroes tell you about their nemeses pulling it on them, but you're at least going to resist any urge to just blatantly gasp 'HOW?!' or something. "And why would you say what is probably someone's name like that?" you ask evenly.\n\nInstantly the snarky, smarmy attitude drops and Deathtrap slams her organic palm against the console the camera's probably mounted in, leaning in close to point with her prosthetic. "Don't you 'who dat?' me, you little snot! I used facial recognition! You don't even wear a mask, idiot!"\n\n"Bull!" You snap back. "There's a scattering field built into the glasses, it blurs certain features just enough that facial recognition doesn't work on me! ... Wait, <i>shit</i>!"\n\n"Aha! Aha aha ahaaaa!" Doctor Deathtrap bobbles her head back and forth, sing-songing, "Got you got you got yoooooou and I did so use facial recognition ha haaaaa!"\n\n"<i>How</i>?" you growl out.\n\n"Because you take off your glasses to unlock your iPhone, stupid!" she declares smugly, adding a little 'hmm hmm hmm!' as she bobbles her head again, index fingers poked to her cheeks. "♪ And I hacked iiiit! ♫"\n\n"Oh for..." You slap a hand to your forehead and drag it down your face. You totally do. Then you blink. "Hey wait, how did you know to hack Morgan Mekborne's iPhone if you didn't already know my secret identity?"\n\n"FOOL! I hacked <i>everybody's</i> iPhone! GYAHA! GYAHA! GYAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" she cackles, throwing back her head with her hands spread and fingers curled. "I have dirt on eeeeeeverybody, gyahahaha! Diplomats, politicians, celebrities, crime bosses, law enforcement! I know eeeeeeeeeeeeverything!" She pauses in her gloating, straightening up and lifting a single finger. "Just in case you're curious, Jeffrey Epstein did not, in fact, kill himself."\n\nYour expression goes flat. "Yeah, great, didn't exactly need the biggest data leak in history to figure that one out." Then you tilt your head a little. "But hey, while we're at it, who actually did it?"\n\n"Jussie Smollet, but not for the reasons you'd think," she informs you solemnly, before flinging aside the flap of her labcoat dramatically. "But I didn't call you to make a bunch of jokes that will be horribly dated in two years! I called you to bring about your DOOM!" She folds her arms before smirking into the camera and declaring, "If you do not come to the following coordinates and enter the Annex of Annihilation in the next three hours, I will tell the world that Caliburn is Morgan Mekborne, annoyingly sexy tech heir! Twenty-four hours after that, I'll drop a data leak on the internet that will make the end of <i>The Winter Soldier</i> look like someone doxing the President!" She then beams cheerfully and waggles her fingers at the camera. "Toodles!" With that, the transmission ends.\n\n... Damn, this is bad. This is really bad. You don't really doubt that what Deathtrap said about hacking every iPhone on the planet was true... something of that scale was always within her grasp, apparently she was just never motivated (read: pissed off) enough to do something like it before. It also seems like she's <i>really</i> planned ahead this time... it might actually be better to rally together more Guardian Sentinels and make a plan, though that could definitely take more than three hours, depending on where some of them are. There's also, you admit, a small part of you that's so freaked out by the idea that Doctor Deathtrap might be truly, deadly serious this time that you kind of want to hope she's bluffing and pretend it will all go away. ... Then again she's always been more bark than bite before, despite being a legitimate threat. You can probably still handle this yourself, as she seems to want you to.\n\n<hr>\n[[Put together a hurried meeting.|Cal2x5]]\n\n[[Put together a proper meeting.|Cal]]\n\n[[Hope it all blows over.|Cal]]\n\n[[Go to the Annex of Annihilation.|Cal]]

Otherwise known as 'Sam, Alex, and Clover' apparently. A trio of late teenage girls recruited to work for some ridiculous spy organization on Earth. Hm, looks like a lot of these options are on Earth, really. Well, whatever. Having your ship the <i>Infinite Decimal</i> prepped for launch, you spend a few moments transferring information files to its main bridge. As you're about to get up to depart for it, you pause... hm, why not make this 'three on three'? You could obviously easily handle these three "totally" spies yourself, but why not use it as an excuse for some family bonding? Grinning, you comm the dispatch desk of your mercenary company. "Have the twins meet me aboard the <i>Infinite Decimal</i>."\n\nWhen you walk onto the bridge, a pair of figures are already waiting for you, all bright wicked smiles and glittering yellow eyes. Rose Gold Lorde and White Gold Lorde are both attired in tight bodysuits, Rose's red to match her crimson hair and baring her shoulders and arms, White with her whole body covered by alternating black and white material, both of them with larger, perkier tits and rounder hips than you ever had, but then that's by their choice. "Hi, Mom!" they say in perfect sync, obviously delighted to be called on.\n\n<img src="images/LordeTwins.jpg">\n\n"Hey babies," you coo, walking over to wrap an arm around each and deliver kisses to cheeks. They're not technically your daughters... by a particularly strict definition they're nanite colony drones, split off from your own colony (and endowed with somewhat restricted functions) and running off of a select collection of your own personality traits. But they're self-sustaining, fully capable of making their own decisions, and plus it's just more fun to think of them as daughters considering the stuff you get up to together. "Ready to help Mom do some devious things to a trio of teenagers?"\n\n"Oooo, what sort of devious things?" White asks, eyes sparkling as she puts a fingertip to her lips.\n\n"Are we roughing them up? Taking control of them? Warping their bodies and minds?" Rose demands excitedly, flexing her bare arms in readiness to get to work.\n\n"Possibly all of the above." You take a few moments to explain your current mission. You figure it's a good idea to bring White and Rose along anyway for something involving three individuals... they have the same ability to record full sensory experience that you do, you should be able to edit all three streams together into something particularly enjoyable for the client. "So anyway, that's it... we bitch-break these three in some preferably entertaining way, I trim up and send off the sense-recording, and we share a nice little payday off of it."\n\n"I do so enjoy family time," White says dreamily.\n\n"Hm, so what's the plan, Mom?" Rose asks, resting her hands on her hips as you take a seat in the captain's chair and start looking over the info files. "Where and how do we hit 'em?"\n\n"Let's see, let's see... it looks like they're usually dispatched when someone steals or develops some scientific doodad that could be used to terrorize the populace, so we're pretty good there. We could just steal something ourselves, or let it be leaked that we're new players on the scene with a horrifying-but-not-too-obviously-horrifying gadget. Looks like they already tend to wind up at the mercy of the villains fairly regularly, but instead of monologuing at them a bit and then leaving them in an easily escapable deathtrap, we'll, y'know, rape the hell out of them. Shouldn't be too hard. Or there's the option I suspect you'd enjoy, Rose."\n\nHer eyes glitter wickedly. "Going directly at them and doing it in public?"\n\n"They're university students, apparently, so doing it in the middle of a class could be a lot of fun, I imagine the client would enjoy that just as much as the intrigue. Hm, but let's see..."\n\n<hr>\n[[Lure them as spies.|KiSTS1x1]]\n\n[[Snag them as civilians.|KiSTS]]

Hm, clubs could definitely be a lot of fun to mess with, humans have made up so many reasons to gather based on various interests... interests that can be exploited for pranks, of course!\n\nYou wile away the rest of the school day by magically concealing yourself and performing various minor acts of mischief... stealing panties out of the girls' locker room and distributing them in various random bookbags across the school, blocking up toilets, loading up embarrassingly loud porn videos set to autoplay on computers before putting them back to sleep mode, shifting closed locker contents to be leaned against the door, that sort of jazz. Eventually school lets out, and for awhile you giggle yourself silly as a fair bit of your pranking is discovered all at once, causing a brief flurry of chaos and aggravation in the halls. lololololol trolled!\n\nBut eventually students in non-athletic clubs start making their way towards the club building, while the athletic clubs head for the, well, the athletics buildings, while the students in the go-home club or who are already diligently preparing for an adult life working themselves to death by going to another school after they leave this one all start filing out the gate. Those aren't your focus today, though, so let's see... head to the [[non-athletic clubs|Konko2x2]] building, or the [[athletics buildings|Konko]].

Yeah, messing with the sportsheads would be fun, but messing with the more nerd-like clubs is probably more... y'know, creative, there's more theming going on there, y'know? You head to the single multi-story building somewhat disconnected from the main one, deciding to see what you have the opportunity to do.\n\nMost of the students are already in their club rooms and beginning to settle in when you arrive. Good, they can get good and settled while you browse the mischief menu, it'll be better if they think it's just a normal day and have time to start their routines before you shake anything up. Now let's see, let's see, are you going to have to wander every hallway, or...? Oh! No, good, there's a listing by the entrance. Gosh, it really is like a menu! Thank you, humans! You make fucking with you so easy! Alright, now, what club is going to get the grand prize of a bunch of foxy fuckery?\n\n[[Paranormal Club|Konko]]\n\n[[Occult Club|Konko]]\n\n[[Extraterrestrial Club|KonET1x1]]\n\n... Ehhhhh? Aren't these all usually one club attended by the same weirdos? You lean in and squint a bit at the descriptions... your vision is perfect! You just feel like it! But ah, okay... the paranormal club apparently is apparently specifically about ghosts and poltergeists and monsters and such, while the occult club is about magic spells, ESP, and other such things attributed as potential human powers. And the extraterrestrial club is purely about aliens and life from other worlds, not weird local stuff, okay, yeah, makes sense.\n\n[[Manga Club|Konko]]\n\n[[Light Novel Writing Club|Konko]]\n\n[[Photography Club|Konko]]\n\n[[Unrestrained Fashion Club|KonCD1x1]] ... Kon? 'Unrestrained Fashion'? Let's see, descriptions says, 'A club about the exploration of fashion sensibilities unrestrained by gender norms.' Eh? ................ EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!? This school has a <i>crossdressing club</i>?!?! They managed to make a <i><b>crossdressing club</b></i>?! OMG OMG OMG THAT'S SO COOOOOOOOOOOOOL! You kind of actually want to join it for real, that's so neeeeeat! Good job, humans, good job!

Your name is Morgan Mekborne, and for the first thirteen years of your life you thought you were nothing particularly special. Oh sure, your grades were great, but not completely perfect, and yeah you're rich but not like that makes <i>you</i> special. Just means that your father, the genius engineer, owns his own globe-spanning company that makes all sorts of necessary high-end devices and your mother... you weren't sure what your mother did but you always supposed she must work for the company somehow, because she was gone a lot. Really they both were, though they did their best when they were there, being emotionally present, doing their best to be role models, trying to engage with you. Still, there was always the stereotype of a lot of missed school plays and parent days... not so much on the little league games since, quite frankly, you were a huge nerd. Big nerd. Muuuuchly nerd. Yeah.\n\nBut in that thirteenth year, something amazing happened. Not only did puberty really kick in, but so did the abilities you inherited from your mom. Oh, yeah, turns out that usually when she missed a school play or whatever it's because she was catching a bus that fell off a bridge or getting zapped with a death ray and so on, because she's the superhero Excalibur, and also an alien from the planet Avellon. So yeah that was a good week of sitting staring at the wall thinking 'Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?' Actually it was pretty weird because you always thought 'Boy Excalibur sure does look like my mom' but that seemed like the dumbest thing in the world to ever say out loud so you always just assumed you were a dink.\n\nWhich you suppose wouldn't actually explain your dad not turning up, except turns out that he's the superhero Multi-Core because of course he is and when <i>he</i> was missing science fairs it's because he was disarming nuclear missiles hijacked by megalomaniacs and fighting ten-ton rage monsters. So yeah way to make <i>you</i> feel like the asshole for ever being annoyed about it, Mom and Dad, thanks a ton. For... saving the world. And also giving you life. ... Yeah. Thanks. Dammit.\n\nYeah it took you a couple of years of weekly sessions with a supertherapist but you're over it, swear.\n\nAnyway, not too long after you developed your powers, you assumed the superhero identity of Caliburn, and were kinda-sorta your mother's sidekick for the next few years. Some of your powers weren't quite as impressive as hers, but you were able to make up the difference with some gadgets, at first designed by your dad, then designed by you and your dad. Turns out that one of your powers is that your brain works way more efficiently and you need barely any sleep to function, which makes learning and studying much much easier. Which is one reason you haven't flunked out of college despite missing a loooot of classes to run off and do hero stuff, and in your final year you're well on your way to graduating with a near-perfect GPA. You've got good looks (lean muscle, great raven hair, sapphire blue eyes, perfect teeth, big... charisma), lots of friends (on both sides of the cape), a promising career ahead (on both sides of the cape), and your therapist assures you that the vast majority of your trust and gratitude issues are resolved. Things are going pretty good, all in all!\n\nWith that in mind, you step into your apartment and make sure to set the smartwindows to 'active camouflage' (they make it look like all is normal from outside no matter what you're doing inside, thanks Dad but also this is one of the reasons there were trust issues) before heading for the 'armory', the hidden area of your bedroom housing your gear. Taking off your glasses and going through the only mildly elaborate process to actually open it up (don't want to go accidentally popping it open if you bring someone over, after all), revealing the aesthetically Very Superhero-y contoured and lit shelves. While most of your powers are innate or built into your suit, you do have a few spares of it and a few other gadgets you use occasionally, so you of course display them all like a combination between an actual armory and a museum, as is right and proper. (You also have a few things you've confiscated from villains and haven't gotten around to putting in more secure storage yet because you always forget. Like you're going to today.) Stripping out of your everyday clothes, you pull on the blue bodysuit, capped with gold over the shoulders and chest and connecting to the long red cape bearing the white, gold, and silver sword-and-starburst you share as a symbol with your mother, although the design of your sword is a bit different, obviously. You clip on the golden bracers that contain most of the tech you use on a regular basis, spend a minute rumpling up your hair just so (hey, Morgan has one look, Caliburn has another, not like it's <i>just</i> the glasses, okay?), then close the armory back up and prep the transporter sequence.\n\nYou've got watch duty today.\n\nObjectively it's a big honor... to not only be a member of Earth's elite hero crew the Guardian Sentinels, but to be entrusted with being the member to watch over Earth while the others do their own patrolling, or live their civilian lives, or head deep into space on important missions there. Buuuut after the new wore off you made the same realization every new member eventually has, that it's basically babysitting duty for the planet. Sure, there's a <i>chance</i> that something will happen and you'll need to call in other members of the team to handle it, but that happens like... once a month?\n\nAll the same, you reappear in the teleporter room that adjoins the monitor area, a large, mostly circular room with a view of the stars and Earth itself outside (just in case you do in fact need to look out and check if it's still there with your eyeballs), as well as a number of screens, holographic projectors, and workstations. You cross to the main monitor station and lay a hand against the control panel. "Caliburn, checking in for watch duty."\n\n"Good evening, Caliburn," comes the perfectly simulated, modulated, and cultivated voice of the station's AI. "Thank you for accepting watch duty today."\n\n"Anything to report?" you ask as you settle into the (admittedly quite comfortable) chair. \n\n"No criminal or supercriminal activity rising above established parameters is currently noted. No help beacons have been activated. There are no extrasolar or extradimensional messages marked unread. It is looking to be a 'quiet night'."\n\nTch. And here you could be patrolling your own city of New Britannia. Or out on a date as Morgan Mekborne. ... Or playing MMOs, that unofficial server of <i>City of Pirates</i> is still pretty slamming since it came online a month ago.\n\nYou can't help but turn over the other possibilities of what you could be doing instead. After all, you could get back to the monitor room in a matter of seconds from pretty much anywhere on the station if you set up an alert and wanted to [[poke around|Cal]]... after all, you've only officially been a member for a few months and you haven't gotten much opportunity to just roam around looking at things. Even if you stay in the watch room you could always [[look for stuff|Cal1x1]] in here... interesting files in the computer, or even things that might have been just left laying around the room by other people on watch. \n\nOh right... one of the other youngish members of the team actually gave you a hint awhile back how you could get out of a boring turn on watch duty... part of watch duty includes 'monitoring for other heroes in need of assistance'. But there's nothing that says you can't proactively [[call them|Cal]] and ask if they need help first! A team-up technically still counts as being on watch duty, if the other hero bites.\n\nOrrrr you could be thoroughly responsible and [[stay right here|Cal2x1]], like you're really supposed to. It's only... ten hours, how bad could it be?

Giving your head a quick shake, you snap your hands up and slap your cheeks a few times. Okay, snap out of it, Sipha! This isn't like you, a few decades in some other world shouldn't be able to do this to you. You not only promised, you prepared for this date! Taking a deep breath, you fill your mind with confidence while filling your lungs with air, rising to your feet and crossing to the closet. Throwing the door to the side, you pull out the dress you bought for tonight and toss it onto the bed, before retrieving the bag from the lingerie store and tossing it and the matching pumps beside the dress. Then you turn and march yourself into the bathroom to get properly ready.\n\nAt 8:45 you walk into the park, smelling girlier than you have in years from expensive soap and some perfume, your hair thoroughly brushed and falling across one eye by design rather than negligence. Your dress is a purple Cheongsam-style thing that comes to just barely below your hips, and is slit slightly up the sides, and leaves your long, stocking-sheathed legs on display, as well as some of the garter belt straps that come down and clip to the top of the stockings. It's probably the most daring, and definitely most expensive, thing you've worn in public since you got here, and you can't help but feel a little silly walking along clasping this tiny little black purse on you and smelling like a perfectly cultivated flower garden as you stride past empty playground equipment.\n\nYou can feel your heart trembling as you approach the bench, and the sight of someone actually standing there waiting is perhaps the biggest relief you've ever had in a very long life full of combat and strife. You spot the white hair in its long ponytail easily enough, and the light tan skin. You see that you've coincidentally matched at least one part of Makoto's outfit, as his red silk top is also Chinese-style, though you blink at the sight of the loose, short white skirt and black thigh-highs, and red pumps. 'Wow, he's gone even further into challenging fashion norms, good for you,' you think, albeit still with a bit of surprise... before your jaw actually drops as the figure turns around to reveal the full, pert breasts outlined by the top, which just helps emphasize the slender waist and curved hips. "M-Makoto?!"\n\n"Sipha-neechan!" the person in front of you squeals happily, out-and-out girlish voice full of delight as she rushes forward to fling her arms around you. "Oh my gosh, you look soooo beautiful, Sipha-neechan! This style absolutely suits you, you should wear it all the time!"\n\n"Makoto, you... you're... you're a girl," you stammer, since you can feel her boobs pressing against yours and those are definitely real.\n\nWith a giggle, Makoto steps back and puts a purple and gold-painted nail to her cheek as she winks at you. "No, Sipha-neechan, I'm a <i>woman</i>."\n\n"I'm sorry!" you blurt. "I'm sorry, I never thought the spell would... would... and yoooou are not upset about this at all, are you?" you murmur in realization, her whole demeanor finally sinking in after your initial shock.\n\n"Of course I'm not. All those years we worked to bring out the inner me, and boy we succeeded perfectly!" she declares with another giggle, putting a hand on her hip and jutting it out. "I was just a little shocked at first, but only for like... five minutes. Then it was like 'Ohhhh that makes <i>so</i> much sense!' and I giggled myself stupid. Then I... well, I did other things until I was stupid."\n\n"Ah." That gets a blush out of you, but you nod nonetheless. It's not like such a thing was completely unknown on Lytozia. In fact you're pretty sure this exact situation happened at least once before, with the legendary hero Prince Mika the Sword Princess, so it's not like the whole situation is unprecedented. "I hope it didn't put too much of a crimp in your social life?" you add a bit dryly.\n\n"It was an adjustment, but not a huge one," Makoto answers with another laugh. "I mean, my main boyfriend was straight before he met me, so for him it was more like a return to form? I mean, at least partly, when it wasn't a threesome." Then she blushes slightly, bringing her fingers up to her lips. "Um, sorry, talking about that stuff right at the start of a date."\n\n"It's okay. It just reminds me how far you've come from the little boy who could barely raise his eyes to talk to me," you answer warmly, smiling at her. "... I'm glad we're going on a date," you add softly after a moment, feeling your cheeks heat again. "To be honest, I almost didn't come. I thought... well, I thought that with how much you've changed, how well you were doing even last year, that... well, you probably didn't need me anymore."\n\n"Don't be silly, Sipha-neechan. You're the most important person for me there is." While that's heating your entire face, she beams and offers one of her hands. "C'mon. Let's date the hell out of this night!"\n\nYou can't help but laugh at that, putting your hand in hers. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it, Makoto!"\n\nOver the next three hours, Makoto is able to give you a true look at what you've only seen glimpses of all these years... that she's become an engaging conversationalist, an eager listener, and an overall charmer whose equal you can't recall having met before off the top of your head. She takes you out to a variety of locations that are a mixture of classy date spots and obviously aimed at your personal interests... the upscale sushi restaurant for dinner, the high end arcade bar afterwards, gourmet coffee in a not-a-maid cafe where the waitresses still wear maid style outfits, and a walk along the river after. And during all of it you watch Makoto laugh and beam and soak everything in, radiating happiness and warmth and an absolute lust for life in all its forms that can't help but bleed excitement to you as well. You feel warm and happy and content as the two of you walk along, side-by-side and hand-in-hand, the conversation lulled into a pleasant, companionable silence.\n\nEventually though, Makoto gives your hand a squeeze. "There was one more place that I thought we might go before we call our date done, Sipha-neechan. It's right there," she continues, pointing at one of the buildings visible from the path you're on.\n\nYou glance up and over, immediately thinking it's a very nice building, about ten stories with a dark-tinted glass exterior that's lit so that it has a faint purplish-pink glow. ... Wait, that looks familiar, where have you seen pictures of that building before? On one of the local message boards maybe? Oh right, you've seen people posting either dreamily or scathingly about it. Apparently it's a really expensive luxury love... hotel...\n\nYour entire face hot, you turn to look at Makoto, who grins impishly at you before giggling and glancing down, almost looking shy. "I mean, um, no pressure. Just if you want to. If not, I can just walk you home."\n\n<hr>\n[["We shouldn't."|SiphaKids]]\n\n[["... well..."|SiphaKids]]

Makoto, who'd removed his hat in anticipation as you began to talk, blinks at that. "My inner self?" He punctuates the sentence with a squeak as you once more lean in to kiss the side of his neck, squirming and going red again, but putting his hat back in place as you stand.\n\n"Yup. That's the best and strongest sort of change that you can do," you assure him, tucking your hands back into your pockets. "Since it's the you that's already deep inside, that way the spell just empowers it, and the inner you bit by bit becomes the outer you. I think the inner you has lots of strength and dedication, Makoto, so trust in the inner you and let them shine as we keep going."\n\n"Oh. Well, okay. Thanks, Sipha-neechan," he murmurs, squirming and blushing again. "So, um, I guess... I guess I'll see you next year?"\n\n"Yup, see you next year, Makoto," you answer with a grin, turning and walking off, trying not to look like you're in a hurry. Oh god, bed, need beeeeed!\n\nAnd so it goes as, year after year, you meet Makoto in the park to perform the ritual, saying the same words before transferring the spell by a kiss to his neck. It doesn't take long before you're seeing him changing as much as the other young humans do from year to year... growing taller, stronger, more energetic. You also notice he's becoming better-looking, losing some of that thin, mildly gaunt look as he fills out. He's still a sleek, pretty thing, but you're watching him grow up into a real beauty, you can't help but think, that white hair gaining luster and pale skin shining with health as well as gradually becoming less milky white, no longer hidden under long sleeves and a giant hat constantly. Too, you watch him becoming more confident and outgoing, his body language no longer looking like he's going to bolt at any second, instead bit by bit becoming stronger, bolder, those pink eyes glittering brightly with happiness and mischief when he spots you and approaches, his calls of 'Sipha-neechan!' becoming louder and more lyrical each time as if not caring who might hear.\n\nOne year you stand watching, having arrived a bit early, watching him chatting and laughing with an attractive couple his own age. His hair is long enough to pull back into a ponytail that falls almost to his waist, and he's wearing a fashionable long-sleeved shirt that you're pretty sure is only sold at concerts, as well as snug pants that show off his lithe build. Heck, he actually seems to have a light tan, as opposed to his old pale look. You smile as he brings painted nails up to his pretty lips as he laughs at something the boy he's talking to said, the sweet sound making both the boy and the girl blush. 'My baby's all grown up,' you think with a mental sigh. 'And almost as pretty as an elf, my word.' You grin wider as he finally approaches, his face lighting up with delight as he sees you.\n\n"Sipha-neechan!" He doesn't hesitate to step in and throw his arms around you, squeezing in a warm hug, before stepping back and giggling. "Sorry if I made you wait, I just got here really early and got to talking with those two. Mm, I'm going to have to clear some time in tonight's schedule," he murmurs, pulling out his phone and putting one fingertip to his lips, almost pouting. "One of my best boyfriends is scheduled for tonight, but I hardly ever get couple dates. Mm, I wonder if I could make it into a double date instead...?"\n\nYou can't help but laugh at that. "You've come a really long way, Makoto." That makes him smile brightly too, warming your heart. Your own smile turns a little sad as you continue. "You're all grown up. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the last spell you need."\n\n"What? Really?" That actually seems to take him aback a little. "The last one?"\n\n"I think so. Your body's healthy now, you're able to talk to and charm whoever you want, and you're practically fully grown, as far as I can tell." You look him up and down, then nod. "Yes, this will be the last time, the last spell."\n\n"So what's that mean?" the pouting cutie in front of you asks.\n\n"Well, any remaining changes that come from the inner you becoming the outer you will complete over the next year. If there's anything more to change, it will probably happen a lot faster and be a bit more extreme... if there's any more changes to be made, that is."\n\nMakoto nods, still seeming a little pensive as you once more bring your fingertips to your lips, performing the by now familiar ritual before leaning in to kiss the side of his neck. You're surprised when he once more wraps his arms around you and pulls you in close even as you do, not letting you go immediately, leaving you to let the kiss linger a little longer than absolutely necessary. You're blushing some as Makoto releases the hug, but he looks serious... albeit cutely serious, just a hint of a pout on his lips as he says, "Even if that was the last one, Sipha-neechan, promise me you'll still meet me here next year. Meet me... meet me for a date!" he declares, suddenly smiling, eyes glittering. "A special date to celebrate the final me! Please, promise me!"\n\n"Um, Makoto, I dunno," you stammer, wiggling your shoulders uncomfortably.\n\n"Please, Sipha-neechan? It doesn't have to be a romantic date or anything like that, I just... I want something really special to commemorate all this time together, and all you've done for me!" he pleads, actually bringing up his hands and clasping them in front of his chin. "Please, please!"\n\nHow can you stand up to that? Sighing softly, you nod, then grin. "Okay, okay. A date. One year from now."\n\n"Yes! Nine o'clock, that bench over there!" Makoto declares, a smile bright enough to light up any night on his face as he clasps one of your hands in both of his. "It's a promise, okay?"\n\n"Right, right, promise."\n\n<img src="images/OYL.png" alt="One year later...">\n\nYou blink as your AI assistant alarm goes off in the midst of your ore gathering. What the? Of course then it smoothly announces, "It is four hours until your date with Makoto. Nine o'clock, park bench." ... Right. The 'completed product' Makoto, as it were, who wants to show off the him he's become to you and take you on a date. You worry your lower lip nervously, glancing from the assistant to the clock, to your closet. Except what if it turned out Makoto wasn't happy with the final changes and now he hates you for it? Or what if he just felt he had to do it out of obligation and he doesn't really want to take you out? And on that note... maybe most terrifying of all... what if he just doesn't bother to show? What if he's such a popular social butterfly now that the thought of dating some NEET elf who's old enough to be his great-great-great-... anyway, what if he blows off the date? Or even more likely, has just completely forgotten about it by now in the bustle of dates and college and living a way more vibrant life than yours? All those years ago you were the exotic stranger, but now you're still the same you and he's... well, he's someone you might have been jealous of even before you became a vidya addict.\n\n... Maybe it's best to just not go. Less embarrassing. Less humiliating. Less hurtful. Even if he is there, you doubt he'll wait long before shrugging it off and moving on to a <i>real</i> date. You're just his... health coach from when he was a kid.\n\n<hr>\n[[Go to bed.|SiphaKids4x1]]\n\n[[Go to the date, you ridiculous elf.|SiphaKids1x7]]

"Alright, thanks Doc," you say with a sigh. "I understand my options here. I'm gonna go get a second opinion... on the magical aspect, y'know."\n\n"No harm in that, I suppose... we do have a few magical specialists, but if you have one you prefer to use, that's just as well."\n\nYou get up and, after a brief exchange at the desk to make sure everything's up on your plan, you head to the lift to the shop levels... which is a pretty broad category, the Guildhall is home to a lot of third parties that own shop space, for a wide, wide variety of things. You're heading for the 'specialist' sort of area, where people run shops that mostly provide specialized services with maybe some custom tailored products on the side rather than generalized sales or anything like that. You've dealt with a few magical things before, and got suggestions to use this particular person.\n\n"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."\n\nWho has, for the last twenty minutes, been pacing back and forth about five feet while staring fixedly at you with red eyes. Rarala looks fairly young, though you get the impression that's just looks... short, on the skinny side, the impression heightened by her short, thoroughly messy black hair. Her clothes are 'eclectic', you guess that's the word, mismatched but all of them elaborately embroidered or patterned, from the turquoise bandanna around her neck to the white, black, and gold-accented jacket she's wearing that never quite seems to make its way fully onto her shoulders, showing off one of her tattoos on her shoulder, another tribal sun etched onto her cheek below her eye. Her loose knee-length dress flicks with her placid motions, hands raised up to steeple her fingers in front of her mouth. The two of you are currently in her 'consultation office'... it's set up sort of like a small shop, just with plenty of room in the middle for her to do on-demand work. The air smells heavily of incense and whatever's in the jars lining the shelves on the walls.\n\n<img src="images/Rarala.png">\n\n"This spell... it really speaks to the heart of me," she finally declares. "I feel a kinship with it."\n\n"O... kay?" you murmur, tilting your head. "Why's that?"\n\n"Because it's like me. Brilliant," Rarala replies, parting her hands and wiggling her fingers. "But lazy."\n\n"... Yeah I don't follow, sorry."\n\n"Okay okay okay." The red-eyed woman flicks her hands around a bit, as if waving off the lackadaisical musing she'd been doing. "Alright, so, there's a lot of ways you can do spells to change someone's sex. There's just outright reshaping the body, or tweaking the genes with magic like you would using tech, or the most high-minded and expensive sort, the one where you just move concepts around, shift out the 'Male body' concept and shift the 'Female body' concept in, poof. This isn't any of those. This is actually a form of dimensional magic."\n\n"Dimens-... wait, like the portals?"\n\n"Sort of, yeah. Except this spell specifically goes looking for alternate dimension versions of the target that meet the differences someone's looking for while sticking as close to the original as it can. Okay, so like..." She pulls a chair over to face yours, then sits down and continues waving her hands around as she speaks. "Technically this spell's a bit more 'expensive' as far as energy goes than a lot of spells for this would be, but the insane thing about it is the sheer <i>versatility</i>, you could use it for almost anything. Say you lose an arm in a fight, so you go to a mage who can do this spell. They cast the spell while focusing on a you that has two arms, and the spell finds the nearest, most similar version of you with two arms and copy-pastes the parameters for their body onto yours. Bam, you now have two arms, and probably without knowing it you're actually physically a whole different you. Works no matter what change you need to make, heck, you could change someone's species with it if you wanted, probably just take longer. But let me guess, they mentioned there might be side effects, right?"\n\n"Yeaaaah," you mutter, eyes narrowing. "What's that mean?"\n\n"Okay, so when this spell happens, all that's left of the original you is your mind, it's otherwise stuck entirely into the whole physical body of the alternate you the spell found. And it's going to go looking for the closest, nearest match, but that doesn't mean it's an exact one. Go back to our example of the dude with the lost arm... maybe the nearest, most similar version of him with two arms also just so happens to have the stomach flu at this moment. Bam, our guy has two arms again... and a wicked case of the flu. Or y'know, his hair's a different color, even temporarily 'cause the other him dyed it, or he has different scars, or maybe his dick's an inch shorter or something. So they just say 'There might be side effects' as a blanket explanation... hell, these guys might not even know how this spell actually works, the actual <i>reason</i> for random side effects might be a complete mystery to them."\n\n"Soooo." You squirm nervously in your chair. "If, say... I can't stop looking at guys now, and I feel turned-on and horny all the time, and... other stuff...?"\n\n"Yeah, sorry Leo, turns out the nearest, most similar female version of you who the spell could find also just so happened to be a complete and total cock addict," Rarala answers without hesitation, shooting you fingerguns as you bring both hands to your face. "Maybe she got cursed, or hit with an aphrodisiac, or hey maybe that was just her living her best life, but between what I'm seeing and what you're telling me, you have both the body and brain of someone whose first and most pressing thought is always gonna be 'How can this result in me getting a thorough dicking-down?'"\n\n"Fuck's saaake," you groan. "There's gotta be something you can do, Rarala!"\n\n"Mmm, well, you said that in a week probably they were likely gonna do a nanite treatment on you? Restore you to the way you were at your last medical scan?" At your nod, Rarala shrugs expansively. "Well one option is to wait... when that happens it'll restore your brain too, and since I'm not seeing any actual curse magic on you, like ninety-eight percent chance that takes care of your urges too. However, I'd highly suggest you check yourself into a Retreat Room for that week, and keep your eyes down on the way there and the way to the clinic when you leave."\n\n"Er, how come? ... Wait, do you mean... so I don't wind up jumping some guy's bones?" You swallow. "What would that do?!"\n\n"Probably result in you having a really good time." At your incredulous look, Rarala lifts her eyebrows. "Dude, not everything is a medical or magical issue. Your body is conditioned to fuck like shaking hands, basically, and to <i>really</i> enjoy doing it. You get an actual dick in you, it'll probably feel so good that you won't be able to help yourself, you'll do it again, and by the end of the week you'll blow off your appointment because you decided for yourself that you don't <i>want</i> to change back. Also you'll probably be busy getting fucked."\n\n"... Right. Can we circle back to anything you can do?"\n\n"Mmmm, as to your body... tricky. Tricky, 'cause I'd have to change your brain along with your body to get rid of the nymphomania, and that's always tricky, especially with the lingering aura from the last spell on you." Rarala steeples her fingers again, looking you up and down. "Yeah, I'd wanna wait a week too. But there is one thing I could do. It'd be expensive, but I could do it right now, and no more risk of getting so cock-drunk on one quick screw that you never wanna go back."\n\n"You have such a way with words." You sigh, but perk up. "You could switch out 'Female body' for 'Male body'?"\n\n"Not without a lot more prep and some special materials that'd take me a week to get anyway. But right now I could switch out the 'Slut' concept for something closer to your usual libido... 'Randy', maybe? 'Mildly lewd'? 'Low-key horny'?"\n\n"How about a normal libido, thanks," you grumble, glowering at her.\n\n"Suit yourself! But there's a catch." She raises one finger. "Switching out one concept basically firms up all the other ones. Including that 'Female body' one."\n\n"... But I could just use the nanite treatment later...?"\n\n"Nope. The concept magic would reject any attempt to change your current labels once I'd finished, you'd just revert back to your current body a few hours later, most likely. Now, that wouldn't be permanent, but you're looking at a year that way."\n\n"A year," you grumble, slumping back in your chair.\n\n"So yeah, them's basically your options, my dude. A week under threat of hopping on a boner and deciding you don't wanna go back, or a year of feeling normal but wielding what frankly look like completely amazing tits. Up to you... I can file the concept thing under your insurance but you'd still have to pay me the deductible, by the way."\n\nGreat. Sighing, you rub your face as you consider. This is not where you were hoping this meeting would lead, but she's right, you've at least got options now.\n\n<hr>\n[[Just tough out the week.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Head to a Retreat Room to wait out the week.|LeoFem]]\n\n[[Have Rarala use concept magic.|LeoFem1x1]]

"Well so since what's in my pants has zero affect on killing orcs," you mutter, standing and shoving the top hatch on the roof of the carriage open before clambering through it... okay, though what's on your chest does make that vaguely more awkward. Still, you get up and plant your feet, taking a look at the oncoming orcs. You're dismayed to realize there's actually a flush of arousal that runs through you watching those massive, muscular forms bearing down on you with those big, thick cocks waving stiff in the air, heavy leathery balls swaying between powerful thighs, and for just an instant there's a whisper of excitement that runs through your head at what might happen if you just let them overrun the caravan.\n\nIt's half your anger at the weird thoughts this body apparently came with and half anger at the rest of this situation that makes you decide to go for a heavily 'overkill' option, deciding to wrap this situation up quickly, decisively, and in a way that vents a bit of your rage at the world. Yanking the matter cartridge out of the top of the stock, you replace it with a heavy battery pack from your coat, a pair of lights blinking on as you switch the rifle to a particular setting and then pull the trigger... you don't really bother aiming other than making sure the rifle is pointed towards the middle of the orcs. Some of the elf guards are starting to look distinctly nervous that nothing is going on from you other than a steadily building hum that starts to turn into a low shriek, before you're rocked back slightly by the rifle kicking and firing a streaming, flickering prismatic pulse towards the oncoming force. It strikes one orc in the arm, the big creature lurching only slightly as if barely noticing the impact even as the flesh turns an angry purplish color as if irritated... just before it explodes. Not 'into a shower of gore', but rather as if it were made of C4.\n\nYou're guessing that whatever magic the elves were using against the orcs before, it never quite hit the level of excited particle reactions. The orc whose arm you hit is obviously rendered into a mist, but most of the orcs around him are as well, most of the rest at the edges knocked stumbling or sprawling by the shockwave. One of the lights on the energy pack now dark, you wheel around to face the other side, the orcs there having hesitated in shock at what happened on the other side. That's fine, between that and the chargeup time for the blast you actually bother to aim this time, hitting one of the big orcs in the center of the group right in the head. Hm, orc skulls must be pretty dense, because the explosion's even more impressive than the other orc's arm was.\n\nThat's pretty much it. Turning their own comrades into the explosives that kill them is apparently too much for the orcs, and they flee roaring in terror, their panicked scrabbling leaving rents in the grass. You pull out the charge pack, eye it, then just toss it aside, still too annoyed to think of the responsible thing of cleaning up after yourself or recycling. 'Stupid big-dicked muscular assholes,' you think sulkily as you climb back down into the carriage, settling almost sulkily back into your seat across from the rather shell-shocked Amanielle, who's just looking at you as if wondering quite what her uncle wound up hiring.\n\nThe rest of the ride proceeds in silence... quick silence, since apparently the guard in charge has decided to speed things up after the attack and your response. For the first time the caravan actually drives until after dark, until you arrive in the city... you don't bother looking out much at it, your mind too much on getting back to the Guildhall and having the sex change reversed. When the carriage stops, you and Amanielle step out into some sort of castle courtyard. You exchange polite pleasantries with her and with the head guard, with none of you making mention of the idea of you lingering or your travel arrangements. Instead you just pull out your beacon and hit the button, already striding meaningfully forward as you come out of the portal and making a beeline for the medical level. Unfortunately...\n\n"What do you MEAN you can't change me back?!"\n\n"Please calm down, that's not what I said," the doctor says soothingly, raising her hands. "I said I can't use the preferred sex change method on you <i>immediately</i>. The spell that they used on you seems to have left a lingering energy signature on your body that would render the nanites we use for such procedures inert."\n\n"W-well, what about other procedures?" you mutter, settling back into the chair. "A genetic chamber, maybe?"\n\n"Mister LaChance, I really don't suggest that," she answers with appropriately doctorly graveness. "Genetic chambers are much more intensive procedures, it's not good to use them if you might have any sort of medical emergency shortly after... you'd probably have to take at least a month off of work afterwards, and it wouldn't necessarily restore you to what you consider your proper body. If that's not enough incentive, since the use of one is against my medical advice in this case, it won't be covered by your insurance plan... you'd be out of pocket."\n\nYou brood for a few seconds, before huffing. "So I'm stuck like this?"\n\n"Again. The nanites won't work <i>immediately</i>. Our scans show the energy signature is decreasing very gradually, but steadily. If you come back in a week, we'll run another scan and be able to more clearly understand our options and potential timeline then."\n\nYou rap your fingers against the arm of your chair, thinking it over. Part of you wants to say hell with it, you'll take the big hit to your account to use the gene chamber just so you can get back to being a guy by the time you walk out of here. On the other hand, clearly the smarter and more responsible (both medically and fiscally) option would be to just come back next week, and deal with your girl-ness until then. Somewhere between the two... you know at least one other person you could ask, you guess...\n\n<hr>\n[[Wait a week.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Use the genetic chamber.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Go see an expert.|LeoAma3x5]]

Look... it wasn't but a small handful of years ago that you yourself were a teenager. You may not be familiar with this body or its reactions, but... you've pretty much in general realized what this is, and teenage you knew (and let's face it, current you knows) how to deal with the issue.\n\nYou first poke your head back out of the tent flap and take a quick look around, making sure that no one's close or seems likely to approach... man no solid door with locks, this is almost as bad as that year you spent living on a small starship with no cabin locks. At least if someone walks in on you here it won't be your mother, father, or little sister. Which you're not 100% on if that's better or worse, here it could be some randy elf man soldier, who'd quickly throw himself atop you and-\n\nA little shiver runs through your body before you quickly shove the thought away, much as you shove the flaps of the tent as closed as you can get them. Geez! Who ever heard of randy rapacious elf men anyway? You definitely don't want to be thinking about that anyway, you assure yourself very firmly as you undress completely beside the cot set up on one side of the tent. You take a moment to examine yourself a bit more thoroughly than you did this morning, since you're about to have your hands all over this body anyway. ... Man it really is kind of a... lewd... body, isn't it? Big firm tits that jut out with just the tiniest bit of 'torpedo' shape to their roundness, your hips have a nice curve that seems virtually designed to encourage hands to grab onto them and haul them back, everything's nice and smooth and sleek. 'God, I wanna fuck myself,' you think with a little groan, laying down on the (surprisingly comfortable) cot. Well, you guess it's a good thing that's basically what you're going to do...\n\nBiting your lower lip, you bring your hands up to the puffy nipples capping your new tits, hesitating just a bit before touching them. Obviously you still had nipples as a guy, and they even got hard occasionally, but you're already aware these are way more sensitive. So it's a bit delicately that you bring your hands down onto them and brush along the areola, instantly gasping and twitching a bit. Yeah... yeah, sensitive. You take a few deep breaths before starting to more deliberately toy with your newly delicious-looking pink nipples, closing your eyes to focus on the sensation rather than the view of you toying with tits that are on your own chest. Gradually one of your hadns lowers down, cupping your breast instead, feeling out how to squeeze and knead it even as you keep toying with your nipple, more pleasure coursing through you as you find the right amount of pressure to use, the right places to touch, the best angles to pinch from. 'Nnnnh... maybe... maybe this'll have some side benefits... maybe... if other girls like the same thing... mnn, I'd have to do it from behind though,' you think, a faintly delirious giggle escaping your lips.\n\nIt's easy enough to lose yourself in the situation, gradually settling to kneading your own tits in a position that you can still play with your nipples, your slightly longer and more slender fingers seeming practically designed for it. You can feel something sort of... building up, though it's in such a different way to anything else that you find it easy to just let it be background noise until suddenly it's crashing over you and you're arching your back, letting out a hard, choked gasp as you reflexively try to choke back your cry at it. It happens fast, though the fading is slower as you slump back to the cot and stare at the ceiling of the tent in a daze. 'Holy shit, I seriously came just from playing with my tits? What's with this lewd body...?'\n\nAll the same, you slowly begin to play with your breasts again, gradually building back up to the same motions before, feeling the pleasure that had settled into a low background hum build back up. But this time you can't help but let one hand slide downward, slowly moving across your belly until you slip it between your legs, already gasping loudly and twitching your hips up at even that light touch. 'Fuck, I'm so wet,' you think distantly, breathing harder as you begin to move your fingers, stroking them over the slick, smooth, plump lips. You doubt you're doing a very good job of it, but your body is so sensitive and eager and this is all so new to you that it really doesn't seem to matter.\n\nYou turn your thoughts to some of the girls you've been with, or just girls you've seen and lusted after, at first thinking of the things you'd rather they were doing to your male body instead of what you're doing to this female body... but you keep winding up picturing yourself in their place, doing those things to some generic male who's much, much bigger than you were, your mouth wrapped around his hard cock or with you spreading your legs to beg him to fuck you. Shoving the thoughts away, you instead try to think of those girls doing things to your current body... Amanielle sucking and licking at one of your nipples, Aurora curling her fingers into your pussy... but again you can't seem to keep them in there. At first it's that pretty fucker Ohme you find yourself picturing, almost without realizing it, just realizing that the pretty face and slender body you're imagining atop yours is actually possessed of a fat cock and a smirking leer to go with those wicked steel-colored eyes. But every time you push the thoughts away, they come back stronger, the guys you think of bigger and more muscular and more manly and there's more of them and they're all fucking you, telling you what a pretty slut you are, what a good eager whore, what a beautiful drooling cock addict, what-\n\nYou arch hard, hips lifted high in the air with your fingers buried inside yourself, your cry coming out as a muffled whimper before you finally slump, panting and gasping. 'F-five times... fuck... fuck,' you groan to yourself, shivering and trying to chase away the fantasies of men with big cocks pounding you in all three holes while you eagerly stroke more with your hands. Where is all this coming from? You shudder a little in something other than pleasure as you remember a phrase you heard someone use once... 'The mind is a plaything of the body.' But that can't be true to this extent, can it? Still, it's a little disturbing to wonder... but after being so tense and anxious all day, the repeated release has finally allowed you to relax, and despite your troubled thoughts you settle into sleep.\n\nThe next morning you wake up with enough time to dig through your stuff and find an old long scarf that with a bit of work will serve as a chestwrap... not exactly great, but better than jiggling and rubbing against your shirt all day. As to the underwear situation... you actually find a couple of pairs of, well... okay, you wouldn't call them 'trophies', particularly, just that their previous owners left them behind and you just sort of decided to take them, so maybe more like 'souvenirs'? You look over your options, and when it comes down to the pink bikini briefs or the blue thong, you eventually sigh and go with the thong... you're not sure how your brain decides that the hip-riding straps and the strip of cloth up your ass is more masculine than something that's almost like male briefs but pink, but there you go.\n\nYou head out, trying to ignore that you're, if anything, even more aware of the men you pass than yesterday. There's not the same anxious, eager urgency you feel around them, but your eyes definitely wander without you really thinking about it. 'Stop, stop it, I do <i>not</i> like guys,' you growl to yourself, even as you think about how you'd like to wrap your lips around something else's of the cook's instead of the sausage he gave you. ... Dammit!\n\n"Ah, you seem... a little put out today," Amanielle says nervously once the two of you are back in the carriage and trundling along. "Perhaps even moreso than yesterday. If you don't mind my saying."\n\nYou sigh, shaking your head. "I had a... restless night, Princess, that's all."\n\n"I see." She looks like she might want to say something more... perhaps to apologize again... but decides to keep silent again.\n\nThen you both jerk a bit as there's a shout from outside. You lean close to the small slat of a window and swear. "Damn, they've gone earlier than I thought." You thought the orcs would want one long charge across a wide open area, but it looks like they've decided to settle for a shorter charge from both sides. They're closing in, huge, green, and... very naked. You swallow heavily at the sight of their massive green cocks flopping as they run, though they're rapidly stiffening the closer the orcs get to the caravan, excitement apparently fueling the big bestial humanoids. At least you're not quite as distracted by it as you might have been yeterday, but yikes.\n\n"What now?" Amanielle asks, obviously a bit worried as she glances over at you.\n\n<hr>\n[[Now you do your job, still.|LeoAma3x4]]\n\n[[Now fuck you.|LeoAma]]

The vagueries of the second option really don't leave you filled with confidence. The first is at least tangible and you can see a path to getting rid of it later, so with a sigh you say, "Fine, fine, I'll become a woman. Not that I was going to do anything without permission anyway."\n\nYou're fairly positive the Duke mutters something along the lines of 'That's what I'm worried about' as he turns and strides back out of the tent. It's not very long before he returns with an elf woman wearing green-grey robes and a rather stereotypical witch's hat, albeit one with slots cut in the brim to accomodate her particularly long ears. She adjusts her glasses as she gives you a grin. "Heya, got yourself into some trouble over the Princess, huh? It happens, don't feel too bad."\n\n"Yeah, thanks," you answer flatly.\n\n"This is usually a pretty easy change, so don't worry, it'll only take a minute." The witch-elf raises her hands and closes her eyes, palms pointed at you as she murmurs under her breath.\n\nYou're not sure what you were expecting, but the change really is fast. It's sort of like you're just sitting there brooding listening to her chant, and then you're just suddenly... different. Your new D-cups actually bobble a little under your top from the suddenness of their having come into existence, making you jerk in place in surprise and rub your newly round ass against the ground. You can see some of your hair brush across your eyes as you move... still scruffy, but now blonde. 'I'll never hear the end of this from Neo,' you think with a sigh, hanging your head. Still, you have to admit, that <i>was</i> fast, damn.\n\n"There y'go! There might be some minor side effects, but you'll adjust to 'em, prolly. Seeya," the witch declares, waving a hand as she trots out.\n\n"The fee for her services will, of course, be subtracted from your pay," the Duke declares evenly as he sets down your jacket and weapons before snapping his fingers and striding out, just a hint of a smug lift in his step. "Please prepare quickly, we've already had the princess's departure delayed by this."\n\n'So much for coming out of this in the black,' you think with a sigh as you feel the ropes around your wrists unfurl, leaving you to stand up unencumbered. You pause, pulling a bit of your newly yellow hair in front of your view and making a face. 'In more ways than one.' You glance down at yourself. ... Yup those are pretty big. Far from the biggest you've ever seen, but big. ... Actually Neo may be too resentful to tease you over this. The change is enough that it's lifted your shirt up enough to show a hint of bellybutton, and your pants seem to be staying up around your thinner waist mostly due to the somewhat greater curve of your hips. ... Your boxers, on the other hand, have given up the ghost and fallen down around your thighs beneath them, you can feel. Sighing, you undo your belt and pants and drop them down, stepping out of them and the boxers. You can't really help taking a moment to examine yourself, just to make sure, but... yup. Smooth front of the crotch, plump pussylips between the legs. '... Huh, I'm still shaven, huh?' you think, briefly running a hand along the smooth skin, then shivering. '... Let's not get carried away.' You quickly pull your pants back on, trying not to think about the sort of lingering tingly feeling or slight heat you can feel low in your belly now, or about what 'side effects' might mean.\n\nYou take a few moments to flex, twist, and check yourself over. You're a lot smoother and less visibly toned than you were as a guy, but it doesn't seem like you're any less strong or agile just from the few warmup movements you do. ... The unrestrained boobs are sort of a problem but you're not sure what to do about them for right now, you'll just have to avoid melee combat. Your hair is also longer than it was, coming down the back of your neck to below your shoulders. 'I didn't even feel it grow!' you think with a frown as you brush your fingers through it. This is weird, it's almost less like you were changed into a girl and more like this is someone else's body that's just really similar to yours, since a check with your comm camera shows you still largely resemble yourself, right down to the color of your eyes. ... Enh, probably just discombobulated by the change. 'I'll get it fixed the minute I get back to the Guildhall, is all,' you think with a sigh as you make a few more adjustments to your clothes before pulling on your jacket and retrieving your weapons.\n\nNot long after you're sitting in a not particularly comfortable carriage with the princess, who's shifting awkwardly in place and glancing out the window. Ah, right, you were pretty blunt earlier, you probably really turned her off. But when she finally looks at you, she gives you a surprisingly normal sheepish smile. "Um, I'm sorry about my uncle and the whole... um..." She makes a vague gesture in your direction. Mostly towards your chest.\n\n"Oh. Well... yeah," you mutter, rubbing the back of your head with one hand, feeling your tits bobble a little as you do. 'Gah, I've gotta do something about those.' "And I'm sorry about the whole... propositioning... thing."\n\n"It wasn't exactly the dashing, heroic sort of talk I was hoping for, but I wasn't particularly offended either," Amanielle replies dryly, her grin turning a bit more natural. "My uncle, even more than my father, enjoys his view of me as a sweet and innocent creature and can go a little overboard in maintaining that polite fiction."\n\n"Seems like there's not a lot I can do about it now," you mutter, glancing down at yourself again. You squirm a little, feeling uncomfortably... aware... of how different your body is. Actually, it's less uncomfortable, maybe more... anxious? Or even excited? Do girls usually get such stiff nipples just from their clothes rubbing against them, you wonder, feeling a little shivery tingle sent through you as the carriage bumps and rubs your shirt over your bare, stiff nubs. Of course it also bumps you in place a bit, lifting you up and then thumping your pussy lightly against the bench through the single layer of cloth of your pants, sending a little jolt of pleasure through you that makes you let out a little yelp.\n\n"Ah... are you alright?" Amanielle asks, concern on her face as she looks over at you.\n\n"Y-yeah, ah... just not used to this," you mutter, which you hope is the truth, and this isn't an example of 'side effects', because the more the day wears on the more you're feeling sort of anxious and edgy and those little twitches and jolts of pleasure start feeling more obvious, until by the time the caravan halts for the evening and camp is set up, you're resisting the near-constant urge to squirm around. As you walk through the camp, your eyes keep flicking towards passing guards and other workers... they all smell really strong, you wouldn't expect elves to smell so much, but there's definitely a strong masculine sweaty-musky smell that makes your head feel funny. You actually wind up breathing shallowly until you arrive at your own tent (on close to the edge of camp) and flop onto the cot, finally taking a few deep breaths. God, what is with this body?! You rub both hands over your face, doing your best to ignore the distinctly wet feeling between your legs, and the sensation of trickles of that wetness running down your skin. You've gotta do something, you've gotta... get your mind off this, or focus your thoughts, or... whatever it takes to get a little relief.\n\n<hr>\n[[Go to sleep.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Do something manly!|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Go see Amanielle.|LeoAma]]\n\n[[Masturbate.|LeoAma3x3]]

Smirking now, you take a slow swagger over to the princess, brushing back your coat to hook your thumbs into your belt. "Well hey there, Princess Gorgeous. That's definitely a body I look forward to guarding, you know?"\n\n"Um." Princess Amanielle blinks, leaning back just a little. "Yes, well... thank you."\n\n"In fact, why don't we discuss exactly when I should come over for nighttime bodyguarding, hm?" you add, winking rakishly at her.\n\n'Oh riiiiiiiiight, other people can hear it when I flirt,' you think a few minutes later in the small, empty tent you're sitting in, your hands bound together behind the thick middle stake. Your jacket, rifle, and sword have all been taken... which doesn't leave you actually disarmed, but not with anything you'd want to try fighting your way out of an entire camp of apparently very touchy and grumpy elves with. \n\nSpeaking of which, the very grumpy-looking Duke brushes aside the tent flap and steps inside, walking the short distance to glare touchily down at you. "We have contacted the Guild, but apparently your... <i>innuendo</i> does not rise to the level of terminating your contract on their end. And doing so on our part would incur fees and a 'cooldown' period, which is a delay we cannot afford. Apparently it will still be necessary to utilize your skills, despite your... distasteful behavior."\n\n"Look, I'm sorry, alright?" you say with a huff. "I got a little carried away and let my mouth run away with me."\n\n"It is not so much your mouth we are concerned with," he replies coolly, quirking one eyebrow and making you give a 'well whatcha gonna do' tilt of the head. "While your Guild did say that a handful of particular punishments are off limits, they did agree with certain other methods we could use to insure that the Princess's virtue remains intact during the journey." \n\n"Erk." You can't help but press back against the tentpole a bit. It's true, the Guild won't let clients go around just flagrantly killing or mutilating any Guildcert they hire for petty trespasses... but they're pretty lenient with just about anything else. The official line is something like 'Guild-licensed individuals must be ready to accept personal responsibility for any behaviors or actions they take which cause a client undue agitation or displeasure, up to and including semi-permanent but non-injurious punitive measures'. Translated to actual mercspeak: 'Your fuckup, your consequences.'\n\n"Specifically, we have several specialists passing through this camp on their way to other places which could be of use in this situation. One is a bodychanger... we could have you turned into a woman."\n\n"What?" You make a face. Geez, a genderswap over a couple of bad double entendres? Seems a little extreme to you.\n\n"If that is not to your taste, there is a specialist in behavioral changes visiting as well. We could have him insure that you will not make any further advances on the princess," the Duke says coolly, just a hint of a smirk quirking one corner of his mouth.\n\nYou glare at the ground balefully. Fucksakes. Well, on the one hand, getting turned into a girl certainly wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, it's not like you think they're gross or lesser or something lame like that, you're just, y'know... not one. Even if they didn't turn you back at the end of the job (and it doesn't sound like they're offering to), you could get changed back at the Guildhall, you're pretty sure your medical insurance covers that sort of thing... the deductible will take a bite out of your pay for this job to where you might just barely come out in the black, but it's better than nothing. Still, it's pretty extreme... you wonder what this 'behavioral change' is? Would this guy just use aversion therapy or something to make you not lust over the princess? That seems way less intense. ... Except for Luwin being sort of smirky at the idea, that gives you pause.\n\nStill, sounds like you're not getting out of here without picking one.\n\n<hr>\n[[Genderswap.|LeoAma3x2]]\n\n[[Behavioral modification.|LeoAma]]

Yup, yup, got the standard here, butt and a dick. That's two, count 'em, two things! I mean you've got nipples too but how often does anyone remember those? Not often enough! ... Ahem. Okay, so, you're a guy.\n\nWhich dude male guy are you?\n\n[[Leo|LeoStart]] - A young mercenary who takes jobs through an agency that ranges across numerous dimensions. Talented and already with an impressive record, but still lacking somewhat in experience.\n\n[[Morgan|CaliburnStart]] - Morgan to his college professors and friends, but his parents, comrades, and enemies are more familiar with him as Caliburn, the white and gold clad superhero!

"Stop! Don't go!" you call, stretching out a hand. "I'm... I'm not ready for you to go yet!"\n\n"Oh?" The spirit does seem to firm up a little more. "Why not?"\n\n"Because... because I've missed you, stupid!" you blurt, scowling at being made to say it. "Even without your dumb 'love' stuff, I've missed you! You were the best pranking partner I ever had before your stupid 'love' crap made you turn around and try to be some stupid upstanding member of society! I... well, I'll be nice to you, is all!" you add, putting your hands on your hips. "I can feel how lonely you are! So I'll bring you back, and you can hang out with me again like old times!"\n\n"So it's so <i>I</i> won't be lonely," the spirit says in an amused tone, before raising its hands as you narrow your eyes at it. "Very well then. I accept your kindness and generosity."\n\n"Hmph. Well then. I guess since this is the same stupid ol' shrine you were living in before, this will be a bit easier," you mutter, raising your hands and briefly closing your eyes. Normally using your powers is fairly effortless, but this is bringing back a whole spirit that was nearly as powerful as you were at one point in its existence. Still, you can feel your energy taking hold, and linking up with some of the spiritual energies still remaining in the shrine. The spirit form twitches, then drifts backwards as if pulled, slowly glowing brighter and brighter as it slides through the crumbling doorway, briefly lighting up the decrepit interior and hole-riddled walls. Then there's a bright flash, before it goes dark once again.\n\nA moment later, a figure emerges, climbing over some of the rubble and then perching atop it in particularly feline fashion, her particularly feline ears twitching atop her head. There's a weird pang you feel at seeing Nekoko looking just like she did the last time you saw her... at your sealing ritual. Her long, pretty white hair the same as her ears, a copper bangle clipped into part of it, her big pretty pink eyes, as well as her shinto priestess garb, white top with red accents and ribbons hugging her breasts, hips and rear shown off by the red hakama pants due to her current position... well, and the laces running up the sides showing off the side of her hips and legs.\n\n<img src="images/Nekoko.png">\n\n"Hm. You really did it after all," Nekoko observes, before leaping forward and tumbling in midair, landing on her feet in front of you and turning back and forth, ears flicking as she looks at herself. "I'm back just as I was."\n\n"Just as you were then," you say, frowning as you look her up and down. "I was hoping that your tails would come back, at least!"\n\n"... Maybe it's my own shame at cutting them off that kept them from coming back," she answers quietly, brushing her hands over the front of her pants as she smiles sadly at you. "Maybe it feels like I don't deserve them anymore."\n\n"I still don't understand <i>why</i> you did that to yourself!" you huff, shaking your head, resisting the urge to fling your arms around her and hug her because you are totally still angry at her for lots of stuff! "It's like you didn't even want to be a nekomata anymore!"\n\n"I didn't," she answers simply. At your shocked look, she grins wryly. "I guess we never even talked about it, hm? ... Let's get out of this place, I'll try and explain so you can understand."\n\nThe two of you set off back down the steps and towards the sidewalk that will lead back to your home, Nekoko speaking softly and evenly along the way. "I remember everything about my life when I was just a mortal animal... it's one of those things about being a nekomata, I suppose. I remember being born amongst my dark grey and black siblings, and I remember them nudging me out of the way so that I rarely got any of my mother's milk... but my mother still tried to clean me and cuddle me. The old woman that owned my mother, she was kind too... she stroked me and held me, and tried to give me milk when she saw I was still hungry. The first few months of my life were like that, and though I was small and weak I was happy. ... Then the old woman's son visited, and he became enraged at her for keeping cats, especially one like me, that he said was 'cursed with the color of death'. He struck her and then killed my mother, and some of my siblings, with the rest of us just barely escaping into the woods. ... The rest of it after that was a harsh, meager existence, full of near-starvation and fights with other woodland creatures. But I survived, often prowling near human dwellings, wishing that one of them might take me in like the old woman had, but only getting stones thrown at me for it.\n\n"When I grew old enough I became a nekomata, and I began to harass and sometimes even plague humans as was my nature, paying them back for the unkindness they and the world had shown me. ... But all the while I was mostly only bitter that even as I had become more like them, I knew they still would not love me. And then that's when I met you, Konko. You were so full of laughter, and joy, and your pranks against the humans were more creative and silly than the spiteful curses that I'd been taught were a nekomata's nature. You showed me a way to give them some payback without actually needing to hurt them, like I'd never really wanted to. That was probably the happiest time of my life, the two of us collaborating on ways to rile them up, sometimes making them suffer but more often just making them struggle in hilarious ways."\n\n"Yeah, it was pretty great," you allow as the two of you walk down the sidewalk, folding your arms and pouting over at her a bit. "Which is why I never understood why you left!"\n\n"Because I wanted more than a best friend... I wanted love," Nekoko answers quietly, looking down at the pavement as her sandaled feet hit it with soft clacks. "It was ingrained too deeply in me to escape, no matter what I did. I wanted you to love me, but you lived life far too freely for that. So when I met a priest that said he wanted to understand spirits, not just exorcise them... it was easy to fall for him. I wanted to be understood as much as I wanted to be loved... I wanted to understand myself, too. I loved him, so I told myself nothing else mattered... not my tails, not my drive to plague humans, and not even old friendships. ... I'm sorry that hurts you, Konko, it's just the truth of how it was."\n\n"I'm not <i>hurt</i>, I'm <i>aggravated</i>!" you huff, swiping a sleeve across your eyes in annoyance.\n\n"So I cut off my tails because I didn't want to be a nekomata anymore, I wanted to be as much like a human as I could. ... In the end, I understood though... that if my husband really loved me back the way I loved him, he never would have asked me to participate in that ritual. He understood how much you meant to me, I told him... he made excuses about how it was better for everyone to seal you, and I suppose he really believed them. But it still mattered more than me... I began to understand, bit by bit, sacrifice by sacrifice and always on my part, that he would never love me the way I loved him. In the end, when he died, we were more coworkers than anything else, just people who shared a bedroom and a job. After that I continued to keep the shrine in solitude and loneliness, until bit by bit I was forgotten and abandoned completely, and started to fade away." She looks over at you again, then smiles, with just a hint of a wicked sparkle in her eyes. "Maybe I'll have better luck being your wife, Konko."\n\n"Eh?" You stop at the threshold of your home, turning to blink at her.\n\n"Oh, you don't mind, do you?" Nekoko flutters her lashes teasingly at you, raising a hand to rest along her cheek. "I just thought that since you brought me back, I might as well make a good wife for you, hm? Don't worry, I won't push you to declare your love for me," she adds, putting her hands on her hips and jutting one out becomingly. "But I can care for your house, cook your meals, and assist you in your work. It's what a wife does, hm?"\n\n<hr>\n[["Th-that's wrong!"|KonFren]]\n\n[["... Well, if you put it that way!"|KonFren]]

Okay, so he might not hit your 'muscle' button as hard as the others, but the 'pretty' button is just as good. Besides, this will serve two purposes... the first being, exactly what is revealed to you in 'Coventry Tower' should tell you more about what's going on here. The second being... well, if you're going to be pushed into an arranged marriage, might as well be to another powerful practitioner. "I choose Fiel," you announce.\n\nFiel steps forward again, the small charm resting on his forehead attached to the thin chain run between the rings at the bases of his horns swinging forward a bit as he slips a hand across his chest and bows slightly. "Very well, then, Witch Princess. I accept you as my bride with all due honor," he says with smooth formality, his voice soft, smooth, and even, just faintly androgynous to go with his beautiful appearance.\n\n"Indeed, a joyous day for all!" Thule declares, though you notice he sneers a bit at the others, who are hiding their various levels of disgruntlement with various levels of success. "Now to hold the ritual of-"\n\n"I think not," Fiel says as he straightens up, face still calm even as his father starts a bit at being interrupted. "I will impregnate my wife at a time and place of our own choosing, thank you, Father," he adds, which makes <i>you</i> start a little bit.\n\n"Now see here, boy!" Thule snarls.\n\nBut the lean sorcerer seems unbothered as he steps in close to you, making you blush as he nonchalantly slips an arm around your middle and draws you in against his front lightly. "If you did not want me to make my own choices, Father, you should not have sought to marry me to the future Queen of Avalon. For now, the Princess and I shall bid you all a good day." With that, he raises a hand, palm turned upward, smokelike purple energy welling up from his palm and drifting down around the both of you. There's a slight flash, and you suddenly find yourself standing in a room much like the one you appeared here in, although the stone is black, and it's outfitted with more gothic-style furniture and a full study area, and a number of wrought iron fixtures over or inside of which float pale globes of luminescence.\n\n"Ah... standing up to the old man right off the bat, huh?" you comment, glancing up at him. Which might not be a very 'witch princess'-y thing to say, but that might tell you something too.\n\nNot much, though, since Fiel just quirks an eyebrow as he looks down at you. "... Indeed." After another second he steps back, robes rustling slightly as he moves. "Although, I must ask. What made you decide to choose me out of all of the others? Before today you were supposedly quite adamant about refusing to even consider my father's demand that you marry one of his sons. Suddenly you relent and within minutes of entering the room, have chosen me. So one is forced to wonder, what changed, and why me?"\n\n"Well. Basically, I decided that taking the offer was the best thing to do at the time," you answer after a moment's consideration, since it's true enough. "There were a number of reasons, but it simply made the most sense to agree to Thule's conditions."\n\n"Sensible, I suppose." Fiel tilts his head and quirks one eyebrow. "But does not answer why, out of all of them, you chose myself."\n\nHm. You have agreed to marry him... admittedly you're not entirely certain where you're going with things at this point, other than that you still need to figure it all out, but you may as well be honest about that one too.\n\n<hr>\n[[Power.|ValLib]]\n\n[[Compatibility.|ValLib]]

A long time ago on a Guildhall far, far away, there was a young merc named Kiara Lorde. Now, Kiara wasn't particularly standout or special... she didn't have any superhuman abilities and she didn't have any particularly notable training or connections. She was just a young woman who happened to be decent with weapons and be quick-thinking enough not to die right out of the gate, and thus increase her chances for longterm survival. In fact, if Kiara could be said to have anything noteworthy about her at all, it was that she was very adapatable. The more dangerous scenarios she survived through the better she became at handling them. The more she fired guns and swung swords, the better she got with them. The more computer security she ran into, the more enchanted traps she almost set off, the faster and more efficient she got past the next one. When she picked up a new gadget she was soon using it almost without thinking about it, when she learned a new spell she'd be casting it without chanting or gesturing in a few months. The more morally dubious situations she encountered, the more she learned to ignore the fussy little voice in her head telling her to be a hero and instead take the path that would let her survive... or, eventually, let her get paid.\n\nBit by bit, built on the back of little more than adaptability and a thirst to survive and succeed, the very unspecial young woman became a very rich and very well-connected mercenary... rich and well-connected enough that when yet another one of her original body parts began to lose function because of all the stresses her missions had put it under, rather than getting it replaced with a healthy cloned part or a simple cybernetic implant like all the times before, she took a trip to a heavily restricted post-Singularity megafuture dimension. There she had her mind transferred into a nanocolony... no primitive collection of silver goo here, this was an ultra-advanced collection of self-replicating sub-microscopic robots capable of linking themselves together to the extent of forming internal organs and giving off biological signatures, effectively giving you a flesh-and-blood body even to advanced medical scanners. They drew ambient power from all available sources around them, rendering the once rather unspecial girl effectively immortal and unkillable, as long as a single one of her nanites survived.\n\nOf course changing to a totally technological body removed her ability to use magic, which Kiara was not very happy about. So she acquired (through means best not discussed) the 'unlock' code for her nanites and modified them so that every time a new one was made, it's teeny, tiny surface was completely covered in an intricate tapestry of magic runes. Over the next few weeks as new nanites replaced old rune-less ones, her ability to use magic returned... and then strengthened massively. With every cell in her body now geared to use and process magic, able to convert natural and technological sources of energy to arcane energy and vice versa, magic became an almost instinctual force for her... very little thought was necessary to use spells, or even create entirely new ones. Unlocking the restrictions on the nanites also allowed her full control over her form, allowing her to change her appearance and body as she wished, and even make alterations to her mind... like finally getting rid of the last vestiges of that pesky 'conscience'. Eliminated of such a thing, as well as distracting needs for stuff like 'food' and 'sleep' (unless you felt like it), Kiara upped her merc rating to the top tiers within a matter of years, securing her place as one of the best and most famous members of the Guild of Interdimensional Professionals, Specialists, and Enforcers.\n\nYou are of course Kiara, your brain/CPU reminds you as you wake up and sit up in bed, yawning and stretching, arms briefly extending in length before you pull them back to their default. It can be helpful to have little reminders like that, actually, complete with the brief review of certain flagged memory logs. Certain of your missions and actions over the years have led to... let's call it 'identity creep'. You stand up and briefly check the mirror just to be sure you didn't 'creep' in the night and that your body is currently at the default of its appearance before you underwent the nanite procedure... tall, modest of breast and hip, pale, with pink eyes and platinum hair. You have your hair draw itself up into its usual ponytail at the middle-back of your head, then head into the training virtusuite waiting room, mentally activating the ready feature. You drift lightly into the air as the anti-grav activates, not letting you be prepared for whatever environment your randomized training program will throw you into today. You curl lightly onto your back, forming up your usual garb of loose short-sleeved jacket with raised collar, skintight shirt with built-in fingerless gloves, snug pants and high-performance boots... all of it in black and hot pink, of course, to complement your complexion. \n\n<img src="images/Kiara.jpg">\n\n<i>"In today's simulation, you have been hired to suppress a rebel uprising. The rebels are in control of three city blocks. Primary objective involves removal of rebel command structure, secondary objective is complete suppression of rebel forces. Collateral damage and civilian casualties are not a factor."</i>\n\n"Oh good, I always like when I actually get to have fun with these," you coo.\n\nReally, it only takes you about an hour... without having to be particularly subtle, it's mostly just playing around finding different ways to kill anyone that shoots at you. Or runs from you. Everyone, pretty much. Really near the end of the hour you're just hosing down the place with massive destructive magic and more conventional explosives, which completes both objectives pretty fast. Satisfied that everything's working as it should, you exit the virtusuite and instead enter your office, settling down into the comfy chair in front of your workstation and calling up a cup of high quality coffee from the replicator. You don't need caffeine any more than you need sleep, but both are nice to have as a way of marking the start and end of a day. Now, to properly start the day, time to take a look at your available jobs.\n\nThese aren't the general job listings of the Guild, however, oh no. You haven't taken a job through or by the Guild itself in years... no, you're famous enough that important, high-paying people offer you jobs directly. The Guild doesn't particularly care, so long as you pay your dues and all your rental fees (including for the company hall for your MC, the 'Split Infinity'.) Your high rank also entitles you to the maximum temporal shift available to the Guildhall, which means you can let some jobs linger for years but for your clients only minutes will have passed before your acceptance. It lets you have some nice leeway on picking and choosing what you feel like doing.\n\nYou go through the list of jobs, here or there tagging one to be carried out by one of the other members of your company, and making a mental note to give the aide responsible for compiling this morning's list a spanking for not correctly identifying which ones weren't worth your time and putting them on the company board instead. That done, you focus on the jobs that do seem of interest and profit. Let's see, let's see... a very rich man wants to hire you to [[make sense-recordings for him|KiSenseStart]], which is something you've done plenty of times before. Rich people often like to experience doing things that they don't want to risk themselves to do and wouldn't have the skill for even if they did. Still, those sorts of missions can be a lot of fun! You also see several [[gathering|KiGatherJobs]] missions... basically going and grabbing up particular people or things and bringing them back for the client. One or two [[elimination|KiaraKillJobs]] missions, which as this morning's training proved can be very fun, especially the fewer limitations there are.\n\nWhile you're thinking it over, you do a quick check, then tap the comm. "Kit, could you come to my office, please?" \n\nA moment later the outer door slides open, a slender, youthful figure running in. Kit has short blonde hair with largeish feline ears poking up from the sides of it, brown skin, and mismatched eyes of yellow and blue. She's wearing a long red hooded jacket, tight 3/4-sleeved black top, and white tanktop, as well as black tights under black denim short-shorts and slightly mismatched black leather boots. The slight aping of your own outfit is obvious, though where she got the idea for the goggles that almost always rest around her neck, you've no idea.\n\n<img src="images/Kit.png">\n\n"Yes'm! Good morning, what can I do for you?" Kit gushes eagerly.\n\n"You compiled this morning's job list, right?"\n\n"Yes'm! Did it all by myself," the young catgirl declares proudly, ears perking up and tail swishing excitedly.\n\n"There were at least three jobs on there that should have gone on the company board instead," you inform her blandly, holding up three fingers for emphasis.\n\n"... Oh." Her ears and tail as well as her shoulders droop. "Um, sorry, ma'am, I really thought they looked-" Her ears stand up again and her tail puffs out as you curl two fingers back in and point the remaining one at your lap... before she sighs, hanging her head as she walks over, already undoing her shorts. With a motion that's a bit more experienced than you might like, she bends herself over her lap and, at the same time, pushes her shorts and tights down around her slender thighs, baring her pert brown butt and smooth pink pussy as her tail sullenly raises up. She squirms a little as you give one buttock a light squeeze, before yipping as you deliver the first spank of... well, you'll decide when you're done.\n\n'Very cute and with potential, but she really needs seasoning,' you muse, sipping your coffee with one hand and continuing to spank the wriggling, yelping catgirl on your lap with the other, eyes on the screen. 'Hm, maybe I should do a [[training job|KiMentorStart]] with her, maybe one or two of the other smols. Fun is fun, but keeping the Split Infinity a top-notch MC is important too.'

Hmmm... why draw it out? The sudden and utter defeat route is so much fun, after all!\n\nFoxtail Red leaps forward, aiming a high kick at the monster's side with a loud "HYAH!" She's clearly extremely shocked when the wolfmonster catches her ankle, and then yelps as she's yanked off of her feet. The werewolf swings her around, getting her further off-balance before he hauls her up, sliding his arms under her legs and then hauling them up, tucking his large, clawed hands behind her head, the angle of his grip pinning her upper arms to her sides as well. "W-what the?!" the curvy magical girl blurts out, struggling wildly and almost instantly finding she's completely helpless. At least before the monster's large, thick cock thrusts up, forcing the crotch of her outfit to stretch up inside her as he stuffs it into her pussy. "GYRRRRK!" Foxtail Red's eyes roll up behind her visor, her teeth clenched as the big beast starts thrusting up into her, it's heavy, furry black balls swinging wildly with the motions.\n\nOf course you maaaay have included some innate sluttiness in her transformation, and the costumed Michiko's pussy is soon spurting arousal out around the thick cock of the werewolf with every thrust, her nipples standing out even more obscenely as her huge tits bounce lewdly. "Anh, anh, h-he's totally conquering my pussy!" she squeals, her tongue jutting out some, her body trembling as she obviously fights for control. "H-he's making me cum, a monster's making me cum! I don't wanna cum by being raped by a monster, h-help me Konko!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Help by joining in!|Konko1a]]\n\n[[Help by making her want it!|Konkon1b]]\n\n[[Don't help at all, konkonkonkon! ♥|Konko1c]]

Hm, yes yes yes, this will be fun! Keeping your giggles internal, you mentally design the form you'll poof yourself into... small, but still very foxish, with oversized ears and a slightly reduced muzzle and bigger eyes for cuteness appeal, and several distinctive markings that would be easy to reproduce on toys and recognizable through the packaging and in promo art. Aaaand done! Poof, and you hop up on the table, using a squeaky and adorable voice (which is of course just your voice but squeakier because your voice is adorable) to cry out, "Michiko! The world needs you!"\n\n"Huh? BWAHA!" Michiko turns and, of course on seeing something so strange that will nevertheless be treated as just some sort of normal pet by everyone else, she lurches backward and thumps against the bookshelves, her eyes wide behind her glasses. "What... what are... what are?!"\n\n"There's no time for explanations now! I'm Konko, from the Fox Dimension!" you add, immediately launching into an explanation. "We were invaded by the Wolf Dimension, but we're just barely managing to hold them back! So now they've decided to start invading the Human Dimension, Earth, so they can use your natural resources to build up their forces and completely wipe us out! Earth <i>and</i> the Fox Dimension are counting on you!"\n\n"B-but... for real?" Michiko's eyes are still very wide, but apparently she's having a hard time arguing with your presence right in front of her, especially once she walks over and pokes you gently on the head. (You give out an appropriately cartoonish yip noise.) "But... counting on me?! Why me?!"\n\n"You have a special Spark of Light in you that I, a Marked Fox from the Fox Dimension, can awaken!" you call enthusiastically, never letting up on the tone of urgency mixed with excitement and slight reverence suitable for a first episode. "With that, you can become a magical warrior capable of fighting off the Wolf Soldiers that the Wolf Dimension will send to try and conquer Earth! Starting with this town!" Because of course they won't move on to the rest of the planet before conquering the heroine's hometown.\n\n"R-really? I... you're saying <i>I</i> can be a <i>magical girl</i>?!" Michiko blurts.\n\nYes thank you dear for stating the premise outright. "Yes, and we need to hurry! A Wolf Dimension soldier is nearby right now, and if we don't get to them first, they could hurt a lot of innocent people!"\n\n"O-okay! Alright, what do I do?!" Oho, she's totally bought this hook line and sinker... she's trying to look serious and concerned but her eyes are dancing like nobody's business.\n\n"Quickly, shout 'Foxtail Transform!'"\n\n"Alright!" She nods eagerly and straightens up, swinging her arms around in a cool motion you totally did not tell her to do, which you don't think she quite realizes winds up with her just looking like she's dabbing really elaborately. "Foxtaaaail TRANSFORM!"\n\n'Konkon, here we go!' you think, generating a wave of sparkles around you and leaping up to do a little turn-and-flip in midair that would totally be used as clip footage for every transformation if this was an actual magical girl series. You surround Michiko in a similar swirl of sparkles as well as lifting her into the air, spinning her around as you make her clothes disappear. (Oooo, yes those are nice titties indeed, and a very nice ass! A very nice ass, konkonkon!) Honestly the low-hanging fruit would be just to dump her on her ass naked here in the library and run off laughing, but you already went to all this effort, why cheap out? Instead you send some gooified energy running down over her from the top of her head... yes, you're doing the magical equivalent of a one-fox bukkake on her, and from her blush at the feeling of the warm viscous stuff oozing over her and spreading out she thinks it feels rather lewd too, even if she doesn't realize quite why. But you let the magic pull her hair out of its braids and turn it red, as well as gathering it up at the sides into twintails held by a pair of vaguely mecha-like things that look like flopped-down fox ears. You cover her from the neck down in a tight one-piece, red and about as thick as a layer of paint, completely clinging to those big fat tits of hers and going down in a thin strap between her legs, leaving plenty of those wide hips on display. Add in some white armor bits along the shoulders and down the arms over the attached sleeve-gloves, then sheath those legs with their luscious thicc thighs in red thigh-highs and add some more white armor accents to make boots, and voila. "Success! You've unlocked your potential... <i>Foxtail Red</i>!" you declare proudly.\n\n"Hm?" Having settled back to the floor, Michiko peeks an eye open, then opens both, smiling tentatively. "Really? It worked? I'm a magical girl?"\n\n<img src="images/FoxtailRed1.jpg">\n\nThen she looks down, the light blush she'd kept from earlier at the sensation of the transformation turning into a brighter, more embarrassed one. "W-wha?! It's so skimpy!" she squeaks, putting an arm across her chest and a hand in front of her crotch... which, honestly, just makes her look even more naked than she did before.\n\n"I needed to spare all the magical energy I could for your abilities and attacks, Red!" you assure her, rolling around on the ground and laughing your ass off inside your own head.\n\n"B-but... if anyone sees...!"\n\n"Don't worry, the magic will protect your identity!" C'mon, Michiko, this is basic magical girl series fanon, get it together. "Now let's hurry, we have to stop the Wolf Soldier!"\n\n"O-... okay!" Obviously trying to rally her confidence, Foxtail Red clenches her fists near her shoulders and gives a firm nod. "Let's go!"\n\nYou run off ahead of her, with her quickly taking off at a run after you... konkonkon, it's quite delightful, using magic to watch her titties and dat ass jiggle when she runs! And her embarrassed blush despite her serious expression too! It's even better when you leap out the window of the hall and she hesitates before jumping out after you... the jiggling's even better when she does a three-point Hero Landing!\n\nYou lead her across the school grounds and into the town proper, making sure to lead her past several people she knows so they can glance over at her with scandalized expressions. (You actually are shielding her identity with magic, so far, just for the sake of immersion... still, her internal wailing about the little old lady she buys her candy from seeing her with her ass out in the tiny little outfit is delightful!) "Here! It's in here! I can sense it!" you call as you approach an out-of-the-way alley. \n\n"It's in there?" Michiko hesitates a little bit, but then nods. She does her best to look heroic and ready to charge in, lifting her fists a bit at her sides as a red visor snaps out of her hair-decos and across her eyes. "Foxtail Red, heading into battle!"\n\n<img src="images/FoxtailRed2.jpg">\n\n'I'm not even telling you to say this, this is great!' you giggle to yourself. She rushes into the alley, hesitating again at the sight of the looming werewolf-like monster you've summoned up for her to fight, its thick black fur bristling and red eyes glowing as it snarls at her. Ah, now, how to handle this?\n\n<hr>\n[[Have the monster overwhelm and lewd her.|Konko1x6]]\n\n[[Have it fight and start to overwhelm her.|KonMG]]\n\n[[Have it put up a good fight but lose.|KonMG1x1]]

Yes yes, let's take on a different form and make some mischief for her based on that form! You've got lots and lots of ideas, randing from the base and direct to the elaborate and potentially years-spanning! Let's see, you'll take a form that's...\n\n<hr>\n[[Squeaky and bossy.|Konko]]\n\n[[Small and marketable.|Konko1x5]]\n\n[[Sexy and waifu-able.|Konko]]\n\n[[Large with six cylinders.|Konko]]

You take a deep breath, slowly, then let it out. You climb to your feet, ignoring the heavy feel of your body, and pick up your jacket. You have to do this. You owe this. Not just to Makoto to keep your promise, you owe it to what he believes in. The kindness and strength he exudes, the loyalty and faithfulness he's always shown you and others. ... And maybe you owe it to yourself. For the only positive change you've ever made in this world in the almost two decades since you arrived.\n\nYour feet feel heavy as you make your way down the sidewalk, shoulders slumped and eyes down. You can't shake the feeling that you're going to sit in that park, listening to children playing and birds chirping, and knowing that you're alone again. Alone in a way you didn't realize you weren't all these years, when you had watching over Makoto to look forward to. You stop in front of the gates, looking up at them, and sniffing hard before you let your eyes track back to the path in front of you, forcing your legs to move and carry you forward again. You've walked this path so many times over the years... maybe far more than you ever realized, wanting to catch a glimpse of the little hero you had inspired. You raise your head as you approach the playground equipment, the sight of the empty structures almost painful. ... Empty?\n\nYou glance back and forth, noticing that the entire park is oddly unoccupied, as if someone had asked everyone to clear out and they'd actually complied. You hadn't noticed in your abject misery, but it's one of the most beautiful days you've ever seen since you came to Earth, with a blue sky so deep and azure that it could as well be a still calm sea, drifts of fluffy white cloud so perfectly arrayed across it that they could have been painted there by the gods. You stare into the sky for long moments before pushing forward again. You're almost there, almost to where... to where...\n\nYou stop, your hands dropping from your pockets to dangle at your sides, then flying up to your mouth to cover the choked noise you make at the sight of that short, slender form standing there, long, snowy white hair blowing gently in the wind, gold-embroidered thigh length purple robe slipped off slender shoulders, coltish legs left bare above soft brown leather boots. "Makoto?!"\n\nAt the sound of your choked cry, the figure turns, pink eyes lighting up with delight, pretty lips parting in a smile. The clothes look like something from your homeland, a thin white tabard trimmed with red coming down and highlighting petite but obvious breasts, the tabard fastened on over a black dress, its short skirt trimmed with lace. The belt, the pouches, the accessories, the necklaces, all of it is obviously magical artifacts, some of it even things you sold when you arrived. \n\n<img src="images/Makoto1.jpg">\n\n"Sipha-neechan! You <i>came</i>!" Makoto cries in a sweet voice, rushing towards you with abandon, laughing with delight as she throws herself into your arms. \n\n"Makoto!" you sob, holding her tightly, feeling that small body pressing into yours, holding on as if without it you might slip off the edge of something. Sniffling, you draw back, looking her up and down. "You... you..." Seeing the bright, unclouded smile on her face, you smile as well, despite the tears still running down your face. "... You're so beautiful," you whisper, every bit of your heart in the words, raising a hand to brush your thumb over her cheek. \n\nHer cheeks color and she glances down bashfully, before she looks up at you again and smiles. "Sipha-neechan, I did it! I found what I was looking for... ever since I was small, since the second time we met. The thing I've been working on ever since, my own proof to myself that I'd really be a Hero," she continues, her voice almost a whisper despite her excitement, head bobbing. "I finally found it."\n\n"You... what? Ever since then?" You stare at her in confusion. "Makoto, I don't understand, what did you find?"\n\n"Lytozia." Makoto's smile only grows as your eyes widen. "I found the way to Lytozia. Sipha-neechan, I came today to <i>take you home</i>."\n\n"I... I... oh my gods, Makoto," you rasp, feeling like your legs might go out from under you at any moment. "I... but I... but you-"\n\n"I came to take you home, 'neechan... and I came to go with you," Makoto insists gently, eyes twinkling. "Because a world full of adventure is where a Hero belongs. But more than that... more than anything... the place I belong is where you are." Tears start to slip from those happy, dancing eyes now as she continues. "Whether you want to go back to Lytozia, whether you want to stay in Japan, or anywhere in this world or a hundred others. Wherever you go, that's where I'll go. Because you may have helped me become a Hero, Sipha-neechan... but you'll always be mine."\n\nSobbing again, you fling yourself against her, wrapping your arms tight around her.\n\nYou're not going to let her go.\n\n<hr>\n[[Game Over.|SiphaKids3axEnd]]

The library seems like a good place to start! If you can't find anyone there to prank, you can always do things like seeding porn mags in otherwise completely innocuous studious tomes, changing classical literature to include laser pistol fights with aliens, or maybe making a tome with authentic magical spells and leaving it laying around to see what happens!\n\nYou make your way up the stairs and to the doors of the library, sliding one open quietly and peeking inside, taking a look back and forth. Hm, empty, looks like, but then it's not a very busy time of day. You're just trying to figure out which of your other pranks to seed the library with and move on when you pick up the sound of voices from further in, your fox ears twitching as you hear a soft, obviously rather upset voice saying, "Please, I'm just trying to pick out a book..."\n\nOhooooo? You sneak your way along the edge of the library... you could just hide yourself completely with magic but sometimes sneaking is more fun... and peek around the corner of a bookshelf. You quickly spot a tall glasses-girl with her brown hair in a long braid, and 'Damn, yo, is she descended from a cow spirit?' you think as you spot her chest. She's fairly plush all around really, with nice squeezy hips and squishy thighs sheathed in black thigh-highs. Not that the two gyarus apparently pestering her are all that bad themselves, but you'd still bet there's a bit of an inferiority complex prompting their bullying.\n\n"Ehhh? Seriouslyyyyy? Why don't you drop the act, it's suuuuuper obvious that you're prolly just some slut trying to pretend she's a nerd, yanno?" one of the gyarus says, making a face that involves poking out her tongue, showing off the stud piercing it.\n\n"Like, for realz, you gonna tell me someone with bomb titties like this actually, yanno, reads? S'if!" the other says, actually poking the taller girl on the chest and causing her to blush madly. "I betcher, like, just tryin'a steal our boyfriends an' junk, yanno!"\n\n"Like yeah, appealin' to their nerd fetishes and stuff, for realz!"\n\n"I-I-I don't even know what a 'nerd fetish' is, please leave me alone!" the bustier one blurts.\n\nOhoooo? Bullying? Bullying, it's bullying for sure. Well bullying is obviously a good opportunity for pranks! It's a super good one! You could definitely help nerd girl out in some way that would be hilarious and entertaining for you! Or alternately, you could help the bullies do something to their target that would also be hilarious and entertaining for you!\n\nYou pause, then look directly at the audience. "Yes hello hi. To those of you going 'Whaaaat why would you ever help bullies?!', yes I heard you, especially you, that one there with the dusty Pip-Boy replica on their shelf, I would like to remind you I'm basically a mischief goddess, what about that says that I wouldn't help bullies if I thought it was funny?"\n\nYou turn back to the situation thoughtfully, letting the fourth wall rebuild itself like that one atrocious scene in Superman IV. Of course immediately hopping in isn't your only option... bullies or bullying targets are often interesting in their own ways, with lots of potential for more personalized and/or longterm pranking. \n\n<hr>\n[[Help out the glasses-girl.|Konko]]\n\n[[Help out the gyarus.|Konko]]\n\n[[Observe the glasses-girl.|Konko1x3]]\n\n[[Observe the gyarus.|Konko]]

Teenage humans are so fun to prank... they're fresh-minded and still a little malleable, it doesn't take much to push them back into believing stuff that most adults in this modern world don't believe in. Plus, y'know, they're the group most likely to run off, so if you happen to, ah... "misplace" one or two or five in the course of your pranking it's far more likely to be written off as exactly that, some rebellious almost-adult running away from home. 'Why? Why would they do something so boring and pointless as running away to live life on their own, when the excitement and joy of working seventy-five hours a week as an office drone was almost theirs?!' wails the parent, so sad, so sad.\n\nAhem. In any event, you take a moment to magically change your hoodie into the long-sleeved white blouse and blue pleated skirt that is the girls' uniform of the nearest school. ... Hm, missing something. Aha! Some super cute yellow thigh-highs with the tops tipped with fox ears and little fox faces. YES! YOU ARE THE GREATEST GENIUS OF ALL TIME THESE ARE CUTE AS FUCK! Other than your absolutely award-winning level thigh-highs, you'll be perceived as any everyday Japanese schoolgirl despite your ears and tail still being out... well, and the fact that your cute white cotton panties bulge impressively in front but most won't be seeing that, will they? (Too bad for them!) Oh sure, you could just outright transform into a human if you wanted, but why bother? The attention deflection spell is just as easy and lets you keep your glorious ears and ever-so-fluffy tail! \n\nAnd so, you set off to the high school. ... Actually you disappear from your shrine house and reappear just outside the school gates, both with very cool and adorable puffs of golden smoke. Because you've been here before and public transportation is for suckers! You skip cheerfully through the gates... school is already in, but not like anyone's going to challenge you over it. Now let's seeee, where to begin your mischief? The [[library|Konko1x2]] maybe? Or the [[athletics fields|Konko]] or [[gym|Konko]]? Maybe wander around the [[classroom hallways|Konko]], or poke into the [[teacher's room|Konko]]? Hm, or you could wait a little while for school to be out, and mess with some of the [[clubs|Konko2x1]].

Hmmm. Let's observe this glasses-girl for a little while. Nerds are often so fuuuun to mess with, their imaginations tend to run wild and give you lots to work with! (Well, except for like, math nerds and "accuracy=quality" nerds, those are basically only good to be turned into fish and tossed in the river, critique a superhero movie's physics from down there, Nemo.)\n\nYou watch the gyarus pester her for a little while longer, then duck back around the shelf as they finally leave, laughing their bitchy girl laughs that are nowhere near as cute as yours. (Konkonkonkon~ ♥) Then you peek back around and watch the glasses-girl as she sighs heavily before bending to pick up her bookbag. "I don't see why they have to be so mean to me," she murmurs, setting said bag on the table before turning back to the bookshelves. "As if anyone would want their stupid jobless scruffy boyfriends anyway. At least get a job at a host club or something. Better yet go to college."\n\nOho, oho oho oho, she at least has a few claws! A little spine! None she'll show to the bullies, alas. You slip downward and scuttle along the floor, both to take a peek at what she's browsing (and up her skirt... they're the standard white cotton, of course, but my she does have a nice ass!), and to open up her bookbag and rummage through it. Ah, here's her student card, 'Mokuyo Michiko'. Looks like she's browsing fantasy stories... and her bag has several different kinds of light novels and manga as well as her textbooks and two extracurricular study books. Oh good, oh good, she's an otaku after all, goody goody okay she'll be fun! There's looots of things you could do... give her actual confidence and power and turn her loose on the world, or alternatively give her confidence and power and then lead her right into an embarrassing situation with them, or maybe even just hang around her for awhile seeing what chaos you can sow.\n\nOf course, it all starts with how you approach her. You could just go up to her with your deflection spell in place... or, hm, it might be best to actually transform into a human, never know when this sort will have an unexpectedly high spiritual ability, she might see through a less thorough illusion. Or you could just drop all of the illusions and appear to her as yourself, be frank that you're a powerful nature deity here to hang out with her... just not be entirely forthcoming as to why. Or you could take some other form entirely to approach her, with a more elaborate plan in mind from the start!\n\n<hr>\n[[Approach her as a fellow schoolgirl.|Konko]]\n\n[[Approach her as yourself.|Konko]]\n\n[[Approach her in another form.|Konko1x4]]

Grrrr... this will vex you if you don't figure it out. Vex you enough that you'll have to willingly do something else that vexes you... pray.\n\nTechnically it's praying when you talk to a god, even if you do it face-to-face and as rudely as possible, which you totally are going to do because fuck gods.\n\nYou stalk off down the street, heading for one of the shrines in the older part of town. You stop before the first torii, glowering at it, then swing a leg up and stomp it towards the empty space inside as if kicking down a door. There's a satisfying <i>wham</i> as part of the space in front of you goes swinging hard inwards, revealing a room interior that you stalk into, ignoring reality swinging back closed behind you. "HEY, TSUBASA, WHAT THE FUCK?!"\n\n"Mm?" The goddess sitting on the couch raises her head from the book she's reading with a blink. It really aggravates you to see that like you, all she seems to be wearing is a hoodie... hers is white, though, and rather than a foxtail sticking through it ambiguously, it's a pair of small but pretty white-feathered wings. How dare she appropriate your totally unique modern look! Just because it's comfy and they're available literally everywhere and thus completely effortless to make with magic! Well... she's also wearing a choker, but you do accessories too! She's sitting in the reading room of the softly-lit, comfy-seeming mansion she keeps in her godly realm, which is visible through the window behind her, a collection of floating islands in a peaceful blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. Her iridescently blonde hair is wound into a braid tied in 'crown' fashion at the back of her head, with a few falls of it on either side of her face, and her ocean-colored eyes peer at you from behind thin round glasses... okay that's totally a super cute accessory, you should try glasses some time. Laying on her lap is a rather majestic-seeming black cat, who's also raised its head to look at you, its raven-like wings lifted slightly in alarm. "Hello, Konko, can I assume something's wrong or did you just want to be rude to me? I suppose it could be either."\n\n<img src="images/TsubasaKami.jpg">\n\n"It totally could but I'm here to talk about very important things! First of all!" you snap back, planting your feet and pointing dramatically. "What the <i>fuck</i> is with that cat?! I know you're the god of winged things, but a winged cat is just showing off, you snot!"\n\n"I wanted a cat, and since most of my realm is shaped around flying, I made a cat with wings, that's all," Tsubasa replies in a reasonable tone, setting her book aside and stroking said cat's back gently, its wings gradually relaxing and its head leaning against her as its eyes close.\n\n"That is annoyingly sensible and also it's a really cute cat!" you snap back at her in aggravation.\n\nYou really hate gods, you think sourly as you watch this one pet her cat and just look at you expectantly. Admittedly, Tsubasa-no-Arumono-no-Kami is the one you hate the least out of all of them... as the god of all winged things, she doesn't really have a stake in maintaining order or trying to make you behave beyond 'please don't bother too many birds or kill too many bugs', which you... may have avoided doing, but not because she asked you, you just felt like it and also birds poop when they're startled and that's bothersome and also squished bugs are gross! Still, she's the most likely to help you, not that you <i>need</i> her help, she can just tell you stuff that it would be more annoying to figure out on your own!\n\n"So, what is it you need help with?"\n\nYou huff a little, folding your arms over your chest. "So you don't know what happened in the city?"\n\n"The one you live in? No, these days I don't know everything that something with wings sees in an area, I'm afraid, unless someone's actually in one of my shrines praying or doing priestly work at the time," Tsubasa answers with a little shake of the head. "I did vaguely sense something happened, but I thought you might just be playing a particularly elaborate prank."\n\n"Well it <i>started</i> that way," you grumble, but decide to go ahead and explain everything. Tsubasa's not much of a prude or a busybody, so you don't bother rephrasing or obfuscating anything, instead just telling her straight-out that you found a hot nerdy human and began a longterm prank to make her a magical girl to play around with her. Then you explain about the appearance of the wolf-eared figure in the clouds and the kaiju, and how you were forced to further empower Michiko so she could deal with it. "At first I thought maybe it was just my imagination running away with me again, but I couldn't affect that giant monster at all! In fact there wasn't any 'pushback' when I tried to poof it into the ocean, it just sort of... ignored me, like it hadn't even noticed I tried to do something to it. Even if it was a more powerful spirit, that doesn't seem right... I figured it must be the work of a god. And since it didn't have wings I kinda doubted it was you."\n\n"Quite," Tsubasa answers, with just a tiny quirk of a smile. Then she frowns thoughtfully, leaning back against her comfy-looking little couch, the sunlight from outside playing over her hair and washing little rainbows through it. "Well, there are precious few spirits more powerful than you left anyway... I'd feel fairly safe saying 'none', even. And quite frankly that would go for a lot of gods... very few of us are seriously worshiped these days, one of the only reasons I have as much power as I do is that my domain covers so many living things. But yes, a powerful enough god could probably create something that would be able to shrug off your powers without noticing."\n\n"So, what, it's the really big one?" You flick your eyes skyward, despite the fact that the two of you are in a whole other realm at the moment. "The foreigners' one? I thought He didn't do overt stuff anymore?"\n\n"No, I doubt that was Him. There's another possibility... that you weren't able to affect the wolf monster because your powers are bound in this world and based off of affecting this world. If that wolf wasn't from the realm of your birth, but was in fact from another dimension-"\n\n"Now hold on hold on hold on," you interrupt with a huff, waving your hands. "You're telling me that it really was an invader from the Wolf Dimension? A thing appeared based on a fiction I had <i>just then</i> created to lie to a mortal? Even if that's true, that sort of coincidence and mockery seems like the work of a god, still. ... Admittedly one with a sense of humor I could appreciate," you allow, making a bit of a face at the thought of actually admiring a god's work.\n\nTsubasa opens her mouth, then closes it, cupping her chin thoughtfully as she looks down. "... You're right. Although it's possible both are true. Perhaps the Wolf Dimension is real and that creature was from it, but it was created by a god even more powerful than-" She says His name, making you wince just a little and fold down your ears.\n\n"Hey, hey, careful with that stuff! Pagan nature deity here!" You glower for a moment at Tsubasa's apologetic look, then hrm. "But seriously? I thought that was kind of His deal, that He was omnipotent whether they worshiped Him or not."\n\n"Yes, but He puts restrictions on Himself, and the more powerful god of my theory doesn't. Alright, so." She rests her hands on her cat's back, leaning back again and looking at you. "You know the difference between a god and a deity, right?"\n\n"Yeah, deities are cool because I'm one, and gods are all dicks." You pause, feeling a twinge of something at Tsubasa's mildly hurt look, and covering it quickly with a smirk and a snicker. "Fine, fine, I'll play along. A deity is anything that humans worship, a god is anything that's actually innately divine. Deities can become gods if enough humans worship them for long enough to elevate them to divinity, but gods can't ever be anything but gods once they are one, they just wane in power and maybe disappear if they're completely forgotten about." Which is fine by you, you hope all of them do! ... Well... Tsubasa maybe can stay, she sets a great table, even if she is a stupid god and a style-stealer.\n\n"Right. Anything humans worship in large enough numbers, for long enough, and devotedly enough can become a god, and the more worship, the more numbers, and the greater length of time, the more powerful that god is." Tsubasa raises her thin, glittery golden eyebrows. "And can you tell me anything that humans worship more fervently than themselves?"\n\nYou open your mouth. Close it again. Open it. Close it. Put both hands to your face. "Wait wait wait wait, back the kon up. Are you saying humanity, <i>en masse</i>, is a god?"\n\n"It's quite possible. Theoretically, anyway. Their collective unconscious is a very powerful thing. It's possible that you just so happened to be the tipping point in this particular instance, and something based on a mass delusion was due to be created soon anyway. Everything you've described... invaders from another dimension, beautiful female commanders with intimidating looks, giant monsters that look like creatures we know but with 'extra', those are all things that millions of humans are focused on, and millions more are aware of. It could be that the creation of their mass delusion merely resembled the fiction you made up largely by coincidence, or it formed up on the most recent and most powerful input it had... which was definitely Michiko's, since you <i>actually</i> made all those things real for her."\n\n"So there's an entire dimension out there, full of stuff I can't affect because it's not from this dimension, and as far as they're concerned they've always existed, but actually humanity collectively thought them into existence earlier today and I was just the tipping point 'cause I dressed a thicc nerd girl in a very lewd magical girl outfit and had her fight a werewolf?"\n\n"It's just a theory," Tsubasa admits with another shrug. "I've been reading about a thing humans call 'parapsychology' lately, it's fascinating, you'd actually probably get a kick out of it too, considering its relevance to your tastes."\n\nYour ears perk up and your eyes go to her discarded book before you can stop them, but you quickly clear your throat and ignore the bait offer to hang out and chat about nerdy stuff like how human brains work (oh man you actually want to knoooow but no you don't haha fuck off you're a god Tsubasa but you do waaah). "But even if that's so, what's it all mean?"\n\n"Well, whatever the reason it's happening, it means you're probably going to see more invasion attempts, by more things that your power won't work on. And so, if you want to defend your town... since, after all, that's where your pranking targets are," Tsubasa adds wryly.\n\n"See, you <i>get</i> me," you acknowledge with a bob of the head. "That's why I hate you the least out of all the gods."\n\n"Mm. But if you want to defend the town, I suppose you'll have to keep up your 'prank' of making Michiko a magical girl, and continue helping her and giving her powers and assistance." Tsubasa mms. "Actually, you probably ought to find and recruit some more girls, don't you think? Five is the usual number for this sort of thing, I'm pretty sure, in an array of colors. ... I watch TV occasionally too, you know," she says flatly in answer to your stare.\n\n"Mmmm." You flick your tail as you cup your chin and look down. She does have a point, though. If you want to protect the town, AKA where you keep your stuff and your convenient pranking targets, you will have to keep on helping Michiko be a magical girl. And the point about maybe getting a couple more of them isn't bad either, even if it might theoretically get a little bit taxing. \n\n<hr>\n[[Recruit more magical girls.|KonMG]]\n\n[[Make do with just Michiko.|KonMG]]\n\n[[Eh, fuck it, too much work.|KonMG]]

"... Maybe what Aiane needs is some real stability in his life, some... normalcy," you say slowly. "Maybe I'll take him to stay with Gramma for awhile." \n\n"That's... definitely not the worst idea, no," Neo agrees after a moment's thought. "That Earth's a relatively peaceful place. We're not super close with her but she'd probably love to meet her great-grandson, and she's super sweet. She'd probably take great care of him."\n\n"Yeah, I think so too. His ears would stick out but I can just get a holohider for them or something for when he goes out," you add, waving off the primary concern. "In the end it's best for at least awhile to get away from all this. Hell if he really likes it we could always end up staying, I'm sure I could find a local job, that dimtemp's tech is basically like tinker toys for us."\n\n"And you'd be happy with that? Living on a midtech world, fixing their dee-vee-dee players?" Neo says with a snort.\n\n"I think they use something called 'blue raze' by now, but... it isn't about me, sis, it's about him."\n\n"... Yeah." Neo sighs again, then gives you a wan but sincere smile. "I'm proud of you, King Bro."\n\n"Thanks, mini-empress. Anyway... I'll give it about a week for him to sort of calm down and even out, then we'll head Earthside, plan to stay awhile, assuming Gramma will have us."\n\n"Pft, you know she will."\n\nIndeed, a week later it's all been worked out, and you wait outside of Aiane's room on the scheduled day of departure. He emerges, still looking on the tired and sad side, but no longer so obviously in the throes of suffering. You reach out and ruffle his hair gently, trying not to feel awkward about it. "Ready to go meet your great-grandma?"\n\n"Yeah," he agrees without much enthusiasm.\n\n"You'll like Earth," you assure him as the two of you head out and to the lift. "This version's only a mid-tech world but they've still got a ton of fun stuff... outdoor theme parks, way more sports than they play here on the Guildhall, I'm pretty sure there's even some kids your age in the neighborhood, let alone on the planet."\n\n"Cool," he echoes, again without much enthusiasm, but he didn't completely blow it off either so you suppose there's hope.\n\nThe two of you arrive at the departure portal annex, and you find an unreserved booth and tap the console, keying up and paying for a non-job portal, and then very, very carefully entering the appropriate dimtemp coordinates. This is super important for this sort of thing... you were off by a few numbers once, wound up in a different dimension and time, and almost wound up walking in on an alternate dimension teenage version of your mother doing... things... with a friend. ... And a dog. Yeah, not an experience you need to repeat. So you triple-check before keying accept and ushering Aiane through the swirling portal behind. The two of you step out into a quiet suburban back yard, the early fall breeze a bit cool and birds chirping, as well as people talking from another backyard nearby. You catch Aiane actually looking around with something like interest... he's been out of the Guildhall before, obviously, but never anywhere so, well, pastoral in comparison.\n\nBoth of you look over as the back door opens, a figure in a long-sleeved, snug black shirt and jeans emerging. You're always a little amazed by how much your grandmother and your mother look alike... especially since the temporal scaling means they're currently only about a decade apart in age. (Short version, more time passes on the Guildhall than passes off of it, meaning that the longer your mother is away from her birthplace the more likely she and her own mother are to wind up the same age.) Her black hair hangs down to her shoulders, cyan eyes still clear and sharp, and she's definitely held up well, since though her hips and rear are fairly round, there's not much in the way of belly, and her chest... okay you feel a little weird acknowledging it, but the woman either buys really good bras or she's fought off gravity admirably well. Really the only thing to show her age are a bit of crows feet around her eyes.\n\n"Leo," she says warmly, descending the steps and moving to hug you.\n\n"Hey, Gramma," you answer just as warmly, patting her back. You wonder if it's even weirder for her, having a grandson who's probably only a little younger than her daughter would be if she'd never left home and become a dimension-spanning mercenary. You step back and draw your son forward. "This is Aiane."\n\n"Well hello, Aiane, it's wonderful to meet you." Your grandmother smiles and draws the boy into a hug, and you do see him melt a little... great-grandmother hugs are apparently as good at mental healing as grandmother hugs. She draws back some and pets his hair, smiling at him sadly. "It's really nice to have you here. I wish it was under better circumstances." At Aiane's small nod, she leans down a bit to snag his hand. "You'll be staying in your grandmother's room, it's pretty much the way she left it. There's plenty of games to play, though the computer could probably stand to be upgraded if you want to buy any new ones."\n\n"Thank you," he says politely, and maybe a bit less stiffly than he has before.\n\n"Of course."\n\nOnce Aiane has been shown the room and seems to be distracting himself with some handheld dual-colored thing called a 'Switch', you and your grandmother head back downstairs for the family's apparently traditional method of working things out... coffee and conversation. "I really do appreciate you letting us stay here," you note. "I know we've never been as close as some families... it must be pretty weird for you, dealing with this."\n\n"Honey I've adapted to 'weird' pretty well by now, I think." she answers dryly, grinning at you over her steaming mug. "And I understand how it is... that whole 'time differential' thing and how busy your career keeps you. You all make it for most Christmases and that's enough. But how are you doing, sweetheart?" she asks, concern in her eyes. "I can see that Aiane's barely started to mend, how are you handling his mother's death?"\n\nThat's a rough one to answer, and it takes you awhile of brooding over your coffee before you're even willing to try. "... Honestly?" you finally say.\n\n"Of course. I'm not going to judge you, you're family."\n\n"... I feel like shit because I don't feel worse about it," you say with a sigh. "I mean, we made a <i>kid</i> together, it feels like I should be devastated, but... we decided when I found out about Aiane I was only going to help out, not be closely involved. So she was a friend, I guess, but not a lot more than that. I'm sad she's died, but it seems like it should be tearing me up and it's not. I hate myself because... I actually feel worse about having to give up merc work."\n\n"Emotions don't know that we're supposed to be beings of perfect selflessness and empathy," your grandmother answers with a dry smile. It becomes sadder as she looks down, rubbing her thumb along the rim of the mug. "... When your grandfather died, I felt something very similar. Amidst the grief at losing my partner and best friend, there was a very intense, very sincere anger at thinking of how he'd gone off and left me alone. I hated myself for thinking that, because it felt like it invalidated the loss I had for him, that I was feeling loss for myself too." She looks up at you, then reaches over to cover your hand with one of hers and give it a squeeze. "Forgive yourself for thinking about yourself, Leo. You're doing what's right for Aiane, and that's the most important thing."\n\n"I hope so," you say with a sigh, but giving her a brief grateful smile. "It's weird, but I've always sort of known my life isn't normal, you know? Like the way Mom talked I guess I just always knew that this was what 'normal' was. Guess I figured he could use a dose of that right now."\n\n"You may be right. If he decides he likes it here, you're welcome to stay. And I mean that, 'stay'. Aiane's free to make your mother's room his permanently, and until you decide otherwise, the guest room isn't a guest room, it's <i>your</i> room. Understood?"\n\n"Yes'm." You grin a bit wanly at her, but you have to admit that it feels good to hear.\n\nSoon enough you're standing in the guest room... ah, your room... changing out of your clothing and into more local appropriate gear... black jeans and a loose black shirt with a really interesting mural and the word 'Metallica' on it that your mother gave you last year on the holiday your grandmother mentioned earlier. You have this feeling it was more significant to her than it was to you, but since you seemed pleased with it that apparently pleased her. You walk over to take a look out the window... yup, those are suburbs, alright. It's not like they make you reel back in disgust, you've always liked this neighborhood and town when you visited, it's just... weird... to think of being here for longer than a week. Maybe years. ... Maybe forever. You run a hand through your hair, sighing. 'You're pushing forty and you have a fifteen-year-old son. Maybe it's time to admit the suburbs are where you belong, LaChance,' you think wryly.\n\nStill. Feels like you ought to do something, you can't just sit around and slump in front of a TV, that's just not you. So... what to do with yourself?\n\n<hr>\n[[Look for things to fix around the house.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Take a walk.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Go shopping.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Spend some time with Aiane.|LeoSon]]

"Alright? You're gonna live with me from now on," you assure him, gently putting an arm around his shoulders and pulling him up into a half-hug against your side. "I know it's gonna be some big adjustments for both of us, but I'm not gonna let you go through this alone. We're gonna be family from now on, okay?"\n\n"... Okay," he says, his voice getting thick and a bit watery now, his eyes closing as he leans his head against you.\n\n"It's gonna be alright, okay? I know it hurts to even think that right now, but it's gonna be alright, I promise," you murmur, brushing a hand over his hair before putting both arms around him and hugging him a bit more properly. You keep him like that as his shoulders start to shake and the tears start to flow, and just rub his back until he eventually cries himself out... for who knows how manyeth time, you think miserably. Once he has, though, you draw back a little. "When's the last time you ate, kiddo?"\n\n"Dunno. Guess... Aunt Neo fixed something... awhile ago," he says vaguely, averting his reddened eyes.\n\nTranslation, he didn't eat whatever she fixed and he's probably starving but feels too shitty to do anything about it. "I'll make something easy to eat, alright? Then how about you try to get a little sleep."\n\n"'Kay," he whispers faintly.\n\nOnce soup and grilled cheese sandwiches have been devoured and Aiane's been urged into his bed, you sit in a chair brooding over a cup of coffee, Neo sitting across from you on the couch, the bags under her eyes now a bit less severe. "So. What're we gonna do?" she asks, glancing at you from over her own coffee mug.\n\n"Yeah, well... obviously I'm gonna hafta take awhile off," you say with a sigh, raising a hand to rub your face. "Couple of years at least, until he's ready to go out on his own. I can't put him through wondering if he's gonna hafta go through this shit again every time I walk out the door while I'm looking after him."\n\n"Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good idea," she agrees, nodding, though her gaze is now on her coffee, clearly not wanting you to see the sorrow in her eyes. But you both know it... being a merc is who you are. Taking years away from that is going to be almost as big of a change to your life as suddenly taking care of a son on your own. Although clearly your thoughts on this are aligned, since she suddenly speaks up and says, "You're not doing this alone, y'know. I'm gonna be here."\n\n"Thanks, sis. I know I could count on you if something happened to me, but point still stands. He needs some stability in his life... it should be me. ... Even if I know fuckall about being a father," you mutter, sipping your coffee.\n\n"Well. Gonna hafta figure out what's next, anyway," Neo says with a sigh, slumping back against the couch and leaning her head back. "I mean, hell, you've gotta figure out where the two of you are even gonna live. Star's death benefits came through so the apartment's rent-free for Aiane until he's ready to leave or he turns twenty-one, whichever comes first, so I guess you could stay here. Just... dunno if that'd be too weird," she adds in a mutter.\n\n'Weird' as in 'Would Aiane hate you for moving into his mother's room and trying to replace her?', yeah. Still, it would provide some stability, at least, so it's an option. You turn over your options in your head, trying to think of what would be best for the kid.\n\n<hr>\n[[Stay in the apartment.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Go stay with family for awhile.|LeoSon2x3]]\n\n[[Move planetside.|LeoSon3x1]]

"... Um, listen, Starielle..." You hesitate even after speaking, then sigh. "I would love to help out, like financially, and if you need someone to watch him, and... maybe on special occasions..."\n\n"But you'd rather not get involved more deeply than that," she says softly, still smiling, though she probably can't help the sad look of it.\n\n"I'm... I'm not ready to be someone's father," you reply just as softly. "I mean... he's already a <i>person</i>, you know? He's not some three-year-old learning to walk, he's a whole person with his own identity, I'd have to get to know him and figure out where I fit into his life, and... ... I'm sorry. I think it's better for him. ... And for me."\n\n"Leo, it's fine." The elf woman's smile firms up some as she reaches out to put her hands on your upper arms. "I told you, I wasn't laying any expectations on you when I brought you here. If you're not ready to be a father, or even if you're never ready, I think that's your right. I appreciate the offer to help... even if you can't be his father, maybe you can at least be his friend, right?"\n\n"... Yeah, I think that's best." You nod, taking a deep breath, then glancing at the door. "I think maybe I need to go... can we comm tomorrow and talk some more about this? About how I can help out?"\n\n"Sure. I'll talk to you tomorrow, alright?"\n\n"Yeah. Talk to you then."\n\nYou look at each other for a few more moments, before you manage to actually turn and leave. You stop in the hallway outside, wondering if you actually made the right decision... but what you said inside was the truth, it wasn't just making excuses. You're not ready to be a father... and Aiane has lived his whole life up to this point without one. What if he hated you? What if you couldn't stand him? No... it's better to just be a small part of his life, there on the side to support him and his mother, but otherwise let them continue with the lives they already know how to live. That's for the best.\n\n'I hope,' you think as you head for the lift.\n\n<b><i>Just over five years later...</i></b>\n\nYou're still laughing as you step out of the return portal. "Quit griping, you'll be fine once you hit the medbay!"\n\n"Easy for you to say!" your mission companion snaps back, in a much higher and sweeter voice than they had when the two of you left. She scowls prettily at you, full pink lips pursed in a way that brings it dangerously close to a pout. "What if I'm stuck this way?!"\n\n"It was just a faceful of weird pollen, nothing else happened, you'll be fine. Go on, you go right to the docs, I'll wrap up the job." You wait long enough for her to walk off before putting a hand to the side of your mouth and calling, "Though maybe reconsider, your ass looks <i>fantastic</i>!" You laugh as she shoots you the bird, turning to head towards the lobby, and almost plowing right into a slight blonde form in front of you. "Whoa, hey, so-... oh, hey Neo, what's up?"\n\n"Leo..." Your short, blonde sister looks up at you, wearing an expression you've never really seen on it before... 'grim', which makes your own smile drop, especially when you notice that she's in civilian clothes. "It's... bad."\n\n"What? What happened? Is it Mom and Dad, are they hurt, do you need help?" You reach out to grip her slight shoulders, your eyes wide.\n\n"No... no, big brother, it's... it's Star," she says softly, glancing downward. "... She's dead."\n\n"Oh. Oh <i>shit</i>," you whisper, stepping back and cupping your lower face with a hand. "Shit, that's terrible, she was such a good merc, what the fu-" Then you go still, an almost literal chill of fear stealing over you as you whirl back to your sister. "Aiane, is Aiane okay?"\n\n"Yeah. I mean... he's as okay as a fifteen-year-old kid who just lost his mom can be," Neo murmurs, shaking her head. "It was on a mission, I got the call because I was registered as one of her emergency contacts and they couldn't reach you on that savage world. I... I cancelled my current job," she says, making you wince a little at the hit that will put on her license. "And hurried back... I haven't been away from his side except to put in a retrieval job on her body. Well, and to come meet you when I heard you were due back."\n\n"Shit." You rub your face with both hands. "Shit. That poor kid."\n\n"You need to go to him, Leo," your sister continues, looking up at you sternly. "We're all he's got left."\n\nA reflexive protest rises up in your throat, before you force it back down. Nodding tiredly, you sigh. "Yeah... yeah. He's in their room?" At Neo's own exhausted nod, you step forward and wrap your arms around her, squeezing. She was probably closer with Starielle than you were, even if you were still friendly acquaintances with her. You give her a kiss on the forehead, and murmur, "Go get some sleep, mini-empress, I'll take care of things for awhile."\n\nYou have to badger her a little more, but eventually she agrees and shuffles off to her own room, while you head for the apartment Starielle shared with her son. You hesitate outside of it, hand hovering over the access panel, before finally placing your hand on it, the door recognizing you and sliding open. You step in, immediately spotting Aiane sitting on the couch, slumped forward with his forearms on his knees, head bowed as he stares at the floor. You're a little struck as always at how much he resembles you... it feels so weird, it seems like every couple of months when you visit or take him for an event he looks even more like some weirdly perfect blending of you and his mother... the thought of which makes your own heart even heavier. At the sound of the door sliding open, his head lifts, and it absolutely tears your heart out to watch there be just an instant's flash of hope in his eyes before it's ruthlessly cut down at it not being his mother standing there. "Oh. Hey Leo," he says quietly, letting his head lower again.\n\n"Hey Aiane," you answer quietly, walking over and settling down onto the couch beside him. Trying not to feel awkward, you reach out and rest a hand on his back, rubbing gently. "... I'm so sorry, kid. I wish I could have been here sooner, I was on a savage world and those always seem to screw up comms, and... ... I'm just really sorry, alright?"\n\n"Not your fault," he murmurs, no anger in the words... nothing in the words, really. They're just noises he's making, hollowed out and empty collections of vowels and consonants.\n\n'Fuck,' you think, feeling your eyes sting. You wonder how often you came close to being like this... every Guild Cat thinks they're ready for a merc parent's death on the job, but you guess that's never actually true. "Hey, Aiane, listen," you say softly. "First things first... I don't want you to worry about what's gonna happen now, alright? I'm-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-gonna find you a place to stay."|LeoSon]]\n\n[["-take care of you from now on."|LeoSon2x2]]

Though the style is a little lacking, you can't really argue with a fun name like "Needful Kinks". Smiling, you turn and make your way over, pushing open the door (which makes a loud chiming noise) and stepping inside. You're immediately assailed by the smell of rubber and other things... oho! Dildos! You immediately see them and several other familiar sex toys, making your eyes light up in delight. This is a store that sells sex items! How delightful, and how perfectly inspiring! While you're looking around in joy, the woman behind the counter sits up slightly on her stool.\n\nShe has long, straight black hair with rather unkempt bangs threatening to hide her brown eyes (which have slight dark bags under them), just barely arranged to either side of her eyes and across her nose. Her pretty face has a sort of positive-ish neutral look on it, not quite a smile but definitely not a frown. She's wearing a black ribbon choker, and an off-one-shoulder black T-shirt that has a pair of checkboxes on the left, with white text stretching across her large breasts, the upper reading 'Goth' and the lower 'Sleep-deprived'. (The lower checkbox is the one with a checkmark in it.) The nature of the shirt leaves the snug black sports bra she's wearing to support those lovely knockers of hers on display as well.\n\n<img src="images/Lorelei.jpg">\n\n"Hi. Welcome. Anything I can help you find?" she asks in a way that is both faintly pleasant and leaves little doubt that she doesn't actually care.\n\n"Hello~!" you reply brightly, making a beeline over to her counter and smiling sunnily. "My name is Maxia, it's lovely to meet you!"\n\n"Uh... yeah." That actually seems to have taken her aback a little... you'd think she wasn't used to people acting unashamed and pleasant in this store! Her eyes shift back and forth as if checking for some visible ulterior motive when you just smile at her expectantly. "... Er... Lorelei?"\n\n"Good morning, Lorelei! First of all, I just want to compliment you on this lovely store! The outside is a bit dreary, but there are so many exciting things in here, I'm quite delighted!"\n\n"Good... for you?" Lorelei answers, still seeming mildly flummoxed. She does seem to be very, very slightly closer to smiling now. "I mean, it's not my store, but I guess it's pretty okay, yeah."\n\n"Hm, hm, hm..." you murmur, tapping your lip as you look around. "So, I would like to buy... some sex, please."\n\nLorelei opens her mouth... closes it. Eyes you suspiciously. Then clears her throat. "You mean some of the stuff here in the store, right?"\n\n"Correct!"\n\n"Right. Gotcha. Is it your first time in a sex shop?" At your energetic nodding, she gives a small, single one back. "Got it, okay. Well, basically, we've got most of the usual stuff... there's the sex toys, though we have a pretty good selection of [[exotics|MaxDildosStart]] that you'd usually have to go to the internet to find."\n\n"Hmmm?" You tilt your head a bit. "'Exotics'?"\n\n"Yeah, y'know." She shrugs negligently. "Some people get a little bored with dildos that are just shaped like a guy's thing, so they're based on other stuff. ... Dogs and horses mostly," she murmurs, just the faintest ghost of a blush showing on her cheeks. "And y'know, some other stuff, and also more fanciful things like dragons."\n\n"Oho~, now that's an interesting bit of creativity, I'm already glad I came!"\n\nLorelei's lips actually, measurably curl up. "That's what she said."\n\nYou blink at her. "I mean, yes, I did just say it. Is that remarkable somehow?"\n\n"... Nevermind." Lorelei gives a soft huff, then clears her throat and continues. "Anyway, we've got [[magazines|MaxMagsStart]], and [[video rooms|MaxVidsStart]]... we print-on-demand copies for any of the videos you like, it just wasn't worth it to keep ordering physical media to keep in stock, you know? ... Yeah nevermind. Anyway, we've also got a current special on [[shibari rope and how-to guides|MaxShibStart]]... ah, it's a particular kind of rope bondage from Japan, it's kind of meant to be an artistic thing besides just bondage."\n\nYou nod along with all of that, seeing several potentially interesting things to take back to the Realm of Deviltry... which could conceivably include [[Lorelei herself|MaxLoreStart]], you find her interesting and charming you have to admit, with her amusing blend of world-weariness, jaded demeanor, and slight awkwardness. She's sort of a refreshing contrast to Xenith, who you love but seriously, come on now.

"Er... what?" the boy in the kimono and wig asks with a blink.\n\n"I said, I am here to save the awesomeness of this club!" you declare. "This club is cool! It's exciting! It's different! I'm big on it! So I'm going to make it into its truly perfect form!"\n\n"Hey, who are you to-" the girl in the suit starts out... only to cut off with a loud yelp and go stumbling backwards, echoed by several other yelps, shrieks, and at least one scream as you puff your ears and tail into being again. (The boy in the school uniform can at least scream like a girl, that's good.)\n\n"I," you declare smugly, putting a hand to your chest. "Am Konko. Like I said. I am a fox spirit who loves exciting and transgressive things. Something like a Japanese school having a crossdressing club, challenging the norms, is great! I applaud you for getting it done! I applaud you for trying your best! BUT!" you shout, thrusting a finger forward again. "Your best isn't cutting it! So I'm going to have to help you out and take all your crossdressing to the next level!" You swish your tail a few times, setting your hands back on your hips as you look back and forth, amused by all the stares, but you certainly don't hear any protests. "Good? Wonderful? Yes? Great! We're starting immediately! FIRST OFF!" you shout again, making several of them jump. "Who here isn't just crossdressing but feels like they're the wrong sex?!"\n\nThere's a number of glances exchanged, and the girl in the suit... who seems to be the club head... clears her throat. "Um, well, Konko-sa-... -sssama?" she tries, and you have to give it to her, at least she's rolling with the punches better than some humans. "That's not really what this club is for, it's just for crossdressing."\n\n"Psh," you snort, waving that off, briefly closing your eyes and tilting your head as you make the dismissive gesture. "And where else is someone like that going to go to feel even a little comfortable, hmmmmm? Is there a 'not quite right as I am' club, hmmmmm?" At the complete lack of response, you glance around again. "Come on then, be honest, speak up, out with it! I know there's at least one!"\n\nSlowly, a single hand raises, its owner tentatively stepping forward. A tall, sort of gangly and gawky boy with slightly long, scraggly brown hair, wearing a black spaghetti strap top with a cute anime skull on the front, fishnet shoulder-gloves, a black pleated skirt, and pink-and-black striped stockings.\n\n"Alright, alright, hurry up hurry up, right here, you're wasting time," you urge, pointing at the floor in front of you, the command in your voice sending him scampering over. You look him up and down for a moment, then hold up a hand a little below one of his shoulders. "About here, maybe?"\n\n"Um?" He blinks, then his eyes go wide as he seems to understand. "M-maybe one inch less?"\n\n"Here then," you lower your hand some, receiving a shocked nod. "So shortstack, you're thinking?"\n\n"N-no, like... um... like lithe?"\n\n"Ohhh, oh I see, I see, a very good look, and I'm betting you've got an inner twintails begging to be free, hm?" At his eager nodding, you look him up and down again briefly before asking, "How do you feel about purple eyes?"\n\n"<i>Purple</i> eyes?! That sounds super cuUUWAH!" he squeaks as he's wreathed in a puff of smoke at a snap from your fingers, voice already going higher and sweeter. The smoke quickly clears, leaving a very shocked, rather short, fairly slender and extremely cute girl wearing the same goth clothes, smooth, sleek black hair tied with red ribbons into two long tails that almost come to the ground, her purple eyes wide.\n\n"There you go, all better," you announce in satisfaction. You pause briefly, then make a flicking motion with both hands. "Now shoo, shoo, not the club for you, go on, get, go have fun," you add, smacking her on her pert little butt to send her scrambling out the door. You turn back to the rest of the slack-jawed, wide-eyed club, ignoring the gleeful shout of 'OH EM GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!' that goes fading off down the hall behind you. "Now that we've got it down to <i>crossdressers</i>, we can do this properly!"\n\n"Ah... ah... um..." the blonde stammers.\n\n"... Konko... -sama," the boy in the school uniform says uncertainly. "What... what exactly are you going to do to, uh... help?"\n\n<hr>\n[["I'm going to change things as I please!"|KonCD]]\n\n[["I'm going to help you achieve your goals!"|KonCD1x3]]

"Fine, fine, I'll go get some more money for you to guzzle and snort and pump away while we freeze," you snarl back at him before wheeling around, ignoring his shout of 'BITCH!' as you stalk back over to snatch up your katana. You stop at the door, take a deep breath and let it out, then turn around and find a smile for Zee, walking over to rest a hand atop her head. "... Sorry. Just stay out of his way for awhile. And stick to the kitchenette, it warms up some-"\n\n"When the upstairs neighbors cook, I know." Zee gives you a still shaky smile back, nodding. "Be careful, Kai."\n\n"Careful as I can. I'll be back soonest." You lean forward to give her a quick peck on the forehead, then turn and stalk to the door, resisting the urge to shout at Doonian to buy her some pants while you're gone since it'd be more likely to make him confiscate (and sell) one of her shirts instead.\n\nYou stop on the landing outside the entrance of the building, staring flatly at the rainy streets. Great, you half killed yourself completing that C-rank job and now you're being sent out again. You were really hoping Doonian wouldn't go through the money so fast, but it was the most you'd brought home in awhile so you guess he got all excited. "Asshole," you mutter aloud, your breath frosting a little on the wet air. \n\nWhatever. Doesn't change anything, you've been sent out to earn, and the sooner you bring back the money the more likely he'll actually spend it constructively and the less likely he is to take his bad mood out on Zee. He's not usually outright violent (you're well aware he could actually hit you with those bottles if he wanted to), but then his disposition isn't actually improving with age. You look up and down the streets, at the misty glow of LEDs and PCLs and even flickery, uncertain neon tubes here and there. So, money. Well, the first obvious choice is whether to do a transfer to the Guildhall and pick up some official work there, or to just roam about this city sector on Makarzia earning. Both have its benefits... the Guildhall itself is safer, anyway, and the payment guaranteed as long as you succeed. But there are also rules to obey there, and it's way easier to get in over your head really fast just by dint of taking the wrong job. Makarzia... well, the rules are really more like guidelines. You know this place and how to navigate it, who the players are, how to deal with them. While the certainty of getting paid is a little bit less, most of the people you'd deal with would know better than to try and cheat you.\n\n<hr>\n[[Go to the Guildhall.|KaiGuild1x1]]\n\n[[Stay on Makarzia.|Kai1x2]]

Squealing happily, you put your fingertips to your lips and hop back and forth, "Humans, humans, good job! It's creative, it's exciting, I'm excited, kon! Yes, good, show me your trespassing beauty, I want to see it!" You turn and practically run down the hall, skipping up the stairs and down the third floor hall, to stand in front of the door to the marked club room. You take a moment to transform yourself fully into a human and shift back to your hoodie and sneakers, since you might as well show off your own preferences in fashion. Then you throw open door, eyes sparkling as you strike a pose with finger forward. "YES! GOOD JOB! WONDERFUL EXCITEMENT! SHOW ME YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS!"\n\nA number of heads whip around to face you, and you find your currently nonexistent ears drooping a little bit as your smile turns a little hollow... in fact you wouldn't be surprised if a single giant sweatdrop was sliding down the backs of the heads of you and everyone else here. This... is not exactly what you were hoping for.\n\nThere's actually a good handful of people, but none of them are... quite getting what they're going for. There's a boy wearing the girls' school uniform, but he's too tall with too broad shoulders, a thick waist, and rather powerful-looking legs... the uniform and the thigh-highs he's wearing don't fit very well due to all this despite being his size, plus his hair is way too short and an obviously masculine cut, despite his attempt to spruce it up with a pink hair deco. There's a girl in an admittedly rather classy men's suit, but it's off the rack and so not cut right to give her broad shoulders or account for her breasts which aren't bound down very well due to being so big, and her blonde hair's a bit too thick and poofy to properly fit in the masculine ponytail she's going for. Another boy has cleverly gone with a classical kimono and old-style wig, but the wig's sort of cheap and it's not on right and the kimono belt is tied wrong and AGH they're all like that!\n\n'Okay. Okay, Konko, just stay calm,' you tell yourself, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, running your hands down the front of your hoodie to smooth it out. 'They're trying. Bless them, they're trying to be interesting. It's not their fault they can't change shape like even the most basic of spirits, they're humans, they're born to suck, it's fine.'\n\n"Um... hello?"\n\nYou peek an eye open. The very sweet and girlishly-voiced question came, alas, not from one of the boys, but the girl in the suit. Who quickly clears her throat and tries to deepen her voice into something classy and smooth, but unfortunately sounds like every 'kid attempting to sound like an adult' voice in a cartoon ever. "Can we help you, miss?"\n\n'Bless them bless them bless them bless them bless them bless them bless them,' you chant urgently to yourself as you cover your face with both hands, trembling a little, before quickly slapping your hands against your cheeks and opening your eyes, pushing some of your enthusiasm back up. "Yes! Hello! Hello, Crossdre-... Unrestrained Fashion Club! Behold! I am Konko! I am here to-"\n\n<hr>\n[["-join!"|KonCD]]\n\n[["-blow your minds!"|KonCD]]\n\n[["-save this awesome club and make it REALLY ACTUALLY AWESOME!"|KonCD1x2]]

"The first hero soul is now safely contained in the tower for the rest of eternity, your majesty," Xenith declares, smiling brightly. "We can now safely continue drawing from the energy of the previous Dark Monoliths submerged in the sub-realm below, maintaining the Realm of Deviltry at its status quo."\n\n"Good, good," you acknowledge with a smile, stretching your arms briefly over your head. "Mmmn, it's always good to get the basics of the basics squared away first thing."\n\n"I agree, your majesty! To that end, during the hero's capture, the scrying team has been diligently combing the dimensions for strong hero souls for us to capture. We've also found various places that you could visit and discover new resources, if you ever wished to do so."\n\n"Ohhh? Good job, everyone! Scrying team, you may all have a five-minute mind-blanking orgasm!"\n\n"Thank you, your majesty!" several of the succubi call back gleefully, before they all collapse writhing and squealing on the floor.\n\n"Your majesty is as always too kind to your lowly servants. Unless, of course, this lowly Xenith is presuming too much by commenting on even theoretical limits to our most beloved and desired oppressor's kindness, in which case-"\n\n"I can turn you into a butt plug and insert you into the biggest sweatiest orc I can find, yes yes yes. Xenith, my darling, my love, we're really going to have to talk about this complex of yours."\n\n"Ah, forgive this most ridiculous and masochistic Xenith her personality tics, your worship, it's how I was created."\n\n"Mm, well, in any event, what do we have?"\n\n"Here, your majesty." Xenith holds out a hand, causing three scrolls sitting in a container near where you made your throne to lift into the air and fly over, unfurling at a distance to make reading easy (with your superior eyesight, of course). "These are the scrolls with the lists of Known Souls, Origin Souls, and Explorable Worlds that we have discovered via scrying. We will continue to work on expanding them, so feel free to check them regularly, my queen. We will also update them with the status of any previously captured heroes, just to help you keep them straight. Should you wish to release a particular soul for any reason, you may do so at any time you wish... ah, though we only have one for right now, so please don't release her, if I... ... may be excused for suggesting it?"\n\n"Good girl. You may experience ten minutes of pure, nonsexual bliss as your reward for following my wishes."\n\n"Ohhhhhh." Xenith's eyes glaze over, a hazy, gentle smile curling her lips as she starts gently swaying the tiniest bit back and forth in place. "Thank... you... my queen," she whispers airily.\n\nWhile Xenith is blissing out, you take a look at the scrolls, trying to decide what to do with the rest of your first day of existence after breaking and capturing a hero.\n\n<hr>\n[[Known Souls.|MaxKnownSouls]]\n\n[[Origin Souls.|MaxOriginSouls]]\n\n[[Explorable Worlds.|MaxExploreWorlds]]

As a hero, paragon, and role model to millions of children the world over, it is of course your responsibility to sit here on your ass and actually watch these monitor screens for the next 600 minutes. Even if those millions of little children aren't actually watching you do it, because character is what you are when you're bored out of your skull. Sigh.\n\nSo for the next hour you keep an eye and ear generally on the bevvy of newscasts, weather feeds, and emergency bands, and don't learn much other than that everyone the particular station disagrees with is Satan, everyone thinks hurricanes are the work of Satan (literal or metaphorical), and... actually the emergency bands are remarkably Satan-free, the droning tone is sort of relaxing that way.\n\nYou blink as an alert suddenly pops up on the monitor. Wait, seriously? Is it that time of the month? No not <i>that</i> time of the month, the... no, nevermind! You sit up fully and tap the controls to bring the alert into focus. It looks like it's-\n\n<hr>\n[[-a sensor alert.|Cal]]\n\n[[-an incoming message.|Cal2x2]]

Hm, in many ways this is sort of a rite of passage for you... and in that sense, maybe it's better done as a private thing. Your first summoning doesn't have to be a demon king for it to matter... you still remember your first spell fondly, and it was pretty miniscule and of no consequence. Decided on your course of action, you pack up your things and hit up the rideshare app, programming in two destinations (though admittedly 'the edge of town' isn't exactly selectable and even if it was you're pretty sure that would make the driver pretty fucking nervous, so you just find an address that's close enough for your purposes). The driver will probably assume other reasons you're going to the most remote hotel in town, but that's fine.\n\nOnce you've gotten out, you start your trek, hoping that you can at least get to the ritual hill before dark. Luckily you try to keep yourself in decent shape, and have bolstered your body with some magic... heck, this isn't even the first time you've made this particular trek into the wilderness. Still, it requires some hours and several stops for water and nibbling on a power bar before you arrive at the site. There are no historical markers or really much of anything to designate it as distinct, just a decently-sized hill that looks like at some point someone carved portions out to make a vague path winding up it. The Deviloka once revered this hill as sacred, for purely practical reasons that power is much easier to call and concentrate here... you'd guess there's probably some ore veins down below, some geographical features around, and you're definitely sure that at least two ley lines cross here. You arrive at the top and set your bag down, flipping open the cover of your moonwatch... it looks and acts a bit like an old analog pocket watch, but actually gives you an accurate fixture of the astrological position of the moon and stars, and thus when "actual midnight" is.\n\n"Plenty of time," you murmur with a grin before pulling off your shirt. Tucking it into a drawstring bag you brought with you, you soon follow it up with your bra, your breasts jiggling lightly as you unbutton your pants and work them and your panties down. Once your clothes are tucked away and your boots are set down beside your bag, you begin the task of preparing the site, your pale skin gleaming a bit under the moonlight. The fall night is fairly cold, making your skin pebble with gooseflesh at first and your nipples stiffen into pebbles, but as you move around and work, the combination of physical activity and the power you're building up helps warm you, and soon you feel as comfortable as if you were warmly dressed and tucked in your room back at home... except that there you wouldn't have the thrill of being naked under the stars, atop a nice high hill where anyone lurking in the forest could see you.\n\nEventually you finish preparing the summoning circle, and check your moonwatch. Good, almost time. You light one of your special matches, the flame flickering pale silver, cupping your hand around it before blowing across it gently, the candles ringing the circle popping to life with their own silver flames, which quickly shift in hue to a gentle pulse of red and purple, the fire frozen in place like lightbulbs rather than sputtering and wavering like normal candle flames. Good, that means everything's been prepared properly. Another check of the watch, and you set it aside. It's close enough now that it should make no real difference precisely when you complete the chant, so may as well get started.\n\nRaising your hands high and spreading your fingers, letting your toes dig into the dirt a bit, you call out in a clear voice, "E fyhd du mad dra mufan bmyhac ghuf dryd E's cdyhtehk rana fedr so dedc yht bicco uid! E's dudymmo ycgehk vun cusa rud tasuh du cruf ib yht veht yh aqlica du nyba sa ihdem so seht pnaygc yht so cuim lyh pa tajuinat! Vnaa ica lihd rana!"\n\nAs you speak, the sky gradually darkens with clouds, a roiling mass of black that slides in and covers the moon, briefly plunging the hilltop into complete darkness save for the light of the candles, which seems to brighten and cast a red-purple glow over your skin. The moment you finish, there's a roar as a bolt of what looks like (but can't really be) lightning streaks out of the sky and strikes the ground in the center of the circle... only all your training and mental discipline up to this point keeps you from screaming or fleeing (or wetting yourself). Still, your eyes are briefly overwhelmed, and between that and a thick cloud of smoke you can't really see much for the moment.\n\n"KYAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! I am summoned, and so I arrive! Lord Ruu graces this mortal plane with his presence at last, and all humanity shall soon kneel before me!"\n\nO... kay. Such a declaration might concern or awe you, except for the fact that it sounds sort of, well... cute? You wave a hand in front of you a bit, the smoke gradually clearing, as are the clouds. You can gradually make out a horned, winged figure in front of you, becoming clearer as the cloud dissipates. The horns arc up from either side of his forehead and over the top of his head, which is covered in thick black hair, a pair of shorter, straighter horns pointing upward from closer to the center of his forehead. His skin is a deep blue color mottled with black speckles, his draconic wings marked with black skin stretched out, his fingers and toes capped by blue talons. Paler blue runs down his throat, chest, and belly, down to where he's wearing a long, but rather ragged-looking loincloth.\n\nHe's also just barely eye-level with your nipples.\n\n"... Hunh," you comment aloud, looking down at the short, slender demon in front of you, his cute, boyish face displaying a smug expression with chin lifted.\n\n"Hu hu, that's right, mortal, you're impressed, right? Summoning up a demon lord, you're probably so scared you'd do anything to save yourself from even the potential of my wrath, huh?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Not... quite.|ValTome2x2]]\n\n[[Are you fucking kidding with this?|ValTome]]

"I can't really say I'm terrified, I mean I did come out here to summon a demon," you reply, folding your arms, and winding up pushing your bare breasts up and together. Oh right, the whole nudity thing. ... Well, not much you can do about it at the moment without showing weakness. You lean forward a bit. "So, speaking of which, exactly what sort of demon are you?"\n\n"A-ah, well..." Ruu shifts in place a bit, wings squinching in closer to his back as he brings his hands up and taps his index fingers together, rather quickly losing that whole smug, triumphant air he was trying for. "I'm... an Imp Lord, actually." Then he points dramatically at you, declaring, "But an Imp Lord is still a demon lord! It's a lord, a lord, that's right in the name!"\n\nSo you've managed to summon the most powerful example of the least powerful true demon. Well that's... simultaneously a bit humbling and a bit amusing. You tilt your head as Ruu strikes his hands-on-hips pose again, clearly waiting for a response. "Well, I summoned you, Ruu, and my name is Valerie," you declare. "You're the first demon I've ever summoned."\n\n"Eh, really?" His red eyes sparkle delightedly, and he actually clutches his hands under his chin, before he composes himself and coughs into one hand, wings giving a little flutter. "Yes, well, you are in luck, mortal Valerie! Since you have summoned me, a lord, I can do many things! Many many things to help you! I can put thoughts in the heads of the weak-minded!" he declares, twisting to one side and lifting his hands to wiggle his fingers, as if over the scalp of some dupe he was brainwashing. "I can traverse the world of sleep to craft dreams for unaware mortals! I can even twist the bodies and change the forms of the weaker and more vulnerable mortals!"\n\nYou try not to roll your eyes, and wind up clearing your throat. "I can actually already do all of that myself."\n\n"... O-oh." Ruu lowers back onto both feet, rubbing at his upper arm with one hand as he looks down.\n\n"Is there anything else you can do?" you ask gently, more because you're starting to feel bad than anything else.\n\n"W-well!" Ruu perks up a bit, once more putting his hands on his hips. "I didn't want to mention it because... I mean, it's not that big of a deal, really, but I have an almost limitless supply of mana!"\n\nThat makes you blink. "Really?"\n\n"Yup!" He thumbs himself on his sleek bare chest. "That's something an Imp Lord has that you're not gonna get from pretty much any other demon! If you decide to pact with me, you'll never want for magical energy again! Or I guess I could give you your own mana tap if you wanted a boon instead," he adds thoughtfully, scratching at his cheek lightly. "But yeah, I'm super duper useful, you definitely didn't make a mistake summoning me!"\n\nYou're still not entirely sure about that, but if he's telling the truth and he really does have an inexhaustible supply of mana, it's true that pacting with him could be incredibly useful, similarly having your own mana tap could make you a far more self-sufficient witch than most others. Still... is it true?\n\n<hr>\n[[Accept the pact.|ValTome2x3]]\n\n[[Take the boon.|ValTome]]\n\n[[Press X to doubt.|ValTome]]

"Alright then, I'll pact with you," you answer, grinning. A virtually unlimited supply of mana? With that you could do a lot of spells that have been out of your reach until now, and probably start unlocking spells in your tome at a much faster pace!\n\n"Okay! Then let's seal the pact with a mana infusion!" Ruu declares, immediately yanking off his loincloth.\n\nYour jaw almost drops. Ruu's cock is not only the largest you've ever seen in person, but it's bright blue. Not just the color, it's literally glowing! Below it his heavy balls are a deeper, more purple-tinted blue color, shining in the night like a pair of tinted lamp orbs. It's quite large all on its own, but on Ruu's small frame it looks even bigger, considering that it comes down almost to his knees... although it's quickly rising upward. It looks like when fully hard he'd have little difficulty bending forward and sucking himself off if he wanted to. The sight of the skinny, slight little demon with his rather cute features, clearly overly proud and a bit smug as he rests his hands on his hips again, and that utterly disproportionate and brightly-glowing dick, leaves you stuck somewhere between arousal and hilarity, your brain struggling over which one is winning out.\n\n<hr>\n[[Arousal.|ValTome2x4]]\n\n[[Hilarity.|ValTome]]

The moment that arousal pulls into the lead, the temptation to laugh quickly fades away, replaced with a single all-consuming thought: 'Big fat demon dick!' Licking your lips, you sink down onto your knees in front of Ruu, reaching out to wrap your hands around his glowing shaft, your fingertips not quite touching as you begin stroking them both slowly up and down. "I'm guessing mana transfer works exactly like you'd expect?" you say a bit breathlessly, unable to help grinning like a fool as you look up at him. (Which isn't very far to look up, even on your knees.) \n\n"Mmmmnh~... ahhn~... ah! I mean, huhuhu, yes, it is, you're quite canny, mortal!" Ruu declares after shaking off his little bout of squirminess and the blissful look on his face, trying to push himself back to his boastful demeanor... though when you slide one hand down to cup his big blue-purple balls and rub them around, his eyes roll just slightly and his tongue lolls out, revealed as split-tipped and rather long. "Hwaaah... ah, that's really nice..."\n\nIt's actually already rather nice for you too. Even just touching his cock and balls, you can feel the massive amount of mana stored in them, the radiance of the energy seeping into your nerves turning even your palms and fingers into erogenous zones. You almost hesitate to even try what it would feel like on your tongue or lips... right up until a clear, but glowing purple drop wells up at the tip. Unable to resist, you lean forward and slip your mouth right over the tip, dragging your tongue up over it to collect that drop, mostly smearing it over your own tongue and Ruu's cockhead as he gasps cutely in reaction. You shudder as even just that little taste sends enough pleasure flickering through your body to have your pussy utterly drenched, dripping down your thighs and onto the grass. As more of his pre flows out and you lap it up, once more using both hands to pump the length of his luminous blue shaft, your tongue and mouth are steadily coated with his pre, intensifying the sensations as you bob your head lightly, working more of the head of his prick into your mouth. You've never even considered the thought of a 'mouthgasm' before, but by the time Ruu starts making needy noises and nudging on your head, you've had several.\n\nBut clearly he doesn't want to finish in your mouth... for that matter, you agree that there are much better places for him to do so. At his nudging you lay back onto the grass and spread your legs, Ruu spreading his wings a bit for balance as he kneels down to settle between your legs. You shiver and have a small orgasm just from the feel of his warm, liquid magic-laden balls pressing up against your sodden mess of a slit, his shaft flopped along the front of your crotch and your belly, showing you just how deep he's going to be going in. You lift yourself up onto your elbows, watching with intense anticipation as he pulls back and presses his tip against your entrance. You've never taken anything <i>quite</i> that big before, and by all rights you shouldn't quite be able to... and yet as he pushes in, your pussy spreads wide to accomodate him, your eyes rolling and your jaw clenching as you cum instantly, just from the head sliding inside of you. You manage to look down and watch again, actually seeing a faint blue glow as well as the bulge marking his progress, your hips twitching and body shuddering as you cum twice more before he's even all the way inside you. His cute, petite hands grip your hips, claws pressing against your skin lightly as if to help remind you you're being fucked like a demon.\n\n"Ahhhh, Valerieeee, you feel so gooood!" he squeals in delight, leaning forward and giving his wings a light flap as he sheathes himself inside you. Then he's pumping and thrusting rather wildly... there's not a ton of technique, and yet the simple fact that his cock is radiating energy that your body can only interpret as pleasure, and that it's big enough to hit all the right spots anyway, overcomes any lack of skill. You wind up slumping onto your back, grabbing at handfuls of grass, your tongue jutting out and back arched hard as he pounds your cunt, your bare tits jiggling in the moonlight. You're cumming with every thrust, maybe every instroke and outstroke, it's hard to even tell anymore, your mind steadily being overwhelmed with pleasure. "Valerie, Valerie, Valerie!" Ruu continues to squeal, some part of your brain still vaguely registering how adorable he sounds crying your name in his sweet voice even as he's pounding you into a quivering orgasm-addled mess.\n\nAnd then he's suddenly thrusting forward and giving a long cry as his cock twitches and shudders inside you... and the orgasms you had before are nothing compared to the long, sustained one you have as he begins pumping a truly insane amount of thick, gooey mana directly into your womb. Your belly quickly begins to bulge upward, the faint blue glow of Ruu's cock lost amidst the much brighter purple glow of the mana. Your inflating cumbelly shines brightly in the night as it grows larger and larger, swelling up above you until it's nudging against the undersides of your tits and drooping over your sides. By the time it actually starts to edge over your tits and down onto your thighs, your brain simply gives up and passes out under the assault of a climax a mortal body wasn't even meant to comprehend.\n\nYou start a little when you wake up, jerking upright and looking around as you find yourself in your own bed. ... A dream? But a glance aside finds Ruu curled up on the floor beside your bed a bit like a large winged blue dog, breathing quietly as he sleeps. ... Huh. He must have brought you back here somehow after you passed out. A glance down at yourself shows that your belly is back to the proper proportions, though maybe just a tiny bit rounder... ... your tits are a bit bigger too, you're pretty sure as you heft them with both hands. Turning, you slip out of bed and pad past Ruu, trying not to wake him as you head into the bathroom and take a look in the mirror. Your face looks the same... though you catch just the faintest purple glow around your irises and in your pupils when you move your head. Someone who's not a practitioner probably wouldn't even be able to see it, but from the vibrant, energetic feeling all your movements have added to that, you're certain that you've massively increased your inherent magical reservoir. Even the little tricks you could do before are probably extremely powered up now.\n\nPadding back into the bedroom, you see Ruu as he sits up and stretches, arms over his head and wings behind him, his jaw gaping and tongue jutting out rather like a cat. You can't quite help yourself, and reach over to ruffle his hair, making him give you a sleepy, satisfied grin... before he blushes a little and scrambles to his feet, trying to put his dignity back together. "Ahem! So, the pact is sealed! We are now bound together in partnership! ... Ah, when's breakfast?"\n\nYou pause in opening your dresser for clothes, looking over at him. "You're planning to stay?"\n\n"Of course! I'm not some lazy demon who just pops in when you summon me up! You made a pact with me and I'm gonna stick around! I want to be ready to help at any opportunity!" he declares, nodding firmly.\n\nYou're starting to get a passing knowledge of 'Ruu-ese', and if you're parsing it right, he actually doesn't want to go back to the lower planes and would rather stick around here. You pause to consider... he probably has some way to pass unnoticed, if he's so insistent, but do you really want to wind up with... well, a partner? The powerup you got was great, but you could just keep him 'on call' for those occasionally without having him right nearby. ... On the other hand, what could it hurt, really? He's pretty adorable, it's almost like having a pet... though you somehow think you shouldn't bring that viewpoint up to him.\n\n<hr>\n[[He should go back.|ValTome]]\n\n[[He can stay, but needs to stay inside.|ValTome]]\n\n[[He can stay, and stick by you.|ValTome2x5]]

"Alright, you can stay," you say after a bit of thought, grinning at him before pulling on a shirt. (Might as well not bother with a bra, none of yours will fit quite right now... besides, they seem much firmer and higher, you kind of think you might not need them anymore.) "You have ways of blending out and about in the world, right?"\n\n"Oh sure, plenty!" he chirps. "I can disguise myself perfectly!"\n\n"What about clothes?"\n\n"... I need to wear <i>clothes</i>?!" he blurts, eyes going wide.\n\nSoon the two of you are walking along towards the student cafeteria, Ruu beside you, his head down and cheeks flushed. He's assumed a human appearance, though of the same height and build as his normal one, making him look fairly young, with scruffy dark hair, his red eyes having taken on a slightly brown tint to put them vaguely in the area of human coloration. He's wearing a pair of your black jeans and shoes (magically resized to fit), and a hoodie that the spell (supposedly) didn't entirely take on, leaving it a bit overlarge. He's also pushing the front of the hoodie downward as if trying to cover something. "V-Valerie, they... they feel weird," he whines.\n\n"Sorry, Ruu, jeans and hoodies might be kind of unisex, but the only underwear I had was panties," you answer breezily, completely failing to mention (yet again) the several pairs of boyshorts you own. You grin and ruffle his hair again as he makes a complain-y noise. Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.\n\nAt the cafeteria, you flick a hand at the person working the counter to assure her that both of you have meal passes, and grab a tray. You raise an eyebrow as Ruu demands large platefuls of pretty much everything on offer, the workers looking a bit startled or dubious, though the moment he's moved on to the next station their expressions slide back into the bored, rather mechanical expressions of someone merely waiting for their shift to be over. Curious, you take a look around at the other people in the cafeteria as the two of you walk to a table and sit down. "Are you doing some sort of mental spell?" you ask, sipping your tea.\n\n"Mmmnf?" Ruu asks, his cheeks puffed out with a huge mouthful of sausage links.\n\n"No one's giving you a second glance. They're barely giving you a first glance. I mean you could definitely pass for my little brother, but you're not getting any 'what's someone doing bringing their little brother' looks either," you note, trying not to smirk at his obvious enthusiasm for the mediocre cafeteria food. Obviously meals are a bit fewer and further between for an Imp Lord than he'd like you to believe.\n\n"Glbmnh." Ruu pauses to swallow, his throat bulging cartoonishly as the food slides down, before he gives a soft 'pfwah!' and answers. "It's a side effect of the amount of mana I'm radiating. Other demons that take human form just register as humans to mortal sight, pretty much, but since I look like a human but put out a ton of magic, their brains don't quite know where to slot me in, whether I'm normal or something beyond their worldview. So they notice me while I'm interacting with them directly but otherwise kind of dismiss and forget me. Well, the more magically-inclined can remember me better, and I can make an impression if I try, of course!" he adds, puffing out his chest a bit. "But otherwise I sort of pass unnoticed," he adds, rubbing the back of his neck rather sheepishly, before returning to shoveling food in his apparently bottomless maw.\n\nYou turn that over thoughtfully. That's useful, it means he can accompany you to your classes without teachers asking any awkward questions. You can also see a handful of other potential uses for it, since he didn't qualify that it only works on relatively weak-willed mortals... it means he can go places that even you can't 'Jedi Mind Trick' your way into. And if he actually deliberately channeled mana into the effect, and you joined in, both of you could probably go completely unnoticed by anyone. The question is, what to do with that knowledge?\n\n<hr>\n[[For now just go to class, as usual.|ValTome]]\n\n[[Try it out while doing some shopping.|ValTome]]\n\n[[Test it with a random 'volunteer'.|ValTome]]

Hee, yes yes, let's give them both what they're so envious of in those hot young college students! Taking spirit form, you slip into the kitchen proper to have a better view before you cast your magic.\n\n"Mm?" The one with the brown hair in a ponytail lifts her head up a little bit, frowning. "Did you... feel something?"\n\n"Sort of like a static tingle?" the one with black hair in a braid says, frowning slightly. "Yes, like things sort of feel a little... tight?"\n\n"I must say though, that moisturizer you're using is really looking wonders, your face looks quite silky and smooth."\n\n"Really? I was just thinking the same thing about yours... ah, hey!" Braid says, getting to her feet as she looks down at herself. "The tingling, it's stronger and... ah!" she squeaks as the very slight pudge of her belly visibly shrinks and disappears, causing Ponytail to leap up in shock as well.\n\nBoth alternately stare at each other and themselves as the changes occur, little wrinkles and blemishes disappearing, skin becoming sleek and smooth until it's almost glowing. Their faces too become sleeker and smoother, a gentle roundeur of youth, while their hips shrink and slim down to pre-motherhood proportions, two pairs of rather uninspiring panties dropping to the floor down much sleeker and yet more perfectly curved legs. Their sounds of shock turn to soft, surprised moans of pleasure as their breasts, already having firmed up and perked up, begin to expand further, pressing out against their bras.\n\n"W-what's happening?" Ponytail gasps, her voice having taken on a slightly higher, sweeter tone.\n\n"I don't know but I <i>like</i> it!" Braid moans back happily, just before giving a delighted squeal as her bra pops off and drops down in her blouse, buttons popping open as well as her newly head-sized tits spring outward against the cloth.\n\n"Oh, oh God," Ponytail whimpers, actually cumming a little as her own bra snaps and her equally large tits spring out and pop her buttons, both of them panting and flushed as the changes finish. Ponytail is the first to get ahold of herself, blinking and patting at her hips, belly, and face, before pointing at Braid. "You're... <i>we're</i> young!"\n\n"Mmmm, not a day over twenty-one at the most," Braid actually coos, sliding her hands over her newly trim and utterly perfect ass through her dress.\n\n"How is this possible?" Ponytail asks as she fishes her bra out of her blouse and holds it up, eyeing the busted clasps in shock.\n\n"Who cares?" Braid snorts as she tosses her own bra away negligently, smirking as she puts her hands on her hips. "We're <i>young</i> again! I mean, I could have stood to be a few years younger still, but this is plenty!"\n\n"We're not just young again, neither of us had huge tits like these when we were younger!" Ponytail gushes, clearly starting to get into it fully herself as she hefts up her boobs with both hands. "With these we'll put any of those stupid cow college girls to shame!"\n\n"Our husbands will go <i>mad</i> with lust for us!" Braid squeals, doing a slightly outdated twist-and-hip-bop dance move as she twirls around, before tucking her hands behind her head and shaking her shoulders, smirking as her huge breasts wobble. "Heck, forget our husbands, we could have the first hot young man we come across!"\n\nKonkonkon~, these two swallowed the bait, the hook, the line, and the bobber! They immediately got all full of themselves... a perfect opportunity to capitalize on their words and show them what happens when you take a magical gift for granted! \n\n<hr>\n[[Not young enough, are you?|Konko]]\n\n[[Like the huge tits, do you?|Konko]]\n\n[["Stupid cows", are they?|Konko]]\n\n[[Your husbands will "go mad with lust", will they?|Konko]]\n\n[[Pounce the first hot young man you come across, will you?|Konko]]\n\n[[Hm, actually, you have an even more ironic idea~!|Konko]]

Oooo, you should definitely have her grow to giant size, that will be-\n\nWait, you think with a frown. It would be way easier for her to get hurt that way. You can't have that! ... You need her! Also you want to go on pranking her for a little while once this stupid thing is resolved! Better to choose a safer way for her to fight it. Quickly getting back into character, you cry, "I was hoping we wouldn't have to use this, but we'll have to bring out... Foxred Dynamo!"\n\n"Foxred <i>Dynamo</i>?!" Michiko squeals, fists pressed together in front of her chin as her eyes sparkle.\n\nEh, close enough to an activation phrase, let's get on with it! You envelope Michiko in sparkles, transporting her into the cockpit of the mecha you've just whipped up and sent running down the streets of the city, its silver-clawed red feet somehow not making a <i>complete</i> mess of the streets. ... Dang, you could have made a complete mess of the streets! You were only thinking of having it be genre accurate! But the huge red fox robot nevertheless continues its path as Michi-, ah, Foxtail Red finds herself sitting in a chair and gripping a pair of handles. \n\n"Ah, what do I do, Konko?!" \n\n"It works off of your thoughts," you answer her remotely, sending your voice through the robot's cockpit speakers. "Just do what feels right and it will obey you!"\n\n"Right, got it!" Foxtail Red takes over piloting, and you see her veer the big machine into a turn, rounding a corner and coming face-to-face with the rather surprised-looking four-armed wolf kaiju. "Alright, I've got it in my sights! Foxred Dynamo... TRANSFORM!"\n\n'Transform? I didn't tell her to-' Your currently cutesified jaw sags some as the fox-shaped mecha raises up on its back legs, which shift shape as panels start moving around, upper parts of the robot swinging around and into place. 'H-hey, did I do that?! ... Oh wait I did do that. I was in a hurry and just thought "make it a robot like is on all those sentai shows"... I was thinking of the ones that were big cats, but a lot of animal-themed mecha nowadays turn into their own humanoid robots I guess, and I also told it to obey Michiko's commands, so there you go.'\n\nIn a matter of seconds, Foxred Dynamo is now upright and in human form, its fox head having turned into a crest on its chest (with the contours of the shapechanging panels coincidentally making it look like it has appropriately Michiko-like boobs), the giant robot striking a combat-ready pose. "I'm not going to let you destroy my town!" Foxtail Red shouts, her voice emerging from the robot and booming through the streets. She charges forward and swings, striking a surprisingly solid punch right to the side of the kaiju's head with its big red and silver fist. The wolf kaiju reels back a step, before drawing lips back from teeth the size of cars and lurching forward, grappling with the giant robot with all four hands, trying to force its own arms wide while getting a grip on its torso with the other two.\n\n"Nnnh! Let go, you jerk! H-hey, watch it! OH NO!" Foxtail Red's voice cries out as her mecha's feet lose purchase and the wolf kaiju swings the big thing to one side, smashing its metal back into one of the nearby buildings.\n\n'No, the people inside!' you think in horror. 'That's hundreds, no, <i>thousands</i> of pranking targets I could lose!' You hurriedly poof everyone inside into a handful of bomb shelters below street level nearby, quickly adding in addled memories of rushing there the moment they saw the kaiju. 'Whew... I did not want to work this hard for a prank when I got up this morning!' you think, giving your head a shake. "Mi-, I mean, Foxtail Red, don't worry, the building was evacuated! Hurry up and defeat that thing!"\n\n"I'm trying!" Your prank target turned pilot has obvious strain in her voice, but is surprisingly not stuttering, apparently too focused on trying to get control back from the grapple she's in. "It's got too good of a hold on me, I can't break free! I'm taking damage from it biting at where it can reach, it's all I can do to hold it back!"\n\n"Well, use... use the Crimson Fox Cannons!" you blurt, starting to feel flustered. Surely you must have included something like that when you created it, right?!\n\n"Got it! Here goes! CRIMSON FOX CANNONS, FIIIRRRRRRRRRRRE!" Foxtail Red shouts, no doubt shoving forward hard on the sticks and pulling the attached triggers. The ears of the foxhead on the Foxred Dynamo's chest drop down, revealing a pair of large silver domes tipped with scarlet emitters that are already glowing, and near-instantly fire off a pair of beams, pillars of crimson energy that pierce right through the wolf kaiju's chest and emerge from its back, tracing two lines out into the sky. The giant monster throws back its head and howls in anguish before turning into a large collection of purple polygons and shattering, disappearing without a trace.\n\n'... Yup, I definitely made that,' you think with a bit of pride, the pair of big gleaming booby-blasters with smoke rising from their emitters still on display for a moment before the ear-panels swing back up over them.\n\n"I did it! ... Don't worry, everybody! The monster is gone!" Foxtail Red announces, straightening up from the rather crushed building and having the robot throw out its hand dramatically, the other fist on its hip. "I'll protect this city, you have my word! I am Foxtail Red, and this is Foxred Dynamo! Together, we'll protect this society... but more importantly, we'll protect all of you!"\n\nYou can actually hear the cheers going up... tens of thousands of people screaming their enthusiasm, applauding, not just from the streets and nearby buildings, but all over town as they hear the declaration on TV or their streaming internet feeds. The thought that they're all cheering for something you helped to do makes you feel... kind of weird. You're not sure you've ever felt this way before... you're not even sure you like it. So you focus and create a shimmery, stretchy effect around the giant robot before disappearing it into a pocket dimension, and having Michiko reappear in front of you... actually Michiko this time, back in her school uniform and twinbraids.\n\n<img src="images/Michiko.jpg">\n\n"Ah... Konko! Konko, we did it, we protected everybody!" she cries excitedly, scooping you up and hugging you to her chest warmly. ... Again, you're not really sure how you feel about this. It's... strange, there's a tightness in your chest that you kind of don't like. After all, tits are good, but no one's ever hugged you like this before when you weren't just outright deceiving them and lying to them.\n\n... Meh! You're still deceiving and lying to Michiko! Duh! This magical girl stuff is all a prank, it's just one that took a weird turn! Keeping that in mind, you get back into character and happily announce, "We did! The Earth is saved! For today," you add, with just the appropriate amount of foreboding.\n\n"Ah, you're right, I guess that Wolf Dimension commander will probably send more monsters, huh? Well... I'll be ready for them!" Michiko declares with a smile. "We'll be ready for them, I mean, right Konko?"\n\n"Yes yes, of course," you coo. "For now, though, you should go home and get some rest, plus I'm sure your parents will be worried. I'll come join you there soon, I should look around to make sure everyone's safe!"\n\n"Right!" Michiko leans down to set you down, then groans. "... My bookbag! ... I'll get it tomorrow." She sighs, then turns and hurries off, presumably to obey your directions to go home.\n\nOnce she's gone, you poof back to your own form, crowning and cupping your chin. "What in the world was that?" you murmur to yourself. You've had your imagination run away with you and parts of a prank get out of your control before, but never like that. If the creatures had been created from your power, even if they stopped obeying your orders they shouldn't be immune to your powers! What's going on here?\n\n<hr>\n[[You'll have to ask someone you'd rather not.|KonMG1x3]]\n\n[[You'll have to... dismiss it and not give it another thought!|KonMG]]

Smirking, you lean in over Nova's back, nipping at his ear again before murmuring into it, "Hey, slut, Gem has a lingerie drawer, right?"\n\n"Mm?" He actually seems a little thrown by the question, though you can see him blushing despite the fur on his cheeks at your further dirty talk. "Yes, but... I'm really not sure if we should nnnhhaaahhh..." He cuts himself off with that soft mewling moan as you slide your fingers into his now even more thoroughly slick ass and start stroking and twisting them even more deliberately than before, making him shudder hard, another little spurt of cum escaping.\n\n"Let me rephrase: Show me your wife's lingerie drawer, slut."\n\nSoon Nova is bouncing on top of you, moaning as he rides your stiff prick, his own bouncing cock slinging pre onto your belly and his furry balls thumping lightly against the top of your crotch, and both of them framed by the frilly garter belt he's wearing, the straps going down to clip to the lacy tops of the stockings now sheathing his legs and giving them a feminine curvature. He's also wearing the matching lacy black bra, its large cups hanging empty on his flat pecs and shimmying with his motions, the straps only staying up because of the broadness of his shoulders.\n\nAfter all, it's not that he need look particularly sexy in the bra... the point is that you made him wear his wife's bra before climbing onto your cock and riding you like an eager little slut. (The garter belt and stockings definitely look very nice, though.) You run your hands up and down his thighs, smirking up at the other man as he moans and whimpers from working himself on your dick, feeling his tight hole grip around you. He's so fucking eager for it that it barely took any pressing at all to get him to show you the drawer, let you pick out some of Gem's things for him to wear, and to don them right in front of you... while you took video with your comm, no less. He'd probably cum right now if you so much as gave his long black cock a single stroke, but you're not going to... no, you're going to make him cum purely from getting fucked in the ass again, besides making him do most of the work.\n\nYou do thrust up into him some once you grip his hips, mostly to emphasize that you're the man here, and he gets the message loud and clear to judge from the catch in his breath and the shift in his moans. This, this is the part of fucking married men you really love... manipulating their lust for cock, stoking their sublimated desire to be dominated and made into bitches, until it's not just a one-night stand while the wife's out. No, you'll keep it up until he can't live without your cock, you think smugly as you pull on his hips, urging him to move and shake them like a whore as he bounces atop your prick, the empty cups of his wife's bra jiggling on his chest from the motions. You're going to keep domming and fucking him until you take-\n\n<hr>\n[[His heart, his marriage, and his masculinity.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[His will, his mind, and his masculinity.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[His ship, his wife, and his crew. Oh, and his masculinity!|LeoNova]]

Because definitely, your #1 favorite lewd thing of all, is fucking a married man in his tight, cheating ass! \n\nGetting a bit bolder with your squeezing of his ass, you break the kiss for several more harder, quicker ones, feeling him shudder against you, the light shift in his body language that says he's yielding himself to you. At that you pull away, turning him around and pushing him forward, bending him and urging him along so that he'll climb up onto the bed, his long, dark cock swaying between his thighs and sending a few drips of pre slinging down onto the sheets. You climb up after him, grinning as you spot a pair of bottles of 'his and her' lube on the nightstand. Smirking, you snag the pink bottle and smear a goodly amount onto two fingers, bringing them to Nova's pink pucker and slowly pushing them inside, reveling in that slightly gasp-y moan from the penetration. You slowly pump your fingers in and out, wiggling and curling them, turning them back and forth as you make sure to smear plenty of the purple-tinted lube all over the insides of his asshole.\n\nOnce he feels appropriately slick, you snag the 'his' bottle as well, drawing a cool, shiver-inducing line of blue-tinted gel down the top of your cock before grabbing it with one and and giving yourself a few strokes to spread it around, your other hand resting on one of his asscheeks and keeping it pushed to the side so you can enjoy the view of his glistening pink hole nestled amidst that soft white fur, his tail swishing back and forth above. Then you aim yourself, pressing your tip to that hole and starting to push in, moaning both at the feel of the tightness and the extra tingling rush of the mingled lubes interacting. You can hear him moaning softly too, feel his body shudder and his ass squeeze around you as you slide in, going deeper and deeper as you lean your body in over his, letting him feel you above him as you penetrate deeper into his ass.\n\n"Does your wife know about this, hmmm?" you murmur teasingly in his ear, grinning as it flicks and he lets out another soft moan, the shudder of his body below you and the squeeze of his ass around you answering 'no' as clearly as any word would. Resting your hands beside his on the bed, you start pumping your hips, beginning to really fuck him now, your hips slapping against his muscular, fuzzy ass as he rocks back against you. "Does she know that every time she's out of sight you go looking to get a cock in your ass, huh?"\n\n"Fuck, fuck, your cock feels so good in my ass," the married tiger-man beneath you groans out, wiggling his hips like an eager little whore as he fucks himself back against you. You slide your hands around him, running along his sides and down, only briefly touching over his stiff, swaying cock before stroking back up to tease and pinch at his nipples.\n\n"Mhmm, I bet she doesn't know you love being a bitch for other men," you coo to him, nipping at that fuzzy feline ear as he gasps out below you. "I bet she doesn't know you love having your ass fucked and your tits played with, does she?"\n\n"No, no, I love it, I love it in the ass, my tits feel so good," the strong, proud captain of the crew gasps out, his nipples almost noticeably stiffening further as you squeeze his pecs with both hands. "Fuck me, Leo, fuck me harder, make me your bitch!"\n\nOkay, even more than fucking a married man in the ass, you might love a married man begging to be your bitch. You straighten up and grab his hips, really hauling him back against your thrusts now, doing your best to turn his big, strong masculine groans into girlish little whimpers by beastfucking his eager tight ass. Of course, combining that with all the other stimulation means it's only a few more minutes before you're thrusting in deep and pouring your cum into his tight, quivering hole, watching him let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a whimper as his own cock twitches and spurts beneath him, firing long ropes of jizz all over his marriage bed. You grind your hips against his toned buttocks, sliding your hands up to squeeze his waist, watching him writhe and cum as you empty yourself into him. Finally though you pull out, drawing back enough to enjoy the sight of his slightly gaped asshole and your cum dribbling out of it and into his fur.\n\nMmm... a very nice warmup! And how to proceed from here?\n\n<hr>\n[[Just fuck him a few more times and call it good.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Further dominate him and make him your bitch.|LeoNova3x3]]

You're preeeetty sure you've read all the signals right. And when you make a slow, steady approach towards Nova and he not only doesn't look bothered, but more of that black cock starts sliding out of his sheath, you're sure of it. Grinning, you draw in close, reaching out to lay your hands on those sleek, furry sides and slowly stroke your hands down to his strong hips. "So I'm guessing that just because the wife is gone, you didn't want to spend the night in bed alone, hmm?"\n\n"Something like that," Nova murmurs, reaching up to gently take the sides of your head in his hands. "Though it doesn't all have to be on the bed," he adds in a lusty whisper as he draws you in for a kiss. \n\nYou part your lips even as his cover them, tongues already moving to meet, the unspoken lust that had been heavy in the air between the two of you every time Gem so much as glanced away already manifesting. You slide one hand around to squeeze his firm, muscular ass, and the other in the opposite direction, gently stroking your hand over his furry balls and gently stroking your fingertips along the base of his sheath. Nova's own hands slide down your neck, then move to your sides and continue on down, until he starts tugging and working at your belt and fly, quickly freeing your own hardening cock, one of his hands wrapping around it to stroke. You return the favor, finding enough of his cock has unsheathed for you to move your hand up to pump and tug gently... the tip is pointed a little, and you soon find the base of your palm bumping lightly against a bulge at the base... you have no idea what actual tiger anatomy is like, but Nova's anatomy certainly isn't displeasing, you think warmly at the feel of his purr thrumming into your mouth, and feel it ramp up when you slide your hand around his knot and squeeze lightly.\n\n'Kissing a married man while we stroke each other's cocks has gotta be one of my top four favorite lewd things,' you think to yourself with a delightfully wicked little shiver as you step in a bit closer, letting your own hard prick press up against Nova's, letting him be the one to press a hand around both and stroke them. You bring both your hands to his ass, squeezing and kneading it, enjoying the feel of the tight, firm muscle, and the unique little thrill of his tail flicking over your fingers every so often. Eventually you step back some, just to pull your feet out of your boots and pants, grinning as you watch him move over and take a seat in one of the chairs, leaning back and spreading his legs. Unzipping your top and shrugging out of it, you make your way to kneel naked between his legs, resting your hands on the white fur of his thighs as you lean in, sliding your tongue along the underside of his knot before closing your lips over one side of it and sucking them along the black skin. 'Of course, sucking off a married man is one of the other top four."\n\nYou take your time, paying plenty of attention to those soft, snowy white balls too, rolling them around with your tongue and getting the fur nicely damp, kissing along the edge of his sheath before moving back up to licking and kissing over his shaft. You imagine Gem here in your place, looking up at his face the same way you are now, eyes rolled up to watch his pleasure, and smugly decide she probably doesn't get to see anything like the naked, wicked heat dancing in his eyes as you do. Not breaking eye contact, you slide your mouth down over the tip of his cock and start taking him in, tongue still pressing and wiggling against the underside as you start bobbing your head, sucking gently at him with each bob, then sucking harder on longer, slower draws up, feeling and tasting his pre start to smear across and coat your tongue.\n\nEventually though you stop... you'd love to gulp down a load that should be intended for his foxy wife's pussy, but you'd really rather get him nice and worked up, build up an even bigger load for the things to come, as it were. When you pull your head up, without speaking Nova reaches down, guiding you up into the chair even as he slips out of it, the two of you smoothly exchanging places. You're soon stroking and rubbing around his ears, feeling his purr against your balls as he drags his slightly rough but very stimulating tongue over them and sucks them into his mouth. 'Mmmm, I wonder which is better, sucking off a married man or having a married man suck me off?' you muse warmly as you look down, just like before keeping eye contact as Nova moves to slip his lips over your cock and bob his head, more of your pale human shaft sliding past those dark feline lips every time. 'Maybe I'll have to give them both the tied spots at two and three,' you decide as he flicks and rolls his tongue around your shaft, making you shiver.\n\nJust like you, it seems he understood that the blowjobs were just foreplay. When you feel yourself start getting close, no doubt telegraphing it by the throb of your cock and the tightening of your fingers on his head, he draws himself up, rising to his feet and pulling you up as well, taking you by the hand and leading you over to the bed. Standing at the foot of it, the two of you press up against each other again, lean muscular chest to toned muscular chest, kissing again, sharing the taste of pre coating your tongues as your hands roam across each other, squeezing one another's firm asses, roaming across broad muscular backs, even slipping around to tease and rub stiff, flat nipples.\n\nMm, this is all wonderful, and now... now you're-\n\n<hr>\n[[-going to fuck him.|LeoNova3x2]]\n\n[[-going to get fucked by him.|LeoNova]]

Meh. Yeah, just... let's avoid the letdown, you think as you decide to actually close your games out and go to bed early for once, mostly because with the mood you're in you don't want to be conscious anymore. Crawling under the covers and turning out the lights, you huddle in and sulk yourself to sleep, all the while chastising yourself for being such a lame NEET. Maybe you really should just go full hikkikomiri and never leave the apartment unless absolutely necessary.\n\nYou're awoken some hours later by the lights suddenly flicking on, despite being voice controlled and you definitely not having said anything. You grunt and shift at the light on your eyelids, before you process that little bit of information. You blink your eyes open, quickly realizing that someone's standing over you. Scrambling backwards on the futon a little, you look up and realize you're being ambushed by a succubus! Wait, a succubus?! You haven't seen a succubus since you came to Earth! But there one is, downward-curling red horns decorated with gold jewelry emerging from the sides of a head of long snowy white hair, a lot of luscious caramel skin on display due to her black and white outfit, sheer black mostly hugging her teardrop-shaped breasts, white cupped against the fronts and down to where it turns into a loincloth, with a cutout to show her bellybutton. Elaborate gloves, and stockings, and bone-capped purple wings, all decorated elaborately to draw the eye and make you focus on sex appeal, enough that you force your gaze to her face to keep from getting distracted, seeing annoyed-looking pink eyes and pretty lips poked out in a pout.\n\n<img src="images/Makoto3.jpg">\n\n"Mou, Sipha-neechan, you ditched on our date, that's just <i>rude</i>," the succubus scolds in an almost-familiar voice.\n\n"W-wait, that... <i>Makoto</i>?!" you blurt, your own eyes going wide.\n\n"Hmph, so you remember I exist after all! I was starting to wonder, since you know, you <i>ditched our date</i>!" the succubus Makoto declares, folding her arms over her chest. "I've been looking forward to it all year, even more since my powers developed and I got this super sexy and beautiful body! And then you just go and no-show on me! Did you think I'd just put up with it?"\n\n"I... thought you wouldn't be there," you admit, numbed enough by shock that you answer honestly. "You were doing so well and were so popular the last time I saw you that I figured you'd just said you wanted a date to be nice, but you'd have forgotten by now."\n\n"Oh now <i>really</i>, Sipha-neechan," Makoto huffs, closing her eyes and leaning her head forward a bit, moving one hand to rest on her almost bare hip and letting the other flop at her side. "You must be the first elf in history with an inferiority complex. ... Hm?" She blinks, opening her eyes and looking up, bringing a fingertip to her lower lip. "Or maybe that's a common thing? You know, overcompensating would explain a lot of things elves do in stories."\n\n"Uh, excuse me?" you mutter, expression going flat. "Rude."\n\n"Oh really? You know what else is rude? <i>Standing someone up</i>!" Makoto snaps back, her wings lifting and spreading a bit in obvious annoyance.\n\n"Erk." You grimace, then try to rally and point accusingly at her. "Yeah well you know what's even ruder?! Going and turning into a creature of evil because someone tried to help you grow up healthy! That's pretty friggin' rude, Makoto!"\n\n"Mou, Sipha-neechan, that's just mean, that hurts my feelings," Makoto murmurs, wings drooping and lips poking out in a pout again. "I am not evil. I mean, naughty sure, maybe even wicked, but I'm not <i>evil</i>, I'm the same Makoto I've always been."\n\n"You're literally a soul-sucking sex demon capable of draining someone's entire life force out by fucking them," you reply flatly.\n\n"Yeah but I probably won't," she answers breezily, flicking a hand in the air. "I mean like <i>one time</i> but that guy really would not take 'no' for an answer so if you ask me he had it coming."\n\n... Okay you're not gonna argue on that one. You stare up at her uncertainly... it really does seem like the Makoto you know, just with horns and wings and, y'know, tits. And you have to admit that he always was a bit on the naughty side ever since he developed confidence and good looks, so it's not exactly the most shocking thing in the world that his inner self is quite literally a sexual creature. Could she be a succubus and not be evil...?\n\n<hr>\n[[You guess it's possible...|SiphaKids]]\n\n[[It's a contradiction in terms!|SiphaKids]]

Yes, you're in a bit of a mood... you definitely feel like messing with fading gods and lost spirits. Especially since if you get lucky it might be one of those involved with your sealing, and you can laugh extra hard and then maybe just send them the rest of the way towards oblivion! Y'know, if you're feeling <i>particularly</i> mean!\n\nYou make your way to the edge of town, and along the lesser-maintained pathway along the woods. The steps that lead up to the shrine are so overgrown, both with moss and grass between and over the stones and trees pressing in around them, that you'd bet most humans who pass by here never even notice them.\n\nYou pause, though, as you're about to go up. You're already feeling something. From the shrine? Maybe... hm, could be something even closer... or further away... feels like something...\n\n<hr>\n[[-familiar, and threatening.|Konko]]\n\n[[-familiar, but more distant.|KonFren1x1]]\n\n[[-familiar, and bratty.|Konko3x3]]

"Iiiii think maybe it's time I was going," you say instead, holding up a hand and leaning forward to set your glass on the table. "I mean, I appreciate the offer... <i>to talk</i>!" you hurriedly blurt out, flushing. "The offer to, y'know, explain your... unique views, but uh... I'm just not sure this is a conversation that I really want to, y'know, have tonight," you add as you stand, twisting a bit to pick up your jacket with one hand.\n\n"Oh, now I'd hate to think I ran you off," Pulsar says with a sincere-looking frown, his voice still that gently respectful voice of wisdom from earlier despite the subject of just a few moments ago. "Please don't feel like you have to go just because of that."\n\n"Well, I mean, y'know..." You trail off, shrugging a little.\n\n"Please, sit back down," he urges softly, gesturing to the chair. He leans forward to pick up the bottle of Amphidy and pour a bit more into your glass, since a fair bit splashed out when you spluttered earlier. "We don't have to talk about that at all, if it truly makes you uncomfortable. I'm sure that men of action such as ourselves have a hundred other topics we could wile away the night discussing."\n\n"I... dunno," you hedge, unable to help glancing down at the glassful of liquid gold.\n\n"This is a social situation, is it not? And one that will last several days before we're likely to see any potential for combat. I am of course obliged to treat you as a gentleman." Adding just a dash of Amphidy to his own glass, Pulsar smiles and raises it in a toast. "And what else might two gentleman do while traveling the black than drink themselves half sick while telling tales?"\n\nThat... does basically describe one of the parts of this life you've always loved, just classed up by about ten or twelve rungs. And the drink he's offering is a hell of a lot better than the usual cheap hydrowheat brew you and your acquaintances usually swill and tell lies over. He seems sincere enough, too, it's not like you're getting 'predator' vibes off of him.\n \n<hr>\n[[Excuse yourself and leave.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Sit down and drink.|LeoNova2x3]]

"Well... okay," you allow as you ease back into the chair, letting your jacket drape over one arm. You pick up the glass, now roughly half full of the thick amber liquid, then pause and add, "But no more sex talk, okay? I mean, at least no more about sex involving you and me."\n\nPulsar chuckles softly, raising his glass as if in toast. "I swear it on my honor, not a single word further about the possibility of me fucking you. Unless, of course, you decide you want to bring it up yourself."\n\nYou snort, bringing the glass to your lips. "Yeah that's just not gonna happen, man. I'm entirely straight."\n\nForty-five minutes and three drinks later you're on your knees on the bed, your body glistening with sweat as you moan into the pillow along with Pulsar's cock pounding into you. "Fuck me, fuck my ass, your cock feels so fucking good, fuck my ass with your cock, please!"\n\n"Mm, you like my cock, then?" Pulsar practically purrs, his voice a deep, thrumming rumble from behind you as he grips at your waist with both strong hands, partly pulling you back against his thrusts but mostly just assisting your own fucking yourself on the long, thick pink prick spreading open your previously virgin hole. \n\n"Oh fuck, fuck yes, you're fucking me so fucking good, fuck me with that big fat cock," you gasp out, twisting fistfuls of the sheets as your own stiff prick bounces beneath you with the impacts of his hips against your butt and his large, golden-furred balls slapping against your own mostly smooth ones. You raise your head some from the pillow, your mouth open in a constant soft O of pleasure, your eyes heavy-lidded as you work your hips back against hi, shuddering at the feel of him hot and throbbing and so deep inside you. "Getting fucked by you feels better than any pussy I ever stuck my dick in oh fuck oh fuck fuck me!"\n\n"Don't worry, you little cock-whore, I'll fuck you good and hard all night long," the griffon promises with heat in his voice, even as he pulls back and lets himself slide out of you, stiff pole springing up lightly and wobbling briefly in the air as he slips out of your slick, lube-dripping hole, leaving you moaning soft pleas. He turns and drops onto his back, urging you to turn and rise, and you quickly take the hint and move to straddle him, balancing on the balls of your feet and letting him aim his cock for you, so you can slide yourself down on it. You don't stop until you can feel the fur of his vestigial sheath pressing up against your pucker, and almost immediately you put your hands to his toned stomach and start riding him with all the enthusiasm of a station whore, feeling his hands grip your hips, now able to look down at him and see the big, strong, undeniably masculine man whose cock is making your ass quiver and squeeze in pleasure around it. "You are quite the cock-addict for a straight boy," Pulsar adds smugly as he gives your hips a squeeze, your own stiff prick leaving smears in the fur covering his abs as it bounces above them.\n\n"Nnnh, nnh fuck, I'll stop being straight to be your little gay bitch any time, I love cock so much," you whimper, giving your hips a shake as you say it, working his cock around inside you. You lean back and let your head hang back as well, moaning shamelessly as you ride, bracing one hand on Pulsar's muscular thigh and gripping your own stiff prick with the other, jerking it as you slam yourself down on the much bigger one spreading your hole open. But soon you're flinging that hand back to grip his other thigh, your motions speeding up. "Oh shit, oh fuck oh shit, I'm gonna cum from my ass, I'm gonna cum from my slutty bitch ass oh fuck!"\n\nJust as you're on the brink of it, Pulsar's birdlike hands squeeze your hips, yanking you down on him even as he thrusts upward, burying even that bit of fur at the very base of his shaft inside of you. Your eyes roll up and your tongue juts out as you cum harder than you ever have in your life, your whole body twitching as your ass squeezes down on him. Your cock twitches in midair as you fire long ropes of creamy jizz out over the tawny-furred muscles of the griffon man's chest and stomach, even as you can feel warm, wet heat spreading deep inside you, the subconscious realization that your eager little hole is being filled with another man's seed making your hips buck and twitch, silently pleading for more.\n\nWhen Pulsar finally lifts you off of him, you let out a soft whimper at the feeling of his cum dribbling out of you. Even as he's setting you on your back beside him and sitting up, you're spreading your legs, reaching down towards your crotch, lifting your balls on the backs of your thumbs to make sure they're out of the way, and that he can see you using your fingertips to spread your well-fucked, cum-smeared pucker. Chuckling, Pulsar slides between your legs, pushing your thighs up and forward a bit, and rubbing his mostly human-like but very pink cock against yours, flagrantly displaying how much bigger his is. Then he pulls back and pushes himself back into you, making a pleased sound at your whorish moan. "Looks like the entirely straight young buck actually does want to be fucked like a slutty little girl," he purrs, shifting his hands to either side of your head as he starts to fuck you against the mattress, allowing you to wrap your legs and arms around him.\n\n"Oh fuck, fuck yes, fuck me like a slutty girl, I'm a slutty little bitch whore girl for you," you slur drunkenly, shuddering under him at the feel of his cock pumping inside you, his abs rubbing against your own hard dick, feeling him looming above you and claiming you like a blushing bride on her wedding night, your whimpers and pleading moans losing more traces of masculinity by the moment. "Your cock's so big, I love your cock, fuck me, fuck me with that big fat griffon dick, breed me and put babies in me, fuck fuck fuuuck!"\n\nYou shudder beneath him as, after a good, long, sometimes slow and thorough fucking, he once again pushes even his sheath into you and starts filling you. You cum entirely from your ass this time, feeling the pleasure surge all through you, including making your stiff prick throb even though you don't actually spill another load. You whine a bit even still as Pulsar pulls out of you and again flops on his back, but this time he looks at you and chuckles. "Mmm, I could go on all night, girl, but if you want another fucking quite so thorough and hard, you might need to provide a little encouragement," he notes, gesturing at his slightly flagging pink shaft.\n\nWithout hesitation you roll onto your belly and scoot around to him at an angle, wrapping both hands around the base of his prick and sliding your mouth over the tip of it, starting to bob your head. You don't really know anything about sucking cock other than that you want to more than you've ever wanted anything, so you try to take in as much of it as you can while sucking and licking eagerly. You let out soft moans of indulgent pleasure, a low drone of "Mmm... mmm... mmm!" as you get that thick pink shaft down your throat, shuddering in delight at the feel of being stretched again, your own stiff prick leaking a bit more pre at the thought of him fucking you all night long.\n\nYou groan softly as you wake up, a light throb in your head as well as faint aches across the rest of your body. Could be worse, you think faintly, Amphidy actually has a relatively high water content amongst the thin gel that makes up its substance, the hangover could be way worse otherwise. Then you realize that you're naked and laying on your side, a large and very male form pressed up behind you, arms wrapped around you. Very, very male, since though his breathing is deep and even enough and his body is still enough that you're 99% certain that Pulsar is asleep, you can feel his hard cock pressing up against the cleft of your ass, his large, furry balls rubbing up against the very underside of your buttocks. Oh... oh crap!\n\n<hr>\n[[Get dressed and get gone!|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Lay there in shock a minute.|LeoNova]]

"... I don't think the Guildhall's a good place for him right now," you say after spending some time in thought. "Everyone he meets is gonna be at risk of going through this same thing at any time, and he's just gonna be around all the places they were together, and that can't be good when he's this... raw." You rub your hands together, then shake your head. "I'll sell the Hoplon."\n\n"Oh, Leo, <i>no</i>, I know this is a big change but you can't, you poured your heart and soul into getting that ship," Neo replies, sitting bolt upright.\n\n"Yeah, but I sell it, it'll be enough to buy a place for us planetside, somewhere nice, and give some breathing room if I can't get a job right away." You shrug. "I'll put a hold on my license, get us set up off the Guildhall. When Aiane's ready to head out on his own I can get back to merc work... at least then I'll have a decent place to live while I save up for a new ship."\n\n"Well..." Neo frowns, almost pouting, before she asserts, "Well, sell it to me, then."\n\n"Sis, c'mon..."\n\n"No, seriously, I'll pay you what it's worth. At least that way it stays in the family and when you <i>do</i> save up the money, you can just buy it back from me. Or, y'know, I'll keep it and smug at you forever," she adds, trying to smirk at you again, though the best she can manage is a wan smile even now. "So where're you thinking of moving?"\n\nYou turn it over a little more, but you've already largely made up your mind. "Makarzia."\n\n"Oh, ew, <i>seriously</i>?" Neo pulls a face as if she'd accidentally shoved a lemon on her tongue. "Makarzia, Leo, really?"\n\n"I'm not talking about moving to one of the slum sectors washed-up broke mercs getting kicked out of their Guildhall apartments wind up in," you answer in a dry tone, leaning back in your chair. "But credits go a lot further on Makarzia... I sell the ship, it's enough to outright buy a really nice apartment in one of the better sectors, and keep us comfortable for awhile besides. Plus it's a multi-species world, Aiane won't have to worry about hiding his ears when he goes out, I could even send him to a decent school, let him meet kids whose parents aren't mercenaries."\n\n"Mm. Guess all that's true." Neo sighs. "Just... be careful, alright? It's not like there's border checkpoints at the sectors, nothing really to keep the scum and villainy in their hive other than them feeling comfier there."\n\n"Yeah, yeah."\n\nSeveral weeks later, you push open the door of your new apartment and step inside, a box tucked under one arm. You have to admit, you're impressed... the apartment isn't just nice, it's <i>luxurious</i>. The furniture is currently a bit sparse, some scattered sleek black, chrome, and white things all around the wide open area. The apartment, well condo really, takes up almost a quarter of this floor of the large apartment building, and itself has two levels, as well as multiple bedrooms. Most of the outside walls are just windows, looking out on the sparkling city of overdesigned buildings of all sizes. "Man, check this out, kiddo."\n\n"Mm." Aiane follows you in, carrying a box and with his messenger bag on his shoulder, looking around with still slightly dull eyes... but you do notice at least some perk of interest to them. "I guess it's pretty nice, yeah."\n\n"I'd say so. The rest of our stuff gets delivered tomorrow, so go pick out which of the rooms you want. Any of 'em."\n\n"Seriously?" That does actually put a bit of sparkle into his eyes, which track over to the stairs that lead up to the very large loft master bedroom.\n\n"Yup, seriously, any of 'em." \n\nHe does look like he's seriously considering it, before instead turning and making for the hallway that leads to the first floor bedrooms. Honestly, you feel a little relieved, you kind of fell in love with the loft when you looked at this place, but damned if you wouldn't have let him have it if he wanted it. 'Prolly wants one closer to the door,' you think, trying to cheer yourself up with the idea of him sneaking out to meet girls or something. ... Ah, wait, isn't that supposed to terrify you? You're... not very up on your proper parental reactions, you guess.\n\nWell, you'll figure it out. For now you stand at the window and enjoy the view, trying to plan out what to do over the next few days. Tomorrow will involve various bits of arranging furniture and unpacking, but after that... hm...\n\n<hr>\n[[Focus on spending time with Aiane.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Focus on getting a job.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Focus on getting used to your new life.|LeoSon]]

"Hmmm..." Settling your hand on Kit's pert (and now slightly pinked) rear and rubbing rather than spanking, and smirking at the way she squirms even more, her cheeks turning rather pink too, you say, "You know, Kit, how about you and I go on a mission together?"\n\n"R-really?" Despite her obvious embarrassment, her ears perk up and her eyes sparkle as she looks up at you from her face-down position on your lap.\n\n"Mm-hmmm. I think you could use a little more experience... it might not necessarily teach you to be a better secretary, but I do want you to become a great merc, after all."\n\n"Thanks, ma'am," she murmurs bashfully, giving a soft squeak as you give her a very light poke on her cute little pucker, her tail fluffing out briefly. "Um, but I really get to go on a mission with you? Just you and me?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Yes, just the two of us.|KiMentor]]\n\n[[No, it will be a group mission.|KiMentor]]

Aliens, hmmm? Well you don't know of any such thing yourself, but you do occasionally like to make bright lights fly through the sky to freak people out. Which is experience to do with the most important aspect of what you'd do with this club of people... screwing with them!\n\nYou trot up the stairs and over to the room listed as belonging to the club, only to hear raised voices. Oho? Oho oho ohoooooo? Strife already? Well, not a huge amount of strife, they're not shouting, just talking very emphatically to each other. Humans have so many <i>levels</i> of being agitated, it's one of the most delighted things about prodding and poking at them as you do, finding new nuances of them being upset. But let's see, what's got these humans all riled up? You lean in, placing two ears (one human-ish, one fox) to the door.\n\n"I'm telling you, you're being ridiculous!" one voice, a male's, says. "You've rotted your brain with too much anime!"\n\n"Convergent evolution is a perfectly acceptable theory to apply to extraterrestrial life!" answers a female's voice. "Given a similar environment for life to develop in, it's not unreasonable for them to look like us but with a few other traits!"\n\n"There's no such thing as space catgirls!"\n\n"There could so be space catgirls! I mean, human-like aliens are still a distinct possibility! Just because you own all those books of HR Giger artwork doesn't mean the only form for an extraterrestrial is some... shambling pile!"\n\n"Akkun, would you tell her she's being ridiculous?"\n\n"I dunno, I mean... I think she's right that a humanoid body seems likely enough for aliens, y'know?" answers another male voice. "Just they'd probably still be waaaay different from us and have such a super different society that communication might be futile. Like they might not even recognize us as fellow people, y'know?"\n\n"Oh please."\n\n"They'd live in a society!"\n\n"Well, if you'd like to hear my opinion," a second female voice cuts in.\n\n"Oh we've all heard your opinion thank you very much."\n\n"We don't need any more of your talk about the Singularity."\n\n"Oh so everyone else gets to state the same opinions they've said over and over again anyway, but I don't?" Silence falls for a few seconds after that, until she says, "Thank you. Now, any race sufficiently advanced enough to have developed interstellar travel would clearly have undergone a Singularity-like event. That means that they likely would have abandoned their flesh and blood bodies, <i>whatever</i> they looked like, and taken on more mechanical forms. It would certainly be a way to get around the physical stresses of space travel."\n\n"... Unless their physical forms were <i>so different</i> from ours that they didn't undergo stresses like that in the first place!"\n\n"More likely if they were that advanced, they'd genetically rebuild their bodies as they liked, an idealized form that was, dare I say, cuter!"\n\n"Or just weirder 'cause it was more suited to their freaky incomprehensible alien world."\n\nThe four fall to squabbling like that. Sounds like this is probably how they spend most of their club meetings. ... How delightful! There's already a source of discord, and they've given you plenty of wonderful ideas! You could always go ahead and prank them now, essentially by giving one of them precisely what they asked for... or, you could infiltrate their club as a new member, and gradually work with and amongst them to cause longterm mischief! Konkonkon, so many delightful ideas!\n\nLet's see, concentrate a little, get their names... let's see, the first boy's name, the one who believes in Lovecraftian aliens is Akio, and you glean that he's the club president. The girl who believes in aliens that look like cute girls with animal bits is Chiaki. The guy who wants inscrutable rubber forehead aliens is Eiji, and the robot fetishist is Junko. Now, what to do, how to prank?\n\n<hr>\n[[Fulfill Akio's idea.|KonET]]\n\n[[Fulfill Chiaki's idea.|KonET]]\n\n[[Fulfill Eiji's idea.|KonET]]\n\n[[Fulfill Junko's idea.|KonET]]\n\n[[Join the club instead.|KonET]]

Hell, why not, at least you know they're not likely to be tense. Making your way towards the table, you flick glances at several of the nearby booths which are currently hosting a few Transcendants that clearly forgot to slow their roll and have already flopped out barely conscious or in some state too heavily altered to make even any pretense of socializing. You make your way to the main table which has a number of the Transcendants leaned over it, whispering almost conspiratorially to each other in a mingling of slow, slightly slurred drawls and half-frenzied chattering, though heads turn towards you as you approach. The one at the center back straightens up, neon yellow eyes gazing out from below a fringe of silvery hair rendered almost the same color by the glow of the inside of her hood, her elaborate and heavily modified black and neon vape mask with a braided cabling of lines running up both sides of it.\n\nAll the Transcendants wear vape masks without fail. They're pretty popular on Makarzia in general... even the cheap ones will filter out a lot of the crap in the air and at least scent what you do breathe a little fresher. Of course the more expensive and more modded you get, the more they can do... some people wear them all the time and use them to regulate a constant amount of mild stimulants to stay awake while in the outdoors, or a flow of depressants and tranquilizers to keep themselves calm. Of course the Transcendants use them to keep up an effectively constant line of vaporizable narcotics of all kinds, with the really experienced and high-ranking ones like their leader there able to mix virtually anything she wants on the fly.\n\n"Hey there, Kai, it's been awhile. Need some stims for another long night?"\n\n"Not coming to buy, tonight, Moore, thought I'd see if you guys had any work for me," you answer with a bob of the head. "I could use some credits before morning if possible."\n\nShe glances back and forth slightly at the Transcendants on either side of her, then turns back to you and shrugs. "There's always work. Always deliveries. Always new experiences we need someone from the real to try. Debts to be collected." She pauses, then brushes a gloved fingertip down her cheek to the side of her mask. "Mm. Actually I wouldn't mind having you on hand tonight myself."\n\n"Oh yeah?" you ask, quirking an eyebrow.\n\n"I'm planning on some new mixtures and I'm not sure how they'll go. I need someone who will be unmodified to watch over me, but you know I hate to deny the others their own lives. I was going to bother Adam for it, but I hate to call him out for something like that... I'll pay you your going rate and a bit extra instead, yeah? But if you'd rather something else, it's all the same... I try not to fuss over the real if I don't have to."\n\n<hr>\n[[Do some deliveries.|Kai]]\n\n[[Be a guinea pig.|Kai]]\n\n[[Collect debts.|Kai]]\n\n[[Hang with Moore.|Kai]]

You are an exploratory drone, designation 17H. Taken together this might render to "EDITH" based on Earth text, however your infiltration protocols have suggested "Edi", and using a pronunciation that will allow others to interpret it as either the feminine moniker or the more masculine "Eddie" depending on their own biases.\n\nBecause your mission is to explore an inhabited and developed society on a planet known locally as Earth. You have therefore taken a form based on that of the dominant technology-using lifeform, and slanted it to some value of 'average' while not being so average that it's creepy. (Several other exploratory drones have made this mistake before, apparently it stimulates something that sentients typically refer to as "the uncanny valley".) You have dark blonde hair cut short in a style that (based on your research) is slightly feminine for a man and slightly masculine for a woman. Your body is androgynous (actually neuter, but in outward appearance you are of roughly average female height as well as with a build that could either be a slender male or a somewhat curveless female). Your skin is tan, of a tone that could be either constant natural or the exposure to sun, again depending on the assumptions of the viewers. Your features subtly blend several racial features, and your eyes are the most common shade of brown out of observed humans on the planet. \n\nYou have no ultimate guidelines for this mission. You have no restrictions, full interference is allowed at your discretion. You have been sent with the single goal of learning more about the humans and discovering more about the nature of their existence. To that end you are allowed to do as your suggestive algorithms see fit, whether it be observing clandestinely, helping them, or even harming them. You do not currently anticipate any necessity to do either of the two latter, but that it what situational suggestive algorithms are for.\n\nYou step out of the alleyway where you landed and assumed your current form. For a few moments you stand as you are, processing your current location. Your database is a little on the spotty side, after all... your creators included what they saw fit, but apparently they only monitored random bursts of information from the planet with which to build it. Your algorithms suggest connecting to their 'internet' and building a more comprehensive database, but a quick skim of the dataflow suggests that it would be time prohibitive. Better to act on what you have now.\n\nAlright, humans in this society are driven by certain needs. Or wants. So, according to your suggestive algorithms, to learn more about them you should immediately seek out-\n\n<hr>\n[[-a job.|Edi]]\n\n[[-a place to live.|Edi]]\n\n[[-a romantic partner.|Edi]]\n\n[[-power over others.|Edi]]

"Well, if you wanted your privacy, I can go," you offer, thumbing back towards your own temporary quarters.\n\n"Not at all, please feel free to come in," she says, stepping back and gesturing you inside. "It was looking to be a lonely night with Nova out and everyone else occupied with their own pursuits, I wouldn't mind some company."\n\nYou nod and, not wanting to be rude as much as anything, accept the invitation to step inside. You take a look around as you shrug out of your jacket and hang it up at Gem's urging to do so... the captain's quarters are larger and nicer than your own room, obviously, though part of that seems to be that there's a lowered conversation pit in one part of the room as well as a work area to allow it to function as an office as well.\n\n"Ah, it almost slipped my mind," Gem says, resting her hands on her hips. "Would you like me to put some clothing on?"\n\n"What? You're naked?" you can't help but snark back, giving her a grin.\n\nShe laughs softly. "I was naked more often than not growing up, and it's a habit I've spread to Nova as well... we're rarely covered up when we're in the room, or even when we go about the ship during lulls. It sometimes takes me a moment to realize that not everyone's as used to it as we are. If it would make you more comfortable, I can put something on. Of course, you can also feel free to take your own clothing off, if you like."\n\n"Er." You can't help but blush at that.\n\n"No need to be embarrassed, it's practically a clothing optional ship at this point. At the same time, there's no need to be pressured... please do what you feel comfortable with."\n\n<hr>\n[[Ask her to put something on.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Strip down.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Things are fine as is.|LeoNova]]

There are a handful of spells that have appeared in your spellbook that you haven't actually cast yet. In some cases not much more than the title has been revealed to you, and you'll need to expend a bit of magical energy to assert that's the one you're going to cast. Some of the others you just haven't gotten around to trying yet for one reason or another... they didn't seem particularly useful, or the description of what they do is a bit vague or muddled.\n\nOne of the spells is [[Animate Object|ValTome3x2]]. You haven't tried it yet because you're not entirely 100% sure what it does. It says that it will bring objects to a semblance of life, but just what that means isn't very clear. It says that the objects will obey you... maybe. There's some implications that depending on various factors, what you animate might be anywhere from "independent" to "defiant". Still, it's an interesting spell and you sort of want to try it.\n\nAnother is a [[Possession|ValTome]] spell. It's apparently rather versatile... you can not only possess other people, but objects and even areas. You're not 100% sure how that would work but that's as good a reason as any to give it a try, right?\n\nAnother is a [[Projection|ValTome]] spell that bears a number of similarities to the dreamwalking spell you already know. This one, however, can let you project your consciousness into far more different places... virtually anywhere in the world, other realms and planes, even the past or future.

You kind of want to have this prank go on awhile... managing a magical girl in an embarrassing outfit longterm seems like it could be fun, plus Michiko does do the most delightfully silly things all on her own while participating in your delusion! "Yeah! Go get him, Foxtail Red!" you cheer, hopping in place.\n\nMichiko, ah, Foxtail Red jerks back a bit as the monster charges at her and swipes downward with one big, clawed hand... but you make sure that it telegraphs the move coming from a mile off, and Red is able to both dodge to one side and bring her hands up to block it, grabbing the sides of his palms. You plaster a shocked expression on the wolf monster's face... before actually feeling a little shocked as Red gives out a shout of "HYAAAAAAAAAA!" and whirls around, using her grip not to throw the werewolf, but swing it around and slam it into a wall.\n\n'Damn girl, taking the chance to work out some of that pent-up aggression, huh?' You firm up the wolf monster's existence just a little, since you don't want an insta-win, having it instead yank free of Red's grip and backswing a bit harder, actually connecting this time and knocking her aside. Red lets out a yelp at getting struck, and a short cry as she impacts with enough force to rock her body and crack the brick... then she blinks repeatedly as she apparently realizes she's not actually hurt or in pain. You snicker to yourself at the smirk that steals over her lips. 'Yesyes, get all confident, revel in it, that will make eventually having you lose be the really satisfying part of the prank!' you think as she darts back in and deals several punches to the wolf's midsection, driving it back further into the alley. Still controlling the beast like a puppet, you have it swipe several times with its claws, quickly enough to force Red to go scrambling back herself.\n\n"Konko! I'm having trouble dealing enough damage to it!" your vic-, ah, protege calls out.\n\n"Use your Foxtail Blaster!" you call back, trying not to laugh even as you say it.\n\n"R-right! Foxtail Blaster!" she cries out, holding a hand out in front of her in a gripping motion. You quickly form up a bright red gun with an obvious white-tipped foxtail sticking up off the back of it in her hand. You decided to actually make it brushed metal and with crystal light-up bits... you were tempted to make it an obvious production-line toy, made out of plastic and even with visible seams and screw holes, but there are some things that are just so distasteful in suit shows that you can't bring yourself to stomach them. "FOXTAIL BEEEEEEEAM!" she shouts, again entirely of her own initiative, as she pulls the trigger. Just to indulge her, you decide to make the blast of red energy that fires out of the green emitter on the end much larger and sparklier and brighter than you were going to have it be originally. It strikes the wolf monster right in center mass, the beast flinging its arms up comically before it explodes, turning into dust and smoke as the safe little bit of pyrotechnics goes off where it was.\n\n"I won!" Red's eyes are wide behind the visor, then she lets out a squeal of joy and starts hopping up and down, jiggling delightfully as she laughs. "I won I won I won!"\n\n"You did! You saved the town, Foxtail Red!" you declare in a proud tone, while internally smirking wickedly. Yes, it's totally going to be sweet when you-\n\nYour thoughts are interrupted by a roll of thunder as the sky darkens above... then an entirely different thunder-like sound that goes on much longer and sounds a lot rougher. You and Foxtail Red both turn towards it, the scantily-clad girl's jaw sagging at the sight of a monster that looks a lot like the one she just defeated, albeit with four arms... and about thirty stories tall, wreathed in the dust of the under-construction building it just knocked down. As it's letting out a roar, an image forms projected on the dark clouds above, of a pretty but severe woman wearing a military cap, eyepatch, and with wolf ears poking through the top of her head.\n\n"People of Earth!" the projection booms. "The Wolf Dimension requires your natural resources. Your society and civilization is standing in the way of how we wish to make use of them, and so it will be destroyed. Do not bother trying to resist... that will only make our will to destroy you harder!"\n\n'Ooooo, this is <i>very</i> good, <i>very</i> good indeed!' you think smugly, nodding as you smirk. 'Good job, me, this is super dramatic and a great touch! ... Wait a second.' You frown. '... I'm not doing this.' "WHAT?!" you blurt out, eyes going wide.\n\n"K-Konko, is that the leader of the Wolf Dimension?!" Michiko stammers, looking from the projection to you.\n\n"A-ah, yes, it certainly seems so!" you reply, trying your best to keep your chipper mascot demeanor. 'Is my imagination running away with me again? Go away, you!' you think at the giant monster now trudging meaningfully down the street with thunderous impacts of its feet... but nothing happens. You try to poof it to the bottom of the ocean, and frown more deeply as your power just... thumps against it and does nothing. 'What the... that shouldn't happen, even if it's the creation of another, even more powerful spirit I should feel some struggle against my abilities!'\n\n"Japan as you know it will cease to exist," the wolf-eared woman declares. "Make your peace with that." Then she fades away, leaving just the rumbling dark clouds.\n\n"You can't destroy Japan!" you find yourself blurting out, utterly outraged. 'I'm still using it!'\n\n"O-okay, Konko, what do we do now?" Michiko asks nervously, looking at you expectantly.\n\n"... ah..." Right, okay. You don't want this town to be destroyed, its where your house is and all the people that you prank live here. Clearly you can't just let a kaiju stomp it flat... but you also apparently can't affect the kaiju yourself. Which means... you need to make use of a resource you're already using, namely the magical girl you just created. Magical girls fighting giant monsters is a thing, after all, it's not like the genre never crosses over with other suit heroes! So let's see, you'll just need to have her-\n\n<hr>\n[[-grow to giant size.|KonMG]]\n\n[[-pilot a mecha.|KonMG1x2]]

Screw it, you're bringing a teddy bear to life. You get up and head to the trunk where you store a handful of sentimental keepsakes and other 'take it just in case you need it' things from home, and spend a moment unearthing Bayard. You lift him up and look him over... hm, stitching is starting to come loose here and there. Well, he was well-loved for many years, you probably ought to have done a bit of maintenance before you put him away. Well, it should still be fine. You set him in your computer chair and take a look. \n\n<img src="images/Bayard.png">\n\n"Let's see if we can get you up and about," you chirp happily. You might not be able to get him to talk, but who knows? \n\nSome ingredients are required for an initial setup, but after that you'll be able to just cast the spell pretty much whenever and on whatever you want. You get some things together and prepare the setup, with the biggest hurdle being that at one point you almost sit on your poor teddy bear after forgetting where you put him briefly. But finally the prep work is done and the initialization cast, and you move Bayard to the bed instead before chanting out the ritual and directing the energy into the stuffed bear.\n\nAnd... nothing. Bayard just lays there, unmoving. You wait a bit more, but it seems nothing is forthcoming.\n\n<hr>\n[["This stinks! This is total BS!"|ValTome]]\n\n[["... Hey. Hey. Hey."|ValTome3x4]]\n\n[["... (sob)..."|ValTome]]

The Animate Object spell does seem really interesting, despite its rather dense explanation. Of course you have to read over it again if you intend to cast it, which does make you groan a little. Reading, reading. You read over one particular passage a few times.\n\n'Whereupon objects that have had some amount of time to absorb mana environmentally may be more likely to exhibit independent action and some amount of personable reactions as determined by form and expectation of mana absorbed. Such objects may exhibit unknown behavioral expectations and expressions but which emulate essential desires of the animate. Such objects may animate with less inherent mana drain and for periods of greater action but exhibit certain resistances to influence.'\n\nHoo. So as well as you can parse that... if something is older and has been around people longer, it's more likely to actually have some personality when you animate it? And possibly even disobey you? Best be careful then... but it's not as if you were planning to animate any particularly old pieces of construction equipment, so you probably won't make a Killdozer anyway.\n\nLet's see, let's see, what could you animate? Well, right here in your room you've got various possibilities. There's [[your old teddy bear|ValTome3x3]] that you brought from home, tucked away in a trunk. Like most kids probably did, you often wished he would come to life and talk to you, and what are witchly powers for if not making the fantasies you had when you were eight reality? Then of course there's some of the more <i>adult</i> "[[toys|ValTome]]" you've got in a different box, that could provide some interesting results. Something more basic might be [[some of your clothes|ValTome]], or you could go to the dollar store and buy a cheap [[action figure|ValTome]] or two. \n\nYou pause as you remember... there's an old broken-down [[car|ValTome]] out back behind the house where you rent your rooms. Some of the other sections of the spell would seem to indicate that casting it on certain things will allow them to repair themselves, and in the case of machines often run on ambient mana and the energy of the spell rather than their previous power source. You could finally have some transportation of your own, which would be a pretty big deal for being able to do certain witch-related things. (Not to mention not having to pay for gas.)

"So, you uh..." You quirk an eyebrow, glancing back and forth down the hall, before making a point this time of looking her naked body up and down. "Were you expecting someone, while Nova's gone?"\n\nShe looks at you in silence for several seconds, making you worry that you've made multiple misreads. Then her lips slowly curve up in a wicked smirk. "Why yes, I was. In fact, I was waiting for Pulsar. Typically when my husband isn't around, within an hour his best friend's cock is buried in one of my holes... since Nova is likely to be gone for several days this time, I'll likely spend the entire time he's gone being Pulsar's whore and doing whatever he asks of me... his cock is <i>quite</i> a bit bigger than Nova's, after all."\n\nYou stare at her, for a second wondering if maybe that's just some really intense sarcasm, but the absolutely devious sparkle in her eyes says she means it... and the sudden sultry tinge to her body language says she's getting off on telling you. "Well. Sounds like you have a busy night ahead of you," you note in a wry tone.\n\n"Mmhmmm. Would you like to watch?" she asks, one hip jutting out slightly as her tails swish gently behind her.\n\n"Ah... sorry, what?"\n\n"I asked, would you like to come in and watch me be a depraved whore for my husband's best friend? There's a closet directly beside the bed that you'd have a lovely view from." She brings a fingertip up to run along her lower lip, mming. "I only suggest that first because, well... if you joined in, Pulsar's rather indiscriminate about who he goes after. You'd likely wind up getting fucked at some point too. Still, if you don't mind that sort of risk, I'd love to have you join us and make me your whore too." So saying, she reaches out to cup your crotch, gently rubbing at your already half-hard cock through your pants.\n\nWell. An... interesting offer to be sure. How to respond?\n\n<hr>\n[[Watch.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Participate.|LeoNova]]\n\n[[Decline.|LeoNova]]

Frowning a bit, you lean over the bed, poking the stuffed bear's tummy gently. "Hey. Hey you. Hey. Do something. Hey."\n\nYou almost jump when one of those fluffy cotton-stuffed arms swings up and whaps your hand as if to bat away your poking finger. "Alright, already! Geez, you're worse than a little brother!"\n\nYour jaw drops. "It worked! You can move!" Then you blink. "Hey, you can talk."\n\n"I can do lots of things!" Bayard declares, wriggling around a bit before kipping up to his largely formless feet, standing with his round hands on his essentially absent hips. "It was just taking me a minute to process everything, that's all. Be not-alive for a few decades and suddenly be... well, animate... and see how fast you are to start expressing yourself."\n\nYou start to point out that you can't exactly do such, but then you remember necromancy exists and decide not to bring it up for different reasons. You sit down on the side of the bed, tilting your head a bit as you watch him wiggle his arms and turn his head, apparently testing everything out. "You definitely have a lot of personality, that's for sure. I was kind of reading it like 'there will be quirks in the movement', not, well... real personality."\n\n"You disappointed?" Bayard asks, turning towards you and striking his little Superman pose again.\n\nGrinning, you pluck him up and set him in your lap, draping your arms around him. "Nah, this is pretty cool. Like this is exactly how I hoped it would be when I was a kid, if you came to life." You pause, then frown a little. "I didn't necessarily picture you sounding like Vic Mignogna though."\n\n"Are you sure?" Bayard asks, tilting his head up to look at you while draping his arms over your hands.\n\nYou open your mouth... close it, frown, then shrug. "Well hell, doesn't everybody in every cartoon sound like Vic Mignogna?"\n\n"Since I don't sound like Tara Strong, yeah."\n\nYou spend a few hours chatting with your childhood stuffed toy, recounting various memories like you would an old friend, or maybe more like a retroactive sibling since he was there for more private family moments. Of course, as it gets late and you decide to turn in a bit early, you blush at remembering something else you may have done with your teddy a few times, and decide to step into the other room to switch into your pajama pants. Bayard thankfully doesn't mention anything about it, and seems happy enough to snuggle up with you again for the first time in years as you go to sleep. You've learned to roll with a lot of weirdness since you started training as a witch, but you have to admit that this is probably the nicest strangeness you've gotten the opportunity to roll with.\n\nOf course in the morning it's rather spoiled as you sit up and wish Bayard a good morning, this time actually getting one back... then notice stuffing poking out of his side. "Ack! What happened?!" you ask, lifting him up to look at it.\n\n"Must have busted some stitches when you were squeezing me last night, it's been awhile," he declares in a resigned tone.\n\nWithout really thinking about it you set him down and move to grab your sewing stuff. You pause though as you're about to poke the stuffing back in. "This doesn't hurt, does it?"\n\n"Nah, nah, it's fine," the animated plush declares as you push the cotton fluff back in... then lets out a banshe scream as you start to slip the needle through the cloth of his 'skin', making you jump and scramble back. Only to start snickering. "Gotcha!"\n\nYou give him a whap on his fuzzy little head. "Jerk. Not while I'm holding a needle."\n\n"Well I'm a little worn-out is all," Bayard declares as you start sewing him up. "If you want to avoid more maintenance you could always get me a new body."\n\n"Huh?" You pause in your work, glancing up at his head. "What do you mean?"\n\n"You could get a new bear, or really any plushie, and transfer my fluff over into it. Since you're the one that cast the spell on me, that would count as moving 'me' over to it. Probably be stronger and last longer, since I could take hold in it fresh. Don't ask me how I know this stuff, I guess it's part of being around while you were studying, and having absorbed so much mana from you over the years, I'm a bit of a witchy bear I think."\n\nWhile you're finishing up the sewing job and pondering on his words, he adds, "Besides, you could get me a few companions while you were at it. You're going to be in school all day most of the time, right?" At your nod, he continues, "Well, I won't be able to exactly go out and enjoy the campus life myself, will I? So you could buy me some buddies and animate them."\n\n"But a freshly-bought plush wouldn't have spent years absorbing mana and personality ideas, would it?" you ask as you bite off the thread and put away your sewing things. "It would just be a blank animated object, I'm pretty sure."\n\n"Nah, I think I can make personality 'catching', maybe they'd need just a tiny bit of my fluff mixed into theirs. C'mon, unless you intend to start carrying me around with you everywhere, I need company!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Go shopping for new plushies.|ValTome3x5]]\n\n[[Well maybe you will carry him around!|ValTome]]

The iridescent sheen of Gem's fur and hair had been something when it was just the stuff on her head bared, but all of it is really something... even in the regulated light of the ship she sparkles like her namesake. Of course it's hard not for your eyes to go right down to her chest... which looked big enough in the flight suit, but apparently it was compressing things because they appear even larger now, albeit heavier and with a bit more hang than the perfect firmness the suit's support gave them. They're covered in cyan fur like the rest of her front, with a pair of puffy, thick dark blue nipples poking out from amidst it. You almost wonder if maybe she and Nova have some kids you haven't met yet, since she does have a slightly motherly body... just the slightest hint of poke out to her belly, wide round hips... ahem. Hauling your eyes back up to her face, you note that she seems quite calm and casual, just like she was earlier, apparently unbothered by being "caught" in the nude.\n\n"Good evening, Leo," she says evenly. "Did you need something?"\n\n"Ah, no, I was actually just coming over to... well, hang out with you and Nova, if you were up for it, I was feeling sort of restless," you reply, trying to keep your own voice casual as if talking with nude, mature, furry sexbombs was something you did all the time.\n\n"I'm afraid Nova isn't here," she replies, tilting her head a little, her ears giving a quick flick. "He went to do some scouting of the route ahead in one of the fighters."\n\n"Oh. Right, yeah."\n\n"Don't worry, you're not bothering me," she assures you, actually giving you a small smile and folding her arms under her breasts... winding up pressing them together and lifting them up towards you in the process.\n\n... Ahem. Alright, well... ... initiate dialog, brain.\n\n<hr>\n[[She can decide whether to invite you in.|LeoNova7x1]]\n\n[[She must be expecting someone.|LeoNova6x2]]\n\n[[She must be horny.|LeoNova]]

"The best version of mysELF!" Makoto squeaks as you lean in to kiss the side of his neck, then blushes even more when he realizes that he wound up blurting out 'Elf!' "U-um, what's that mean?"\n\n"Well," you say as you stand up, grinning. "It's the you that will make you happiest, and the most content. The you that's most likely to live a peaceful and good life."\n\n"Oh." He blinks, then smiles. "Well, that sounds pretty nice!"\n\n"Mm-hmmm." You grin at him as you tuck your hands into your jacket pockets again. "Earth is a peaceful place... growing up a peaceful way seems for the best. Anyway, I'll see you in one year, alright?"\n\n"It's a promise, Sipha-neechan!"\n\nAnd so it goes. The next year you show up, repeating your incantation. Makoto already seems a bit happier and healthier, so it looks like the cultivation spell has properly taken hold and is working. It's just small changes over a long period of time, but then humans do grow so fast, you think as your visits go by. Sometimes it makes you a little sad to think that Makoto will be gone one day... watching as he grows, getting older and coming into his own, makes you wonder what it will be like when he has to one day... well. No use thinking about things like that, since it still won't be any time soon, you comfort yourself. After all, he seems to be growing up healthy, and happy, and very beautiful too, for that matter. You do notice, on both your yearly visits and your occasional passthroughs just to peek in on how he's doing, that he doesn't really seem to be the sort to play the more rough-and-tumble games, even if he does seem hale of body now, preferring to sit back reading or coloring... you do notice that other kids seem to come to him for their scrapes and sprained knees and arguments when an adult isn't available though, which makes you laugh a bit to yourself. 'Makoto, you're turning into the playground mom!'\n\nBut watching Makoto's peaceful, happy life as he grows and comes into his own is something that brings a calm and warmth to your heart you never knew you were missing. Your life before you came to Japan was full of training and the ever-looming idea of combat, fighting to topple the demon king and save your world... your life after was a sort of cooldown from that, filled with the distractions that its pleasures could offer. The distractions and pleasures are still a lot of fun... but you're kind of glad that you've found a little bit more. This is more than just not being at war anymore, this is... contentment. 'What will I do when he's gone someday, though?' you can't help but fret every so often.\n\n"Sipha-neechan, what's wrong?"\n\n"Oh. Oh, nothing." You shake your head, giving Makoto a smile, realizing the worry had actually made its way onto your face. "Just thinking of stuff... way off in the future, I guess."\n\n"Oh that's right, Sipha-neechan, you're an elf... I mean, I know you're an elf, of course," he says with a soft, sweet laugh, putting a hand to his mouth as he does. "It's just... I guess I hadn't really thought of how that meant you'd live a really long time. How long... I mean, if it's not rude?"\n\n"How long do we live? No, it's fine. Well, Shadow Elves used to live to be about 800, but that was when the demon king had control over the castle where our race's soul crystal was... it's a long story," you truncate with a grin since you'd noticed how wide his eyes were getting. "Ah, to be honest, between the fall of the demon king and coming to this world, I really don't know how long I'll live. I mean, it could be forever, really."\n\n"Well. If you live forever, Sipha-neechan, I hope you have way more happy days than unhappy days," Makoto says after thinking about it for a bit, giving you a winning smile. "And I hope the happy days are all bigger and brighter than the unhappy days."\n\nLaughing softly, you shake your head. "... You're the best, Makoto." 'I'll miss you one day.' "Ah, by the way, I'm pretty sure that this will be the last spell."\n\n"Really? The last one?"\n\n"Yeah. The last of the changes will happen soon, and any big final changes the spell needs to make will take place this year."\n\n"I see." Makoto thinks of that a bit, then smiles brightly. "Well... that just means that next year when we meet, it can be the start of us being close friends!"\n\nYou feel a bright warmth in your chest, and give a single nod. "I'd really like that. Alright... in one year we'll meet again, and after that, no more spending long times apart."\n\n"Yes!"\n\nPart of you says that it's foolish to pledge to not just keep up your association with Makoto, but to deepen it and strengthen it, knowing that one day you'll lose it. But you can't bring yourself to think otherwise... in a way, it feels like you grew up along with Makoto, despite being almost 143 when you met. That first part of your life feels like you were just waiting to start this time of peace and happiness and contentment, and growing into a better-rounded person. Since you met him, saw him tend to others and ease their pain, you've been inspired to get out of your apartment more, volunteer your time, do little things as you can using your abilities. You've made other connections too, even as each time you worry what you'll do when you lose those connections. But whether it's a kid needing an understanding and semi-immature neechan to talk to or an old granny with no one else to talk to, you still make the connections, because Makoto showed you how wonderful they can be.\n\n'I think maybe the best friendship of my life starts today,' you think as you make your way to the meeting point, on the lookout for white hair. When you spot it though, you pause... it's white hair, sure, and long like Makoto had been letting it grow, but there are some very feminine braids in it... and the person with it is wearing a blue silk blouse and a long tan skirt, as well as holding a purse in one hand. But if the clothing made you doubt, the pink eyes and the prettier, but still recognizable face removes any doubt. Even as you watch, she smiles and raised her free hand up over her head, a bird that had been fluttering nearby alighting on her fingertips as if she were some sort of princess out of a cartoon. "M-... Makoto?"\n\n<img src="images/Makoto2.jpg">\n\n"Ah?" She turns her head towards you, the movement sending the bird flitting away, and her face lights up with a smile. "Sipha-neechan!" She hurries over, putting her arms around you and hugging tightly. "I'm so happy to see you! It feels like it's been much longer than the other times!"\n\n"Makoto..." Still in a bit of shock, you hug her back before drawing back and looking her up and down. "Are you... okay with this? This sort of change?"\n\n"Oh, yes." Makoto smiles, letting out a soft laugh as well, fingertips touched to her delicate lips. "I'm very okay with it. I might not have even realized it until this past year, but... it's definitely what I needed to live my peaceful, happy life. A life I very much hope you will be involved in!"\n\n"Yeah. Yeah, definitely," you murmur, smiling now.\n\nShe returns your smile, then her eyes light up, her hands moving to grip yours. "Sipha-neechan, please, come meet my boyfriend! I'm so excited to introduce the two of you!"\n\nThat gets a laugh out of you. "Sure! Let's go!" You just smile as she leads you along by one hand, giving her delicate pale one a squeeze. One more person to meet that will be gone someday, but that's okay.\n\nYou'll enjoy it while it lasts.\n\n<hr>\n[[Game Over.|SiphaKidsM1xEnd]]

Flat-faced, you lean forward and flick her on the forehead with your middle finger.\n\n"Ow!" Rarala claps both hands over her forehead, as if grievously wounded. "What was that for?!"\n\n"You're bullshitting me, aren't you?"\n\n"No! ... Okay so it's <i>technically</i> the easiest way but it's only slightly harder to do it with a rune circle and a chant," she admits with a sigh, lowering her hands. "I mean, I was gonna say that if you seemed like you really didn't want to. But, excuse me?" She reaches over and snags a mirror off of a nearby counter and holds it up to you, showing you your own prettified blonde head and your newly impressive chest. "Have you seen the current you? You'd probably take a chance on an excuse to fuck her too."\n\n... You'd really like to argue with her, but given the opportunity you'd have probably tried to set that up too. With the same caveat of calling it off if the other party seemed uncomfortable! Promise. Ahem. You sigh and stand up. "Can we just do the spell circle thing, please?"\n\n"Yeah, it'll take me about twenty minutes, while I do that here's the form for the insurance. I'd've totally eaten the deductible if you let me fuck you, y'know. OW!"\n\nThe procedure is actually positively mundane... once she's finished drawing the circle, Rarala has you stand in the center while she does a chant in some other language. By the time she finishes speaking, your itchy, constantly anxious and needy feeling has settled down, and is obviously only a faint echo due to your body being previously aroused. Sighing in relief, you thank Rarala, give her one more forehead flick for the road when she once more suggests going in the back, and then head out. You make a quick stop in a refresher facility, paying a few credits for a quick (and very cold) shower, for once bothering to comb your hair out a bit since it is such a nice shade of blonde now... still, it winds up sticking back up in a fair few places as it dries anyway. Yeah, story of your life, apparently that hasn't changed with the rest of you.\n\nAfter that it's off to a clothing outfitter. You step into one of the fitting booths and strip down, trying to ignore the still somewhat awkward sensation of jiggling boobs as you move. You tap the button for the scanner and then lift your arms straight up, waiting for the green beam to pass up and down your body before somewhat halfassedly folding your clothes and tucking them into the large slot that opens up after you select 'Refit current items'. While they're being modified, you use the screen to scroll through the options for bra and panty sets... blushing and adding the 'Athletic' tag after a moment. Yeah, no on the pink lace. Ideally you want something that has boxer-briefs like the ones you normally wear anyway, but it looks like those are fewer and further between, and slightly more expensive because they're meant for actual workout outerwear than underwear. Finally you give in to your innate cheapness, considering all your expenses lately, and select the black and white option for a sports bra and athletic panties set, which are dispensed from a different slot. You haul on the bra first, tugging on it here and there trying to get it into place, before stepping into the panties and pulling them up... at least they're both fitted exactly right, due to the scan.\n\nMaybe you're just falling into old routines, or maybe it's this body's natural feeling, but once you're covered up you don't think twice about stepping out of the fitting booth briefly to examine yourself in the mirror on the wall beside it. Of course once you see the bombshell reflected you do blush a bit... the bra supports and holds your tits mostly in place so there's far less jiggling, but you think they might look even bigger like this, and the bra actually shows off a decent amount of cleavage. The waistband of the panties is somewhat high on your waist, and leaves pretty much all of your hips bare, hugging up against your new mound and leaving almost half of each buttock on display. 'Agh, maybe I should get something more covering. ... Except damn, these are actually comfortable, and... I look hella good,' you admit, resting your hands on your hips and turning side-to-side a bit.\n\n"Neo? Is that... wait, no, that's Leo, isn't it?"\n\nYou blink at the familiar voice, turning around, and for a moment everything else flies out of your head as you grin. "Uncle Seiun! Hey!"\n\nYour 'uncle' is a Leonavian, a race blending avian and feline features... his head closely resembles a predator bird's, complete with beak and intense, dark eyes, though the thick 'hair' of feathers tipped with gold that grows around the top and sides of his head calls to mind a lion's mane more than anything. His tall body also blends the two, hands somewhat like a bird's feet, yellow and tipped with black claws, but his digigrade feet are more feline in nature, as is the leonine tail emerging from below his belt. As usual he's attired in a tight, shiny black and gold long-sleeved shirt with a white flight jacket over it, an angular metal pack attached to his back, along with loose combat pants and yellow 'spats' slipped over his feet leaving his toes bare.\n\n"Well hello, Leo. I thought at first your sister had that growth spurt she's been waiting for, but that's you after all, hm?" Seiun chuckles at your sheepish look. "The hazards of living the life, huh?"\n\n"Yeah," you agree with a sigh, rubbing your head. "I'm here having to get my gear refitted, I'm stuck like this for a year."\n\n"Shit happens, you know? Don't let it get you down. Tell you what, why don't we have lunch and you can tell me about it? I was hoping to run into you because I had something to talk to you about anyway, so it's my treat."\n\nYou grin at that, feeling some of the weight of recent events lift. "Sounds good, Uncle Seiun."\n\n"Good. ... Ahem. I'll leave you to get dressed then," he murmurs, turning and heading for the register with his own handful of items.\n\nIt takes you a second to realize you just had an entire conversation with him in your underwear. Dragging a hand down your face and groaning, you hurry back into the fitting booth and yank the curtain closed.\n\nYou emerge later fully clothed and with two weeks' supply of duplicate panties and sports bras, your outfit now fitted to your new proportions, helping you feel a bit back to normal even if they now show off your chest and hips some. You meet up with Seiun outside of the shop, and the two of you head for a noodle restaurant that's a favorite of his, soon seated and with meat sizzling on the griddle built into the table as you tell him your tail, each of you occasionally snagging bits of cooked meat to add to your bowls of noodles and broth.\n\n"These things happen. It's actually one of the more common things mercs run across, really," Seiun says with another chuckle once you've finished up... albeit omitting certain details about the 'side effects'. "As far as non-deadly consequences go. You'll see it happen to someone else you know eventually."\n\n"That's comforting," you reply dryly, before slurping up the last of your noodles and hitting the button to request more as you set the bowl aside. "But yeah, I guess next time I'll watch my mouth... and my pelvis... a little more."\n\n"Lesson learned, then, which is the most important thing. And you'll get back to yourself in a year, yes? Not too bad, I've seen others where the changes were permanent. In any event, you're still fully combat ready?"\n\n"Yeah, Rarala's pretty sure the other me was a Guildcert too, just... uh, different." Sluttier. "I haven't checked myself out fully on the training course yet but from what I can tell I'm good."\n\n"That's good, because it affects what I wanted to talk to you about. I finally got the paperwork through, my MC license is live as of this morning."\n\nYou grin broadly. "Your own Mercenary Company? Congrats, Uncle Seiun! What're you gonna call it?"\n\n"'Roaring Eagle'. A little pretentious, maybe, but that's sort of expected of these things." He chuckles, clicking his chopsticks at you. "But getting to the point, I'd like you to join up."\n\nYou blink. "Me? Seriously?"\n\n"Of course. Recent troubles with your mouth aside, you're one of the most talented young Guildcerts I know, Leo, and I mean that, it's not just because I'm friends with your parents. Of course I'd like you to check out on the course first, just before we make it official, but my license came with the rights to a small company headquarters that I've already started rent on... you could move out of that closet you're no doubt living in. No contract... I'll let you contribute what you can and leave if you ever find another MC you'd prefer to join or want to start your own. Frankly I've missed taking you on missions, those were some of my most memorable times... it would be good to head out with you watching my back again. What do you say?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Of course!|LeoFem]]\n\n[[You... can't, not right now.|LeoFem1x3]]

Konkonkon~, he's gone to such lengths to have some private time without his family home to catch him... so obviously having "his family" come home and catch him is hilarious!\n\nLet's see, a quick peek into his mind past the surface thoughts you were using to get a particularly good look at the doujin... looks like it's just him (Ryo), his sister (Kyoko), and his mother. Even better, an all female cast of authority figures! \n\nNow let's seeeeee... having his sister catching him browsing "oneechan" themed porn would be delightfully extra embarrassing! But then, his mother would obviously be a much more powerful influence and scarier for dishing out punishment! Ah, truly, truly an embarrassment of pranking riches no matter what you pick...\n\n<hr>\n[[His sister.|Konko8x1]]\n\n[[His mother.|Konko7x2]]

Your lips thin into a line as you slowly bring your sword around in front of you, gripping it with both hands, as the Demon in blue simultaneously draws her sword from its sheath, revealing the glowing cyan crystal cutting edge. One breath. Two. Three.\n\nNow.\n\nSomething halfway between a scream and a roar tears from your throat, an electronically filtered answering howl coming from across the way, the roiling, fighting crowd around the two of you snapping into realtime again as you launch yourselves at each other. You put both hands into your swing as you come together, the Demon angling her body and ducking her shoulders to meet it with one, her other hand still holding the sword's sheath. The impact slams pain up your arms and through your shoulders into your back, and it seems like a miracle that your sword doesn't shatter to pieces against the high-performance energized weapon.\n\n'Shit! She's cybered all to hell!' you think, before you don't have any time to think at all, instead snapping your sword down to slam the butt of it into your opponent's sheath as she swings it around to try and slam it into your side. You stop the blow, but again the impact is jarring, the designer metal sheath as sturdy as any club. 'Can't think, thinking will get me dead, just have to <i>fight</i>!' you assert to yourself even as you snap your sword forward towards her shoulder, forcing her to back off or get clipped. There's no room, no time to think of what she's doing, to think of what you need to do in response, there's only time to do it, to rely on your skill, your experience, and whatever the hell your teacher always said was inside you that's lead you here.\n\nNo thinking, just fighting. That jab with the sheath is a feint, knock it aside and step in to put her off balance, make her back up again with another chop towards her shoulder. Dodge away from the stab, block the follow-up sweep, she's fast and strong enough not to lose anything in the transition, arms jarred again, use your legs, jump high and over the next side-slash, heel to the cheek, caught a little of the horn and blunted it but it still connected pretty solid, she's reeling. Slash, slash, try to force her to drop the sheath if nothing else. She's using it to block though, sword arm is out and wide, waiting for an opening to snap in, dodge back and give her some space, deflect with flat-on-flat when she takes the opening as an opportunity to try and cut.\n\nOn, and on, and on. Your body is aching, your muscles screaming. Your mind begs to be let back in, you can feel it around the edges of the strange emptiness you've been building up inside you, it wants to tell you there's no way you can win, your opponent's too strong, the human body's limits can't win against printed muscle and ceramisteel bones.\n\n<i>"There are no such thing as limits, Kai. There is only a point at which you've decided it's okay for you to die."</i>\n\nYou let one thought in. 'Zee.' Today isn't that day. Then one more thought. \n\n'Faster.'\n\nYou use the growing grey inside you to push away the pain in your muscles, the screaming of your cracked bones. Your body becomes more light, more empty... the more you move the less pain there is, just the skill, just the fight, just the blade. You're doing things you've only seen Ico do before, things you've never seen anyone do before. When your opponent finds an oppening for a fast, wide slash that should give you no options for blocking or dodging back, you snap yourself into the air, going horizontal and spinning above it, landing to one side of her and snapping a cut out towards her side that she only barely blocks with her sheath at the last minute. You're drawing equal, and then you're pressing her, leaning hard on only letting that one thought in.\n\n'Faster. Faster. Faster.'\n\nYour body is barely even your own now, given over to the fight, only resonating with that single word. Strike, strike, block, strike, block, no thought, no examination, just fight, just fight, her sword, her skill, your sword, your skill, strike, strike, one against the other, again and again, two becoming ever closer to one. Somewhere deep inside you can feel something calling, or maybe it's something that's not calling, you don't know if you're staring into a bright light or absolute darkness, because all there is is this fight, this moment, your blade, her blade, you, her.\n\nAnd then it happens. She's been getting faster, smoother, better too all the time, but she tries the same motion of striking with her sheath while drawing her sword back to ready it for a quick horizontal slice. This time though your block with the butt of your weapon is part of a twisting, snapping motion that grazes the front of her armpit, the sudden strike and pain shocking her enough that for one instant, one single instant, her arms are parted, her body open, even her neck displayed.\n\n<hr>\n[[Do what seems smart.|KaiCy]]\n\n[[Do what feels right.|KaiCy1x3]]

Hm. You are looking a bit on the "latte" side as opposed to your old "coffee with one cream" self that you used to be when you were going out in at least indirect sunlight regularly. Maybe it would be best to actually, y'know... leave the apartment for awhile? You're a NEET, after all, not a hikkikomiri, and you want to stay that way.\n\nNodding absently to yourself, you sit down in your chair and lean over, snagging a clean(ish) pair of white thigh-highs and pulling them on, then sliding your feet into your cute pink and purple sneakers. You also pull on a light jacket... it's not so much that the cold bothers you, just that sometimes people give you more weird looks for walking around in cold weather without one. Also your shorts don't have pockets so you sort of need somewhere to put your wallet and keys and stuff. Checking that you have all of said stuff (including your cellphone), you step outside your apartment for the first time in... awhile. You squint a little at the sun, but it's not as bad as it could be. You take a minute to look out at the little bit of the city that's visible from the second floor of your apartment building... you're not in the midst of urban sprawl, but luckily there's a train station right nearby. \n\nAlright, so, outside, fresh air, yaaaaay. ... Yawn. What now?\n\n<hr>\n[[Go for a walk in the park.|Sipha3x2]]\n\n[[Go for a stroll through the neighborhood.|Sipha]]\n\n[[Go to Akihabara.|SiphaAkiStart]]

It is the area of the city that humans seem to have actually bothered to make pleasant to wander around in. Tucking your hands into your jacket pockets, you amble (which is a thing you discovered since you came here and realized very few people stride elegantly everywhere) across the street and down the way, making a turn and entering the park. \n\nTo you this place reeks of being micromanaged in a way that even the most cultivated and tended of your people's woodland demesnes don't, but eh... it's greener than your apartment. (You naturally have quite a green thumb, but even then most of your attempts at keeping plants in the apartment have been disastrous. Besides the lack of proper light and space, you tend to get... distracted... from caring for them. An elf alchemist who can't keep plants alive is a little pathetic, but it's not like your sister's here to nag you about it.) You yawn lightly again as you stroll along the path, not paying particular attention to your surroundings or where you're going, just generally existing in an outside space for awhile before retreating to the comfy and wifi-enabled confines of your room.\n\n"Hey! It's the pointy-eared neechan from down the street!"\n\nHm? Well, you think you've heard yourself referred to as such before, in passing. Is that squeaky call for you?\n\n<hr>\n[[Stop and look.|SiphaKids1x1]]\n\n[[Keep going.|Sipha]]

"I've decided that I'll at least meet with your sons to consider the offer," you declare after only a moment of thought.\n\nLord Thule looks mildly surprised, which was actually exactly what you were hoping for. Whatever spell sent you here, it was obviously trying to get you to live out the story of the Witch Princess... who, in the novel, refused to even meet the demon king's sons or consider his offer whatsoever. The sons aren't even given names or descriptions, they're just a plot device in the background of the story. If you diverge hard enough from the story at the very start, you may get more of a sense of what's happening, or even force whoever did this to come out of hiding and berate you.\n\nBut the demon's surprise is extremely fleeting, and he simply smirks again. "Excellent! Follow me then, Princess," he booms, turning back to the doorway and walking out, his hooves hitting the stone with those loud cracking noises.\n\n'Hm, okay, so he didn't balk at my departure from the story or try to railroad me back into the path where I escape,' you consider as you move to follow him down the wide spiral staircase outside. 'On the other hand he did seem pretty surprised, and if there's someone actually running the scenario they could be using all the time it will take us to walk downstairs to hastily whip up some NPCs.' Of course you're having to focus to keep your thoughts on your situation rather than other subjects... like the fact that this outfit apparently didn't come with any panties, and you can feel a little draft on your slightly damp pussy every so often. 'It's vitally important, whatever this is, that I not let him realize just how hard he presses all my fucking buttons,' you think a bit grimly, trying not to look at the huge, powerful, clawed, horned, inhuman king dressed in a mixture of armor and easy-access clothing walking down the stairs ahead of you.\n\nUnfortunately that particular issue doesn't get any better. Once Thule leads you down the stairs and along a few hallways, he pushes open another large door and gestures you inside what must be some sort of large social area to judge by the furnishings. Standing inside are a number of other red-skinned demons, and while none of them are quite as large as Thule, some come close, and even the shortest one must be six and a half feet at least. Thule moves to stand beside you, red gaze sweeping over his sons as they move slightly to stand arrayed in a proper semicircle. "Very well, Witch Princess, I will finally introduce my sons to you! Any one would make a worthy husband for you, and since I am proud of each in their way, I will allow you to choose whichever of them you care to. First off, Thalon!"\n\nThule gestures to the demon that looks almost identical to himself, differing only in being a bit shorter, younger-looking, and with purple eyes instead of red, his armor trimmed in gold and accented with a crimson cape. "Thalon is lord of Garrison Keep, the complex where my armies are raised and trained. He will one day be lord commander of all my armed forces whatever else he may be, and there are few who will be able to offer you more material power in this world or any other."\n\nHe gestures Thalon back, then beckons slightly to the one next to him, a man about seven feet tall, more slender than the others and with thinner, sleeker horns than them, wearing fairly simple robes with a handful of rings and other accessories. He's also far more on the pretty side than the others, with more human legs that are attired much as yours are, his face clean-shaven and beautiful, his expression almost grim. "But perhaps it is the power of the beyond you seek? You are the Witch Princess, after all. Fiel is the most talented with magic of all my sons, assigned to rule over Coventry Tower, the center of dark power in this world."\n\nAllowing Fiel to step back, Thule gestures forward the shortest of the demons, although he's also the broadest... his clothes are made of silk and fur, and his jewelry looks far flashier and more ostentatious than Fiel's. He's definitely heavyset, though you get the sense that his fat is still layered over muscle, since none of these men look like they'd balk at being asked to lift a car. "Vihko rules the pleasure palace of Sodomorrah. If you wish your eventual rule of the world to be filled with all conceivable Earthly delights and pleasures, then he is the one that you should choose."\n\nThe next to step forward is another tall, lean demon, though he's wearing more practical-looking clothing than the rest, his goatee close-trimmed and hair done in a short ducktail. "Kyron, my master of whispers, lord of the Deep Archives. If you wish to never be surprised, to have any possible information you wish at your fingertips, then the ever-clever... and ever-scheming," Thule adds with a bit of a sneer, Kyron simply smiling back at him placidly. "Kyron should be your choice."\n\nThe last son to step forward is of an equal height to Thalon, though his build is a bit closer to the lean side, albeit still muscular. He's wearing a long leather apron, but much of his skin is otherwise bare, showing off the winding tattoos all over it, his beard a bit more scruffy and long, his legs more resembling the classical satyr ones since they're covered in a thick layer of black fur. "Mekor, lord of the Dark Forge, where not only are our weapons and armor forged, but our magical items, and our beasts of burden and war bred. If you have a vision that can be crafted of metal or flesh, Mekor will bring it to life for you if you choose him as your husband."\n\nThule finally turns towards you, smirking. "So, Witch Princess, which will it be? Who will be your king to rule beside you?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Thalon.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Fiel.|ValLib2x3]]\n\n[[Vihko.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Kyron.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Mekor.|ValWP1X1]]\n\n[[None of them.|ValWP]]\n\n[[All of them.|ValWP]]\n\n[[Thule.|ValWP]]

You turn your attention to the scroll listing the discovered Origin Souls of sufficient power to be worthy of the Dark Monolith's attention.\n\n<<if $effiavailable is true>>[[Effiel|EffiRecaptureStart]], the elven archer/cleric. The original soul captured for this Dark Monolith, now made available again by being released to the ether.<<endif>>\s\n<<if $effibus is true>><b>Effiel</b> the former elven archer/cleric, currently one of your loyal succubus minions... in fact you can see her prancing about the throne room now, shamelessly displaying her caramel-skinned body and flirting with her fellow succubi. If you want to experience the fun of capturing her again, you'd have to [[release her to the ether first|EffibusRelease]].<<endif>>\n\n<<if $redcaptured is false>>[[Red|RedCaptureStart]], a skilled monster slayer. She apparently occasionally kills demons, too, so taking her out of circulation by putting her in the tower seems like it would be a benefit to devilkind everywhere.<<endif>>

Alright, as bare basics, you're starting out here with boobs, a pussy, and a butt. Alright? Even CoC started you out with that. But enough talk, have at you. ... Nevermind. \n\nSo which female weirdo are you?\n\n[[Siphanielle|SiphaStart]] - An elf who got reverse isekai'd. Once a powerful mage, she now spends her days playing games and being a NEET.\n\n[[Valerie|ValerieStart]] - A nineteen-year-old college student, several years ago her cousin Baal taught her a few simple magic spells and rituals. She's since worked a fair bit on expanding her repertoire in secret, and quietly putting her magical skills up for hire.\n\n[[Kai|KaiStart]] - A mercenary... or, rather, a mercenary's slave, who works as a mercenary because her owner's too lazy to do so himself.\n\n[[Fiona|FionaStart]] - A Recon Ranger with an organization dedicated to exploring space and helping others that do the same.\n\n[[Maxia|MaxiaStart]] - The newly incarnated 666th Demon Lord, responsible for capturing heroes and heroines to siphon their energy to allow the Realm of Deviltry to function.\n\n[[Yami|YamiStart]] - The best VRMMO player of the 22nd century, about to set off on her greatest... and hopefully, lewdest... venture into virtual reality yet.

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Yeah, that one sounds good. Keying your acceptance of the outstanding mission, you key the coordinates into your ship's dimensional drive.\n\nYou come out near the planet on the other side of the moon, and just to be on the safe side engage 'passive cloaking'... basically emitting a field that nullifies your ship's energy signature. It won't hide it from someone actually looking for it, but it's standard for when you're going to be leaving it on its own for any amount of time.\n\nYou take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the information for the site. Looks like it was investigating some sort of 'Precursor' civilization... oh. Looks like this is tagged as a Porno Dimension, which means everything shades to the rather naughty. It doesn't necessarily mean <i>everything's</i> sexual, but everything will have sexual overtones. You've never actually been to one before, now you're a little nervous.\n\nBut! No time for that, and nervousness isn't for brave Recon Rangers anyway! You program the archaeological site's coordinates into the teleporter and bwoop yourself down after arming yourself with the standard Ranger sidearm. The site itself looks like a fairly standard camp made of hard-paneled easy-setup domes, though from the look of the cold and emberless firepit towards the center it really hasn't been used in awhile.\n\nYou check your wrist sensor... hm, air's clear, but you're not seeing any humanoid lifesigns nearby, and the brief said the team was all humanoids. Oh, it does note that there are multiple ships in orbit above, two close together, though only one's running a big enough power signature that it's likely active. That's probably the reciprocal organization's own investigative team arriving, heck, maybe they're already here! Hm, should you go up and say hi, or just start looking around down here?\n\n<hr>\n[[Begin your investigation.|FioTrek]]\n\n[[Go introduce yourself.|FioTrek1x1]]

Besides curiosity, you do kind of have to find out whose it is to return it, after all. It's only after you've clicked the button, in the parts of a second between that and the screen coming on, that you remember that's what you do with civilian cellphones to find out the civilian who owns it. As in, that's what you'd do with a civilian cellphone. Which this is.\n\n... Oh. Oops.\n\nAh, but it's okay, looks like it's not compromising, whoever this belongs to is just a big fan of the Winter Olympics, 'cause their wallpaper is an image of the pretty platinum blonde triathalon champion Natasha... whatsername, Zholenka? Something like that?... and her equally famous NFL player boyfriend Jacob Marelly, both smiling at the camera. Odd angle though, it's almost like it's... a selfie? ... Oh shi-\n\nYou instantly whip the phone behind your back and under your cape as you hear the transporter whine, tucking it into a hidden pocket and superspeeding into the main monitor chair to do your best at looking like you've been settled there for the half hour you've been here. A moment later the sleek, pretty form of Snow Leopard pads in, the athletic woman's body hugged by a ring-patterned grey bodysuit, the cowl revealing her lower face and a mane of sleek icy-grey hair spilling out the top of it, between and around the feline ears attached to the cowl. (Huh, she must change the color a little when she's in costume. Wait, shit, don't think things like that, it might show on your face.) "Oh, hey Snow Leopard, you need something?" you ask. You almost feel bad about how easy it is to fake being casual with her, but acting like nothing's wrong is sort of an essential part of having a secret identity, so.\n\n"Ah... there is no trouble, if that's what you mean," she replies slowly, her voice still carrying a slight Russian accent, the yellow-tinted lenses of her mask betraying the rather nervous set of her eyes as she looks back and forth. You can see her trying to check the floor around where you're sitting without being too obvious about it, and becoming a bit more agitated every time she passes her eyes over the area without letting them land. "I found myself thinking that maybe I'd forgotten something, though I wasn't sure what," she says slowly, tucking her gloved hands behind her back as she walks over, footsteps almost silent due to the design of her boots. "Did you maybe find something? One of my Cat's Claws, or the keys to the Snowmobile, or..." She lets her covered eyes roam upward and off to the side, keeping her gaze angled away as she keeps her tone overly casual. "... I don't know, a cellphone?"\n\n'Snow if this is your level of identsec this was completely inevitable,' you think, unable to keep your expression from going flat for a microsecond. Then you clear your throat to answer her.\n\n<hr>\n[["Yeah."|Cal1x3]]\n\n[["No, nothing."|Cal]]

Now now, maybe it's a good idea to put your thrusters on manual... you signed up for this job not just for the sake of adventure, but to help other people, and assistance missions are at the heart of that! ... Besides, they're slightly lower risk and you're mindful of that six month figure. You wanna survive in this job long enough to name your ship!\n\n[[Investigate Archaeological Site|FioTrekStart]] - An organization that SIEARA had a reciprocal agreement with had put in a request for assistance with an archaeological site, but since then contact with the archaeologists has been lost so it's been upgraded to search and rescue and then continuing the dig. Ooo, now there's a nice blend of exciting and responsible!

That seems to actually give him pause, making him stop with his hand on the door. "Eh?"\n\nYou turn and scoot to the edge of the bed, sliding up onto your feet. "I said, I want to come with you to do your inspection."\n\nHe turns towards you, for the first time showing an expression other than just 'being here'... although 'mild confusion' only seems a slight step up. "... Why?" he asks after a moment, the only thing he can seem to think of to say.\n\n"Because like you said, this is home now," you reply in a reasonable tone, resting your hands on your hips. "This is where I live, and where our children are going to be born." Just saying it makes you blush (and turns you on at the memory of how hard you came when you were knocked up), but you press on. "I'm interested in it and want to see what it's like. Maybe even help or find something to do myself."\n\nIt apparently takes a little bit for that to turn over in his mind, before he nods. "... Alright then."\n\n"But, ah... I should probably have something to wear, right?"\n\nMekor considers again, then nods, walking over to the bed and picking up one of the furs. You blink as, in a matter of moments, he turns it into a simple tunic (albeit one that will leave at least half your midriff exposed), skirt (albeit missing any covering for the hips), and boots. He hands them over and you pull them on, doing up the ties, surprised at just how perfectly they fit, even if you do look more like a barbarian princess than a witch princess. "That will do for now," Mekor decides as he looks you over. "Make you something better later," he concludes before turning towards the door again. "Come on then and let's get you fed so we can get started, dawn's almost here."\n\n'Hoo boy I married a rancher and a smith all rolled into one,' you think dryly as you follow after him. Well, 'mated with', as he seems to prefer. He's starting to remind you of something from mythology but it's not quite clicking. You follow him down the stone hallway lit by torches and into a largish room with a fireplace on one wall, and a heavyset wooden table with benches in the center. There's not really anything else around for decorations... Mekor obviously isn't terribly big on style in his own living quarters. 'Of course, I bet that means he wouldn't really care if I wanted to start adding some,' you muse as you settle down at one side of the table, Mekor simply lingering in a corner of the room waiting. It's a little odd to have him hovering around you, silently watching you, but you push it out of your mind after a moment. 'Maybe we can work on that too, but no need to start nagging him to change on day one.'\n\nIt doesn't take long before several servants emerge from the arch to one end of the room, carrying several plates. They all seem to be animal people... specifically a tiger-man, leopard-woman, and wolf woman, all three wearing nothing but collars and leather briefs, the women's bare furry breasts jiggling lightly as they move to set plates of fried sausages, eggs, home fries, and a large goblet of water in front of you. You raise your eyebrows at the repast... definitely a bit much and a bit heavy for you, a woman who usually considers a balanced breakfast to be achieving the correct ratio of creamer to coffee, but you guess you are eating for two now. So you do your best to tuck away a fair bit of it, stopping when you simply can't eat anymore. You're almost worried that Mekor, seeming the ever-practical sort, will scold you for wasting food, but he simply waves for the servants to take it away.\n\n"Bit much for me," you admit as you stand and move to follow him.\n\n"Nothing gets wasted, it's fine," he answers evenly, which might help explain it. He leads the way back down the hall and then to another branch, showing you the way to a large, circular room ringed with stone archways that are filled with flickering purple energy. "We'll start off by a tour of the primary animal barns," he declares before stepping through one of the archways without hesitation. It takes you a second, but you follow after, unable to help giving a little hop as you pass through the vortex. But there's no sense of whooshing through a portal, or tingling, or coming apart and being put back together, you're just in a different place all of a sudden. It's somewhat barnlike, but much much larger... actually what it really reminds you of is the time you went to a state fair and actually wandered around in some of the livestock buildings, just more low-tech. More of the servants (or more likely, slaves) are scurrying around here... animal people, but also humans, elves, and you think you see a few short, stocky individuals that are probably dwarves as you follow after Mekor again.\n\n"So is this the whole animal facility?" you ask curiously.\n\n"No, there's hundreds of acres devoted to tending livestock," Mekor answers, though you do notice a bit of a glitter in his dark eyes as he glances down at you. "But a lot of that is just common food stock and labor stock. This barn is where the finest creatures are kept... the truly exceptional steeds, or work animals suited for exotic environments, special meat beasts fit for the tables of my father and brothers, or special crossbreeds I'm trying to develop."\n\nAs you go along, he gestures at examples of each... large creatures that resemble oversized velociraptors with thick fringes of feathers running from their heads and down the back of their necks like manes, broad lizards the size of oxen with strong chameleon-like legs that are such a pale white they almost glow, a large cow with four horns and blonde hide that borders on metallic gold, and what looks like some sort of large black bear with the head of a bird of prey. He stops beside a stall that holds a black horse even larger than a Clydesdale, the tops of its silver hooves wreathed in dark grey vapors, its mane and tail thick and dark like roiling liquid and actually crackling with purple and yellow energy.\n\n"And it's where we tame the exceptional captures we get, like this Stormsteed," Mekor continues, actually displaying some minor bit of affection for once as he gives the big beast a few pats on the flank. "He's already good and broken in, I'm just deciding which of the brood mares is currently most likely to breed true and fetch more Stormsteeds, that can be a delicate bit of timing." He regards the big stallion for a moment, then looks at you, seeming to wrestle with something for a moment before saying, somewhat awkwardly, "Ah... do you have any questions?"\n\n<hr>\n[["How do you tame them?"|ValWP]]\n\n[["How do you make crossbreeds?"|ValWP1x3]]\n\n[["Where are the slave breeding facilities?"|ValWP2x1]]\n\n[["What's next?"|ValWP]]\n\n[["No."|ValWP]]

Bodyguarding a (presumably) gorgeous elf princess is <i>exactly</i> the sort of job you got into this career to take! Grinning, you tap the acceptance button, then get up and head to the vault access stations. Time to bring out an old favorite.\n\nFor escort missions like this, it's not good to bog yourself down with a bunch of different weapons trying to account for every potential outcome. Instead it's better to take a minimum of them that can do a little bit of everything, or in this case one rifle that can do just about anything. Some might call it a hand-me-down, but it was more of a commemoration gift from one of your "uncles" in the life, to celebrate you getting your Guildcert. He started out with some purely standard rifle you're pretty sure was called a Peacekeeper, an extremely sturdy but otherwise unexceptional combo rifle/shotgun, and spent the next decade and a half tweaking it to his needs. Improved rifle barrel and autostabilizers so it's actually a decent sniper rifle, matter materializer reload system so it can shoot for days without running dry, reinforced shotgun barrel and energy direction reticle so that you can hook an energy pack up to it and use it as a blaster rifle, and a dozen other improvements that more than make up for the overengineered and rather uncomfortable grip and the somewhat tasteless paint job combining the words 'Love and Peace!', a peace symbol, and fake blood splatter all over the barrel.\n\n<img src="images/peacekeeper.png">\n\n'That really doesn't do me that many favors with the more refined clients,' you think for at least the twentieth time as you take the rifle down from its hanger and give it a quick once-over before shoving a few spare matter cartridges and energy packs in your coat. You've always felt a little bad about the idea of getting it repainted, though, since it was such a meaningful gift. And eh, clients don't have to think the world of you, they just-\n\n... Hm. Elf princess.\n\n... You picture the vision of the gorgeous elf girl in your mind, looking up at you in awe and lust as you shoot down a vicious dragon, and then her face turning to a twisted grimace of disdain as she spots the edgelord paint job on your weapon.\n\n'... Uncle Ostro would understand,' you think as you grab up one of your nicer (and nicer-looking) swords just in case, then take off running towards the lift. 'If I toss Landry an extra 200 she can have this done in under an hour.'\n\nForty-eight minutes later you're walking into one of the departure portal terminals, the Peacekeeper now a smooth matte black with just a hint of pearlescent in the white trim. To assuage your guilty conscience it still says 'LOVE AND PEACE', but it's in squared-off and even allcaps along the side of the barrel, which in your opinion brings it more to 'tongue-in-cheek but professional' rather than 'violently ironic'. 'Landry does good work,' you think happily as you palm the input pad next to the door of one of the booths, the system quickly inputting the coordinates for the job you're on and sliding the door open as the portal forms.\n\nWhen you step out, a number of the very pretty and elaborately-garbed people in the room go for their swords or the bows strung on their back, but the one nearest to you quickly holds up a hand to forestall them. He's a bit taller than the others, with pale skin, long hair the color of dark honey and slender, pointed ears, and a face that would be almost femininely pretty if it didn't have just enough patriarchal maturity to blunt the edge of it. "You're the mercenary from the Guild of Professionals?" he asks in an even tone, hand still raised as if ready to signal the others just in case you're not.\n\n"I am. Leo LaChance, at your service," you answer, giving him a short bow. You don't want to give too flowery a one, you might come off as flippant... well, you are flippant, but you don't want to come off that way. As you rise you hold out a slip of plastic to him. "My Guildcert and registration of this duty, sir."\n\nHe takes the card and looks over it for a moment, then nods as he tucks it away, gesturing with one hand to the nearby table and reaching out to you with the other. "I am Duke Luwin. Please, right this way, I'll give you the details." His hand coming to rest on your back is so graceful it's almost sensual, but you try to shrug that off as he guides you over to show you the elaborately drawn map with a number of small, carved markers. "Princess Amanielle has been visiting this outpost as part of her royal duties, but it's time for her to return home. Unfortunately we've been having difficulties with orc ambushes along the way, and if they learn that the latest caravan making its way to the capital is carrying the princess they will most definitely attack. Likely here, here, or here," he continues, indicating several points along a marked path.\n\n"Yeah, I see that," you agree, skimming over the map yourself. "I've fought orcs once or twice before... if these are true to form, I'd say the most likely for something like that is this one here, but maybe a bit further along," you say, indicating one of the spots. "They'd actually want a nice open area between you and their hiding spot so you can see them coming, lets 'em show off, plus then you'd redirect a lot of your forces to guard the princess and tell them exactly where she is."\n\n"... Yes, most likely you're right," he says after a moment. "That would fit with a few of the other attacks where they focused their attentions on the most valuable cargo of other caravans. It would seem that some others are prone to forgetting that our ancient enemies are not <i>mindless</i> beasts," he says mildly, shooting a glance at some of the nearby elves, who wind up clenching their perfect jaws and squinting their beautiful eyes.\n\n"Have they always been such a problem before?" you ask, glancing between Luwin and the others. "I mean, excuse the question. Just seems like there must be a reason you called in someone from the Guild and specifically asked for a firearms specialist."\n\n"Indeed, I suppose that is a reasonable question. While we have always been able to deal with orc incursions fairly easily ourselves in the past, there are a number of indicators that in this case the orcs are not making these attacks entirely on their own initiative, but are rather being used as a proxy by some other enemy of ours. One of those indicators is that someone seems to have imbued these orcs with some manner of spell resistance."\n\n"Ah. So they're basically immune to magic, huh?"\n\n"Very close to it, and becoming moreso with every encounter, it seems. Elven magic has always been the tipping point in our superiority of the orcs, and as loathe as many are to admit it I am forced by the practicalities of my station to acknowledge that without it as the deciding factor, our greater martial prowess does not make nearly the difference against their being much, much larger, stronger, and more resistant to damage that we might like to think it does. I am looking into measures to bring us back into superiority, but those are longterm goals... for now, the Princess must return home safely, and to insure that I have secured your services."\n\n"Well, don't worry, Duke, I'll take care of her," you reply with a confident grin. "She'll get home without a scratch on her, you have my guarantee."\n\nWhich is really kind of a stupid promise to make objectively, since sometimes making sure escort clients get to their destination whole still involves stuff that gets them scratched, but it's what he wants to hear and the kind of thing a dashing hero like you is supposed to say. You also hear just the faintest gasp from one end of the tent like someone was indeed very impressed, and turn to look. 'Ah, man, she's just as gorgeous as I hoped,' you can't help but think in a totally gooey mental tone even as you keep the roguish grin on your face.\n\nPrincess Amanielle is standing at the flaps of the tent, obviously having just walked in. Though her skin is just as smooth and perfect and creamy as any of the others, her hair is also paler, closer to a platinum blonde, streaming down her back and over her shoulders. Her dress is green and blue, the cut on the modest side though it still gives a rather decent hint to the full, perky breasts and curve of her hips beneath it. Her ears are a little different too, and her eyes are green rather than the blue you see on almost all the other elves here. She's definitely a princessly beauty, though, and the little bit of pink on her cheeks that seems to be due to your statement is... very flattering. Both to her looks and your ego.\n\n"Uncle, is this the warrior for hire that will be escorting me home?" she asks, obviously trying to ramp her eagerness down somewhat to keep her tone even and proper.\n\n"Correct. Princess Amanielle, Firstborn and Heir, this is Leo LaChance, of the Guild of Interdimensional Professionals, Specialists, and Enforcers," Luwin says, gesturing to both of you as he makes the introductions.\n\n<hr>\n[[Be professional.|LeoAma1x1]]\n\n[[Be forward.|LeoAma3x1]]

Mekor seems... well, unlikely to get involved in much scheming or overly ambitious behavior that could put you in danger, if you were to guess just from his look and manner, in that he seems mildly bored with the whole proceedings and like he'd rather be somewhere else. While not the most flattering in the world, at the moment you'll take that over immediately being plunged into drama. "I choose Mekor," you declare. If nothing else, since he seems like the least adventurous choice, if there really is someone pulling the strings picking him will tell you something by how things play out with the 'dull' choice.\n\n"Right then," Mekor says evenly as he steps forward, seeming neither overjoyed nor taken aback by your decision. Instead he reaches back and starts untying the back of his apron. "Well, we'd best get to it, then, Princess."\n\n"Er, get to...?" You blink, glancing around at the others (who all look various degrees of jealous, save for Thule who's leering down at you) for some sort of clue. "Get to what?"\n\n"Breeding, obviously," the furry-legged demon answers as he finishes undoing the knot and starts lifting the neck strap over his shaggy black hair and ramlike horns. "My father will want to see our agreement sealed, so he knows you aren't just looking for an opportunity to escape. Plus he'll want to see we're making an heir. Since you picked me, of course, I'll guarantee you conceive here and now."\n\n"H-hey, wait just a minute, I-!" you start to protest, until he drops the apron aside, and you wind up staring. The black fur stops at the top of his thighs and the sides of his hips, leaving more humanlike thick black hair around his crotch and running up his belly. But his very large, very heavy balls are smooth and bright red, as is the sheath around the base of his cock. And he's hung like a horse... literally. A reddish pink in color and smooth, it droops downward, having only begun to take on the slightest hardness, but it is indeed equine in shape, with a thick head that flares wider as it begins to stiffen, rising up further and further, your eyes glazing over more the bigger it gets. "Yeah... yeah, okay," you murmur faintly as complete lust overcomes you, feeling wetness dribbling down your inner thighs as you walk towards him, reaching out your hands worshipfully towards his huge dick.\n\nYou almost jump as he catches your wrists. "No need for any fancy stuff," he grunts. "I can smell you're already in heat. Breeding means getting on with it, not fooling around." Firmly, he turns you towards a low, square piece of furniture. "Now, bend over, time to get you gravid."\n\nIt's the rudest, most boorish thing anyone's ever said to you, and it almost makes you cum right then and there. Swallowing hard and giving a little shiver, you whisper another, "Yeah, right, sure," and walk over to the indicated piece of furniture, bending forward to put your hands on it, lifting your ass up into the air obediently, presenting yourself to be bred like a good little bitch in heat. You shiver again at the sound of hooffalls behind you, and then at the feel of Mekor giving the back of your dress a calm, businesslike flip to the side, baring your round ass and sodden pussy to the entire room. You can feel the eyes of his brothers and father roaming over your still half-clad form as well as the bared parts of it, their gazes practically ripping the cloth from your hanging tits to fondle them. But the only actual touch is Mekor's hand on your back as he guides his huge horsecock to your pussy, the wide head mashing against your plump pussylips for a moment.\n\nAnd then he's pushing into you, and your eyes are rolling as you almost instantly cum at the realization that a demon's equinoid dick is inside you, stretching you out further than any mere human boy ever has. You quiver as your pussy flutters and squeezes around him, but he seems to pay no mind, simply gripping both your hips and pushing into you in a slow, steady pace. Your belly bulges up beneath the tight black fabric with an outline of it, showing just how deep it's going in, and yet somehow you take inch after inch, your body welcoming him as eagerly as it's ever wanted anything before. You feel the bump of the medial ring sliding inside you, and then eventually the press of his sheath against your stretched taut entrance. Only then does he actually begin to pump his hips... an odd combination of a machine's methodical precision and an animal's instinctive, mindless mating, a precise rhythm you can't really describe but that has you gritting your teeth and drooling down your chin. The rest of Lord Thule's family is watching as you're fucked to climax over and over and over again, loincloths or robes tented with their erections, though Vihkor has shamelessly bared his fat, bulging dick and is stroking it frantically... as has Lord Thule himself, though his strokes of his own large, powerful prick are far more deliberate, as if daring anyone to contest his enjoyment of watching you be bred by his son.\n\nThere's no real warning, no words, not really so much as a change in Mekor's even, animalistic grunting... he just suddenly starts cumming in you. There's no cessation of his thrusts either, and he continues to pump away, cum forced to splash out over his balls, down your thighs, and onto the floor even as enough gushes stays pumped into you and forced in deeper to start bulging your belly out. Your eyes have rolled up and your tongue lolled out, your whole body twitching with the intensity of your orgasm, which hits a new peak as you <i>feel</i> yourself being impregnated. It's not just that the sheer amount of virile demon cum flowing into you should be enough to knock up anybody, it's something else, some deep, beyond physical instinct that says you're now a gravid proven breeder, your mind going blank with the intensity of the pleasure.\n\nWhen you come to from the whiteout level climax, you realize you're no longer bent over in the meeting room at Lord Thule's castle, but laying naked on a fairly large bed. The frame is wood and simple, unadorned... the matress seems comfortable enough, with thick, soft furs both above and below you. The rest of the bedroom is similarly comfortable but functional, with most everything on a scale that says it belongs to Mekor. Speaking of which, as you sit up, the door opens and the scruffy demon prince walks in, his leather apron once more in place.\n\n"You passed out, so I brought you home," he says simply as he settles into the chair beside the bed, resting his hands on the arms. "To the Dark Forge," he adds, probably just to clarify that's 'home' now.\n\n"I... right, of course," you answer, flushing as you look over at... well, the father of your child. (Children? After all... that was a <i>lot</i> of cum.) A hand wanders almost absently to your bare belly, before you clear your throat. "So, I guess we're... married now?"\n\n"Mated, at the least," Mekor answers, without much enthusiasm, but also no signs of regret. He seems very... straightforward, which you suppose was one of the things that appealed over his brothers, who seemed likely to use you as a pawn. "In any event, my mess area's down the hall, they're fixing you some some breakfast there now. I need to get out and do my daily check of everything before I get to work," he adds before pushing himself to his hooves.\n\nYou blink in surprise. "Ah... you're leaving, already?"\n\n"Aye, lot of work to do," he replies evenly, turning to show off the shaggy black fur covering his ass as he walks towards the door.\n\n<hr>\n[["... Okay, bye."|ValWP]]\n\n[["Wait, can't we fuck again?"|ValWP]]\n\n[["I want to come with you."|ValWP1x2]]

"Hey there, hey there hey there," you coo at the wriggling blanketed form in your arms, smiling at little dark eyes that stare up at you in confusion not just at who you are, but who or what anything is. It's a remarkably endearing outlook that you feel like you've gained some insight into over time. "Hey, little Kei, hey hey hey."\n\nMakoto laughs from where she's sitting up in her hospital bed, hands folded in her lap. "I don't think the baby understands 'hey' any more than anything else, Sipha-neechan."\n\n"Hmmm... it's hard to think of much else to say, really," you allow, even as you continue to gently rock the baby while standing still. "What do you say to someone who's brand new, anyway?"\n\n"How about... 'I'm Sipha, and I'm your godmother'?" Makoto suggests, pink eyes twinkling in a way that says she's looking at more than one thing that's very precious to her.\n\n"... Ah?" You blink a few times, actually stopping all other motion. "Isn't that more of a fairy thing than an elf thing?"\n\nThat gets a laugh out of her. "I meant more in the human way! That if anything ever happens to me and the baby's father, you'll take over raising little Kei! But more than that... it means you're part of the family. That you're part of <i>Kei's</i> family."\n\n"Oh. Ohhh. Oh wow, um, Makoto," you glance down at the baby, then over at her, your eyes wide. "Are you sure that's what you want? I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just a NEET elf, and-"\n\n"I can't think of anyone else I'd choose, Sipha-neechan. I want you to be there for Kei, just like you've been there for me." She tilts her head, eyes glistening now. "Forever. ... Is it a good day, Sipha-neechan?"\n\n"... Yeah. Yeah, it's the biggest and brightest day ever," you murmur quietly, smiling down at the baby in your arms. \n\n'Oh. Oh here it is. Here's that answer I've been looking for, what I do when Makoto's gone some day. What I do when I lose my human friends, what I do when they're gone and I'm still here. I keep watching over the ones that are here, and love them just as much as I ever did those who came before,' you think, raising little Kei and lowering your head to brush your lips over a small, smooth forehead, trying not to let any of your tears drip on your godchild's face.\n\n"Spirits of this world, heed my urging and answer my entreaty," you whisper softly, starting to gently rock the baby again. "I ask of you watch over this child, Kei, as we guide the future years of growth. Please answer this call, and see that this child gets to grow up healthy, happy, and that we get to keep learning about what a wonderful world this can be... together."\n\n<b>Sipha and Makoto</b> end - <i>I'll be here for them</i>

[[Retrieval|LeoJobListRetrieval]] - Basically, you go and get something or someone, and you bring it back to a place or person. It's a pretty broad category, covering everything from bounty hunting and stolen property retrieval to kidnapping and stealing. (The Guild doesn't make moral judgements about the jobs it lists.) \n\n[[Escort|LeoJobListEscort]] - No, not that kind of escort. (Well, generally not.) Like Retrieval, it's a fairly broad category that covers bodyguarding, transport security, arranging covert travel for VIPs, and even just straight-up guard duty.\n\n[[Task Completion|LeoJobListTask]] - Probably the very broadest of the categories, since it covers any sort of "go place, do thing(s)" jobs that don't fit in the other categories. It can either be quick money or a long, involved job, with pay compensating for time spent and complexity (or sometimes depravity).\n\n[[Removal|LeoJobListRem]] - And the narrowest category of jobs, because everything here is getting rid of something or someone. Everything is either vermin/monster removal jobs like the NP Bugs, assassinations, or "forced relocation". Well, very rarely there are jobs for destroying objects or places too, but those don't come up much. Virtually everything in here involves a... darker moral choice.

Lassiter stops in place, her head jerking towards you a little before she forces the movement to become smoothers, regarding you with open contempt. "I thought better of even you than such childish, blatant-"\n\n"No, wait, someone that's this protective of their resources, you probably don't have a coven," you interrupt, looking straight at her face as you do. "No, you latched onto this place and managed to turn it into your own private craft library, didn't you? The antique book vault is just an excuse to keep everyone out of what you've come to think of as yours, while you operate the mundane library above for all the students with unopened eyes. Isn't that right..." You slowly let your lips curl up in a grin. "... <i>Madame</i> Lassiter?"\n\nThe librarian looks at you for long moments, her face an unreadable mask. Then she rather suddenly releases your arm, lowering her own hand as you take a half-step back. "I see. I suppose this changes a few things."\n\n"Doesn't it?" you say in an overly polite tone, making a show of dusting yourself off.\n\n"... Very well. Come into my office and we'll discuss this further," she says stiffly, turning and resuming her walk towards the door. This time you follow her willingly enough, perhaps a little flush with the sense of power you feel after 'outing' her, if only to yourself. She leads the way into the small, largely mundane-seeming office, one of the few even vaguely 'witchy' touches being an apothecary's cabinet against the wall behind her desk. After a terse urging for you to sit down in one of the chairs, she spends some time getting tea out of one of the drawers and heating water with an electric kettle. Eventually she pours out two cups and sets one on the desk in front of you, settling back into her own chair with her cup. "Well. I could go into a number of denials here. But it could still be rather bothersome for me if you decided to spread rumors around, even if most took it for the childish namecalling it sounds like."\n\n"I haven't threatened to out you," you point out, picking up the other cup and resting it on your thigh for the moment.\n\n"You don't have to, the implication is there. Oh, don't wheedle at me, Valerie, you brought up the size of my secret but theoretically public library while saying you've figured out I'm a witch... the implications would be there even if you somehow didn't intend them." She sips from her tea, closing her eyes briefly before opening them again and fixing them on you. "So. Clearly we have some things to discuss."\n\n"Guess so, yeah," you allow with a bob of the head.\n\nSilence stretches for a moment, before her eyes flick down. Rather coolly, but with just enough heat to remind you that you're not only in the presence of someone with official power over your school career, but an elder practitioner, she says, "Is something wrong with the tea?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Er, no, sorry!|ValLib]]\n\n[[Just waiting a bit.|ValLib1x5]]

"I thought I'd wait a bit for the tea to cool a little," you respond evenly. "And for you to actually promise me guest status."\n\nThere's another brief stretch of silence, broken only by the antique clock clicking along on the wall nearby. Then Lassiter's lips slowly curl up in a grin. "You are a canny one. Very well, you are my guest. You shall part from here unmolested, unaltered, and unhexed, or shall it come back on me three times."\n\nYou give a bob of your head and a polite "Thank you" before raising the cup and sipping. It's actually rather good... you suppose you shouldn't be surprised, 'makes amazing tea' sort of fits Lassiter's whole look and style. You're more surprised when she leans back in her chair and actually looks a bit more at ease, like a normal person.\n\n"So you've figured me out. And yes, I was trying to keep you away from what I consider my private library... not merely because I covet it for myself, but because many of the things in there can be dangerous, especially for someone taking their first stumbling steps with the arts. But I get the sense that's not you."\n\n"No, I've been at this for a few years, and had some help from a mentor." You notice a flash of something across her eyes at your words, but decide not to press it, instead continuing. "But if you don't mind me asking, if there are things that heady in there, I'm surprised you're still pulling the librarian schtick. No offense but I've seen where you live, and it looks decent enough outside, but you could have a lot more with genuine tomes of power."\n\nLassiter purses her lips... but sighs after a few seconds, sipping her tea again before replying. "The truth is, Valerie," she says slowly, as if having to unclench to release the words, and yet as if it were a relief to finally do so. "That I plateaued fairly early on in my arc as a witch. I had no mentor, no coven... I have always tended towards being by myself and keeping to my own affairs, almost pathologically. While I certainly had enough grasp of my abilities to attain, if not immortality, something close enough for anyone's own good, and a number of other powers that have made my life comfortable, I have not been able to push through my own limits. Find me again in three centuries and you will likely find me just as I am now."\n\nYou mull that over, not wanting to insult her with an unconsidered response, since she actually seems to be trying to open up to you. No mentor, so she's entirely self-taught... no coven, no apprentice, yes, you can see why she plateaued, and Lassiter probably understands just as well. A mentor is an important part of unlocking certain potentials, but similarly, teaching another witch, even casually and passingly (like your cousin did) can open up new avenues, not to mention the greater synergy of both ideas and mana that occurs in a coven. If Lassiter's been refusing... or felt unable... to do any of that, then it really does make sense that she's hit a barrier and can't go any further.\n\nThe real question is... what are you going to do about it?\n\n<hr>\n[[Not a damn thing.|ValLib]]\n\n[[Offer to be her apprentice.|ValLib]]\n\n[[Offer to be her mentor.|ValLib]]\n\n[[Offer to form a coven with her.|ValLib]]

"Fine then. Goodbye," you say a bit stiffly, turning and heading back towards the door, and trying not to bristle at the faint ghost of a smirk you detect on Lassiter's lips. Instead you simply pick up your messenger bag from the hanger and step over to the door, opening it... and making sure you step around to the little bit of the doorway that's not visible from the checkout counter in the process of stepping out. You do a small twirl away and let go of the door so it can close on its own, carefully but quickly scurrying off down the opposite direction of the library stacks.\n\nYou've planned a bit for this day, you see. A practicing witch of your sort never knows when she might need to get locked in a library overnight (or something similar). So during your first year you cased the joint and even plotted out your path for just this situation... down the aisle to one side of the door, around the corner, duck through the biography section, edge around the farm almanacs, and there, there's a little nook in the wall that looks like it was probably once a skinny little hallway but has had sheetboard and paint put up to turn it into a wall. You drop to the floor and haul a blanket out of your messenger bag, pulling it over yourself... it may look ordinary, but you've already worked a number of enchantments into it, so all it takes is channeling some mana into it and it will both blend in with the surroundings and project a mild 'don't pay attention to me' aura... not a strong enough one to do much of anything on its own, but between that and the camouflage effect, as long as you stay still, you should be golden.\n\nNow you just have to wait. Luckily you've already been reading the journal for a few hours at this point (sometimes deciphering the handwriting makes you go slow), so it should only be about an hour until the library closes. It's still boring to need to sit there and be still for an hour... you do various mantras and calming exercises in your head, and they help quite a bit. Still, eventually you're squirming a bit and staring at your watch in the darkness, pretty much counting the minutes. It's an incredible relief when you hear a soft click and the light coming in around the edges of the blanket disappears, and a moment later you hear the creak of the front door before it closes. Lassiter's prompt, go figure.\n\n<hr>\n[[Go ahead and come out.|ValLib1x3]]\n\n[[Might be best to wait awhile longer.|ValLib]]

Relieved to not have to sit there any longer, you yank the blanket off of your head and quickly stuff it back into your bag as you stand up, adjusting the shoulder strap a bit as you step out of the nook.\n\nYou almost lose control of your bladder as long, slender fingers that feel like steel cords wrap around your upper arm and give you a slight yank back, and you find yourself looking up slightly at Lassiter's face in the dimness of the darkened library. "So. I thought you gave up too easily for such a persistent, overcurious little nuisance," she says stiffly, scowling deeply at you even as her eyes glitter with satisfaction. "You're going to be in quite a bit of trouble over this one, young lady."\n\n"Er, wait, I can explain," you try, almost instinctively. \n\n"Oh I think I already grasp the general thrust of your explanation. You couldn't take 'no' for an answer and obey the restrictions given to every other student, and now you're guilty of trespassing and attempted theft. Now, come with me, I need to make a phone call."\n\n"Uh, to who?"\n\n"Who do you think?" she asks coolly, narrowing her eyes as she starts to urge you forward and towards her office.\n\n<hr>\n[["The cops?"|ValLib]]\n\n[["One of the school heads?"|ValLib]]\n\n[["My mother?"|ValLib]]\n\n[["Your coven?"|ValLib1x4]]

Your name is Valerie, and you're just a month into your second year of college. During your first year you established yourself as someone to come to if you had certain problems and were willing to have an open mind about how they were solved... meaning, with magic.\n\nYou see, for your fifteenth birthday, your cousin Baal told you that you had 'potential' and taught you a handful of simple rituals and potions. The next year, seeming pleased with your progress, she gifted you a special magical tome... at first it seemed to contain nothing but gibberish, but over time as you pored over it and worked on what you did know and understand, more and more of the writing in the book seemed to make sense. You wonder if, once you understand it all, you'll be able to do things like giving promising teenagers incredibly powerful magic books just to see how they do.\n\nBut for now, you're nineteen and managing well enough. Like most people in your family, you tend towards a pale complexion and dark hair, which you let grow long and often tumbles down around your shoulders. You also tend towards wearing all black... various jokes have been made that goth must be genetic to look at you and your cousins. (Your mother and her sister aren't exactly exempt either.) You have dark grey eyes, which require glasses (possibly due to a few too many late nights reading). Your figure isn't quite "hourglass", but you've got fairly full breasts, a slim waist, and hips worth grabbing, when you feel like letting someone grab them.\n\n<img src="https://i.imgur.com/VoYa1B2.jpg?1">\n\nYour endeavors with helping other students with their problems are twofold... for one, it gives you a chance to practice your powers, and you've noticed that sometimes passages of the book seem to open up for you when you need them for what you're doing, as opposed to simply what you want. For another, you've built up a decent little stash of cash, valuables, other items, and favors... and from some of what you've read in the book, you think you're getting close to a level where you can start trading for at least parts of people's souls. That idea's a bit scary... and very exciting.\n\nIn any event, it's a cool Monday morning, and your only class for the day has been canceled. Which means that you need to decide what to do with your day. You could [[see about taking some jobs|ValJobsStart]]... you have a discrete system established for doing so, and it wouldn't hurt to continue proving you can get things done. You could venture to the [[old library|ValLibStart]] and do some looking around... you've found a few books there that indicate there might be more to the place than just dusty outdated thesis fodder. You could go to the [["new age" district|ValNAStart]] of town... a lot of it's bullshit and hokum, but there are a handful of sincere practitioners there, both simply spiritual and practical. And of course there's always [[studying your tome|ValTomeStart]], there's generally something to go over and discover with it. Sometimes just spending time with it seems to open up new avenues.

"I'm familiar with the title," Lassiter answers you, becoming more prim than ever. "It's in our rare antiquities vault." \n\n"Oh really?" That makes you perk up a bit more. "How do I access that?"\n\n"Be a senior with a relevant major and two professors' permission," the older woman answers immediately, with nary a flicker of her expression, though you might just be imagining a little flash of smug satisfaction in her eyes.\n\nYour jaw drops a bit. "What?! That's completely unfair, I'm a student here, I paid for tuition the same as everyone else! That specifically includes 'full access to library facilities'!"\n\n"Yes, and you will have full access when you are a senior, in a relevant major, and have the permission of two professors," Lassiter answers evenly, directing her gaze back down at her paperwork in obvious dismissal. "Until then I suggest you turn your attention to a more productive use of the facilities than your idle curiosity."\n\nYou press your lips together, fighting down several smartass remarks that you know won't help your case. Just spouting off won't help here, you need a solid plan.\n\n<hr>\n[[Negotiate.|ValLib]]\n\n[[Get sneaky.|ValLib1x2]]\n\n[[Just give up for now.|ValLib]]

"I can clearly see many of your goals and what you wish to do, but you are still not achieving them!" you declare, frowning a little as you walk forward, plucking at places here and there on the blonde's suit as she squirms. "This will never fit, no matter what you do. It has to be tailored from the start to give you better shoulders and help conceal your tits no matter how bound they are. And you," you continue, crossing to the boy in the girls' uniform and snatching the hair deco out, making him squeak and fling his hands to his head. "... Alright, <i>that</i> was really cute, but all you're doing with this is drawing attention to what a boy's haircut you have!" you scold, shaking it at him, before turning to the one in the kimono. "And you! ... Good effort, needs a little work, but that wig is just way too cheap! Though I applaud you for not going full geisha makeup! Good job!" You glance around at the other few members, then sigh and thump your hands on your hips. "You've no one to teach you except each other, except you're so young and inexperienced you barely have an idea of how to dress as your own sex and you're trying to teach someone of the opposite sex to! It's like two old blind men who used to both be nearsighted trying to describe landmarks to each other!" you huff, tossing the hair deco to the side.\n\n"Hey, that's-!" the blonde starts, before cowering just a little as you whip your head to look at her. But then she takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. "Konko-sama, that's not right," she says in a firmer tone, as well as using her normal voice.\n\nYou stare at her, unable to help enjoying the smell of the cold sweat starting to break out on the back of her neck, before you grin. "What's your name, girl?"\n\n"... Haru, Konko-sama."\n\n"I like your willingness to defend this club and its members, Haru! Yes! Good! I like this club, be proud of it, even if it's flawed! But tell me what's wrong about what I said, hmmmm?"\n\n"Well... I mean, it's not entirely wrong, I suppose," she admits, fidgeting a little. "There's no one here who really knows about suits or traditional Japanese clothes, but there are girls who know how to do makeup and guys who know about haircuts and things. A lot of it's that, well... we can only do this when we're at our club," she says with a sigh, some of the others nodding ruefully. "Even if we wanted to on our own time. We have parents that don't know about our interests, and teachers that only tolerate the club because we're model students outside of it. Kei's parents make him get that haircut, it's the only one he's allowed to have, and my mother won't let me cut my hair at all. And none of us are rich kids... we all chipped in what we could to buy Ryo that wig, and it was still on sale at a novelty shop."\n\n"Mmm, I see, I see, I see," you murmur, cupping your chin and nodding, eyes closed. "Humans sure do have a lot of limitations, there are times I forget just how many. But! Fool mortals, do not worry!" you shout delightedly, flinging a hand in the air and smirking. "Konko-sama is here now to fix everything!"\n\n"Ah... how?" Ryo asks, unconsciously reaching up to adjust said novelty wig.\n\n<hr>\n[["By trickery!"|KonCD]]\n\n[["By magic!"|KonCD]]\n\n[["UNLIMITED CASH WORKS!"|KonCD]]

Setting off towards the shopping areas, you make your way past little clumps of other people either walking by or loitering. One of the things about visiting Shinjuku... your chest gets more glances than your ears, though even that doesn't attract a ton of attention. If there's any place where people tend to accept you without much thought, it's here. You're vaguely aware it's probably because they think your ears are fake and you're just some cosplayer, but who really cares?\n\nSoon you arrive in a familiar area where most of your favorite shops are. Interestingly enough, your preferred game store has [[a line|SiphaAki1x2]] outside of it... not a really big line, but a line nevertheless. You can see other people going in and out, so it's not the actual waiting-to-get-in type of line... is there an event you haven't heard about?\n\nWell, if it's actually just some guys hanging out, you can safely dismiss it. There's also the store where you buy your [[figures|SiphaAki]], because a proper otaku's collection of plastic waifus is determined by what they can afford, not how much room there is left in their apartment! There's also the [[electronics|SiphaAki]] store, and... well, tucked in a little out of the way place is a store that sells a different kind of [[toys|SiphaAki]]. You've only peeked in before, but maybe it's time to take a longer look...?

You've definitely gotta check out what's going on at the game store. You make your way across the street, approaching the line and asking the little group, "Hey, guys, what's up?"\n\nSeveral of them either huddle in on themselves, obviously too shy or anxious to speak to a stranger (or a female), at least two of them looking like they're overheating just looking at you. But at least a couple are still acting normally, the guy towards the front of the line saying, "We're lining up for the steelbook version release of Magical Mastery Director Doki."\n\nYou gasp, clapping your hands over your mouth. Magical Mastery Director Doki... one of the most anticipated games of the year! Probably <i>the</i> most anticipated! Its high-end 3D graphics are designed to look almost exactly like traditional animation, allowing the feel of playing a realtime magical girl anime. But besides the campaign and story modes featuring a ton of magical girls from different franchises, the 'Director' in the title indicates the ability to create your own characters and put them in scenes plotted out and directed by you... allowing you to make your own magical girl anime! "What?! But they said they weren't going to do a physical release! The director even said that the studio was going all digital starting with MagiMastaDilDo!"\n\n"Apparently someone at distribution decided that was stupid," the pudgy youth replies in a rather smug tone. "There's gonna be a special limited run of steelbooks with physical copies, coming out at ten tomorrow. We'll not only get the super rare limited edition, but we get to start playing the game a whole <i>three hours</i> earlier than all those digital-only plebes!"\n\n<hr>\n[[Omg omg omg omg NEED!|SiphaAki]]\n\n[[Uuuuuuu you already preordered sob sob...|SiphaAki]]

Once upon a time, in the age where the magical and spiritual were just taken for granted as an everyday thing, the land gave birth to gods, and those gods gave rise to spirits that were, themselves, like gods. And one of those spirits was a wonderfully powerful and adorable and impish fox spirit named Konko. Yes, yes, not the most imaginative name in the world, but when a mother goddess creates a few hundred spirits of the land in a matter of days she starts running a little dry on the inspiration department. There's only so many Mizūmitokawanoidainakamis you can name before you start looking at your newest work of art and saying "Fox kid". Still, while she may have been created as one of the last, she was also one of the best. With her glorious golden hair and equally stunning shimmery tail and ears, as well as her large perfect breasts and big pretty cock on a slender beautiful body, Konko was capable of charming most any god or mortal she ran across, and her pranks were famous across the land! Okay, infamous more like, but they were the stuff of stories and legends!\n\nKonko is, of course, you. You are the wondrous Konko! Rejoice!\n\nUnfortunately a sufficient number of both mortals, spirits, and maybe one or two gods decided they were humorless nofuns who didn't like your totally reasonable and appropriate jokes, and they all got together and conspired against you like the jerks they were and are. The gods gave the mortals a ritual, the spirits provided the energy, and the mortals lured you in and carried it out, and bam, there you were, trapped in a shrine. The nerve! It would have been one thing if they'd sealed you completely, leaving you blissfully unaware of the passage of time until someone or something (like an earthquake or meteor strike or whatever) unsealed you, but the ritual actually just sealed the part of your essence that let you form a physical body... the part that you needed to actually influence the world. That's just <i>rude</i>, making you float around the empty countryside near the shrine in spirit form, unable to talk to anyone or touch anyone or turn them into stuff! Mean! Stingy! Rude!\n\nEventually though, a teenage boy who often visited his grandfather (the old priest who among other things maintained the seals on your shrine), got curious and messed around and wound up freeing you. Of course you'd been watching him all his life and had gradually fallen in love with him, so once you were unsealed you declared your undying affection and wish to better his life, and happily settled for squabbling with a host of other magical girlfriends he collected, perfectly content to constantly compete for his attention in an unending squabble of hurt feelings and pulled hair while he acted like your love was a horrible inconvenience for him, desperately hoping that he'd choose you to be his one true love so you could settle down to the blissful, mind-numbing existence of being a normal sarariman's housewife!\n\n... Pft, just kidding, that would suck kappa balls. You totally pounced on him, fucked him up the butt, cast a ton of spells and curses on him and then ran off laughing. It was awesome.\n\nScrew hanging out in the countryside where you'd been sealed for centuries, you wanna live in the city! The city, where there's an endless supply of humans to prank! (So many humans, in fact, that they apparently think it's perfectly normal for a few of them to go missing occasionally. It's <i>amazeballs</i>.) Oh, it's glorious, there's food everywhere available practically all the time, a seemingly endless variety of entertainments and games, such lovely structures to live in, and! Best of all! ♪ Fuuuck those other gods and spirits ♫ 'cause most of them are gone! The humans either stopped paying attention to them or fucked up their anchors or whatever, and the vast majority of other spirits have disappeared from the world! The ones that are left are pretty reduced in power since even if they still have shrines and receive worship, at least half of the humans that acknowledge them don't <i>really</i> believe, it's more like a ritual for them, their belief in the gods is about as strong as their belief in a particular pair of socks helping them land a job. Meanwhile, you don't rely on humans at all for your power, in fact their disbelief if anything helps make your pranks all the more effective... not to mention that since you were sealed up during the ages of turmoil and upheaval, you never got attacked by some demon hunter or had your power drained or anything like that, so you're as strong as you were back in the day! Hey, maybe they did you a favor?\n\n(Noooo not really ♪ fuuuuck them! ♫)\n\nANY! WAY! It is the beginning of a brand new day of fun! Okay it's more like midmorning but no one's gonna tell you when to get up. You yawn and manifest yourself (naked, as usual) in one of the rooms of the shrine you make your home. Oh, not the shitty stone tablet "shrine" you were sealed in, ew, no, this is a replica of one of the ones built by your worshipers back in the day. (Admittedly you sort of miss having priests and mikos, they were cool. Sadly the nofuns drove most of them out of society after they sealed you.) You found a vacant lot in a neighborhood and created this place for yourself, because even if you can return to spirit form to rest, why not have a house/shrine? It was easy to nudge the nearby humans into believing it had always been there.\n\n"Konkonkon, a glorious morning!" you chirp happily, hands on your hips as you display your beautiful body and all its lovely pieces to the warmth of the son. "Let's do some pranks!"\n\nHave you gotten tired of pranking the vast number of humans available to you in this modern era? No, no you absolutely have not. Today, like any other, you're going to cause some mischief. What 'some', a lot of mischief, hopefully! You open one of the drawers of the dresser and haul out one of your favorite human inventions... the hoodie. So big and fluffy and comfy... they remind you of your tail! Of course, you suppose you don't technically need to wear anything, the same magic you use to make (most) humans not notice your ears and tail would serve if you felt like walking around naked. ... And you do sometimes! The hoodie is just comfy, plus you can always change your clothing any time you want with magic anyway. You pull on a pair of pink sneakers and, attired in nothing but those, the hoodie, and the bit of red cloth and pair of bells that used to be part of your seals (which you wear as both a souvenir and a 'fuck you' to any old gods or spirits who were involved with their creation) that you wear braided into your hair as a decoration, you prepare to be off.\n\n<img src="images/Konko.jpg">\n\n"Konkonkon, time for mischief! ♥"\n\n... Hm? But where to start your mischief at? You can't just roam around randomly pranking people! ... Actually you totally can and it is <i>fantastic</i> but all the same, sometimes it's better to take a targeted approach to these things. Sort of like at least narrowing down your choices of food to a genre before deciding which actual restaurant to go to. It's not like a buffet is bad, but y'know.\n\n<hr>\n[[Roam around the neighborhood.|Konko4x1]]\n\n[[Go to the shopping district.|Konko]]\n\n[[Go to the high school.|Konko1x1]]\n\n[[Just wander and prank whoever after all!|Konko3x1]]

<b><i>Alpha 2</i></b>\n\n[[February 2020 Dev Diary|Feb2020DD]]\n\n* <b>Main</b>: Added Kiara and Maxia.\n* <b>Main</b>: Kai can now [[focus on taking out Street Demons|Kai1x10]] when the meeting is attacked. \n* <b>Main</b>: Caliburn can [[pick a hallway|CalKLRoom1]] in the King's Labyrinth.\n* <b>Main:</b> Added Yami.\n* <b>Main:</b> Konko can now prank [[the boy looking at porn|Konko6x1]].\n* <b>Main:</b> Kai can now [[find Niobe|Kai1x10]] after the Street Demons attack the meeting. Back at the Glowworm she can also go speak to the [[Transcendants|Kai1x4]].\n\n<b><i>Alpha 1</i></b>\n\nThis is the first release. Literally everything is new. Well, Valerie's not new but she's got some tweaks and expansions too that you can probably find quickly enough. Go nuts.

"... There's one possibility that might save most of the crew, but it's a long shot," you answer.\n\n"I'll take it, then. Long shots are what we do on the <i>Venture</i>," Stroker answers without hesitation. "Do it, Commander."\n\nNodding, you run up the ramp to the upper level, the wolflike alien stepping aside to allow you access to the full board. "Lieutenant Dateher, do everything you can to identify the <i>Venture</i> crew's lifesigns, they all should have at least one energy signature that's distinct from the Raptarrans'."\n\n"Yes. Yes, exposure to our warp field will have left a slight unique energy signature in the nervous systems of everyone who has been on the ship at least a week, very good, Commander," Dateher answers, sounding calmly impressed as her fingers once more fly over her board.\n\n"I'm going to link up to my ship's dimension drive and build up the energy, then divert the dimensional energy into the <i>Venture</i>'s warp drive. When we go to warp, we'll get flung to a semi-random dimension and leave the Raptarrans behind, it'll be dangerous, but probably not as dangerous as staying here." You pause as Stroker steps grimly over the body of the helmsman to take his place. "... Captain, this should take most of the crew with us, but some of them won't have retained the warp signature or won't have been on the ship long enough. They'll be left behind in open space too."\n\n"... Understood," he answers, lips a thin line as he readies the helm. "On your order then, Commander."\n\n"Alright. Dateher?"\n\n"Sending sensor readings now."\n\n"Energy transferred!" You slap the ship's @all button. "ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT! Captain, now!"\n\nCaptain Stroker strikes one of the keys on his panel, and the entire ship lurches as the viewscreen flashes and then skitters, briefly going dark as the deck rolls and bucks beneath you like you were all in a tin can going over a waterfall. You try to hold on to the security panel but wind up being thrown to the deck, and would roll further if the big wolfman didn't drop over you protectively.\n\nFinally the shaking stops, all of you gradually getting over the shock. Stroker is the first to climb to his feet, having been thrown half out of the helm chair. "Dateher. Wolf. Report."\n\n"No Raptarran signatures detected, Captain," Dateher says, one of the few to actually keep her seat. "... At a preliminary estimate we have lost fifty-seven crewmembers, who are either no longer registering life signs, or whose comm badges are no longer present on the <i>Venture</i>."\n\n'God, I wonder how many of those were the ones I left behind to die in space?' you think miserably as Lieutenant Wolf gets to his feet and works his own station.\n\n"We are no longer in orbit over the planet. The Raptarran ships and our science ship are not present, although there is another ship drawing to a halt near our position. Sensors are still having difficulty, Captain, but-" He interrupts himself as the board chirps while you're getting to your feet. "Captain, we are being hailed."\n\n"Onscreen, Mister Wolf, if you can," Stroker answers, moving to stand in front of the captain's chair and tugging on his uniform top.\n\nIt takes a second, but finally the viewscreen flickers and comes back on, revealing a strikingly similar bridge, with a number of people on it who look quite surprised, likely due to the similarities of the ship despite its different IFF tag. The older man sitting in the center of the chair exchanges a glance with the man at his right, who looks like he could be Stroker's cousin, before standing and stepping forward slightly, tugging on his own uniform top in a similar way to Stroker's own of a moment ago.\n\n"I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the Federation starship <i>Enterprise</i>. Please identify yourself."\n\n"I'm... Captain Richard Stroker, of the Federation starship <i>Venture</i>," Stroker answers, still sounding rather stunned. "Captain... <i>Picard</i>?"\n\n"Correct," the bald captain says, frowning slightly. "Captain, you are a Starfleet vessel?"\n\n"No, I'm with the organization Starbeat," Stroker answers with a shake of the head. But he only hesitates for a second before he adds, "Captain, this ship is from another dimension, though I think that may be obvious to all of us at this point. I'll be happy to explain all that I can, but right now there are more pressing matters. We were fleeing a terrible enemy that had boarded our ship and attacked us... we have a number of casualties, and would like to formally request your aid."\n\nPicard exchanges another glance with his first officer, who has moved up to stand slightly behind him, the other bearded man giving a firm, solemn nod. Picard turns his head back towards the viewscreen and nods. "We'll begin putting together medical and security crews, Captain. Please stand by. Picard out." \n\nThe viewscreen blips to a view of another starship hanging amidst the stars, a sleek round saucer connected to a curving body with elegant 'wings' of the nacelles sweeping up from the sides. At the look on some of the bridge crew's faces, it's probably entirely too much like their own ship's design for comfort. After a moment, though, Stroker turns to face you and nods.\n\n"Thank you, Commander. You've saved a lot of lives today. Will you be sticking around...?"\n\n<hr>\n[[You probably should.|FioTrek]]\n\n[[Better not.|FioTrek]]

The year is 2101. The town is Knightsvale, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Nakatomi Nationstate Realtors. Which mostly means you live here because as a Japanese-born citizen you get a break on rent and utilities, and NNR happens to have the best quantum-fiber internet pre-installed in their buildings that it's possible to get without paying an immense fortune for a string entanglement modem and complete wiring yourself. The net connection is very, very important, for you see, your name is Yami and you are the best at VRMMOs.\n\nOkay, not <i>the</i> best. There's probably someone out there better than you, someone dashing and dramatic with an iconic and toyetic custom outfit that no one else ever seems to get in the item drops. But you have reached the top ten rankings for things like "up and coming players" and "raid specialists" and "boss banes" in every single VRMMO you've ever played, and you figure volume and consistency makes up for not being #1 at any of them in particular. And using all the intense brainpower at your disposal, you are currently working on a very important, very necessary issue.\n\n"Mmmm." You flick your tongue over the cookie stick clasped between your lips, licking off a bit more of the chocolate. "... I don't know... I still think I can taste the chitin more versus the Miku Miku Nahs brand pocky."\n\n<img src="images/Yami.jpg">\n\nHow many of those who have fallen before the weapons of "Nightbringer" or your many other aliases would suspect that their opponent was some skinny hikkikomiri, hair turned platinum blonde, skin turned white, and eyes turned grey due to the melanin-canceling properties of using cheap but long-lasting support fluids when hooked up to their rig? Sitting in a low-rent two bedroom apartment with a roommate well into their late twenties, wearing just a baggy Dolyen Yggdrasil long-sleeved shirt and underwear, and trying to decide which brand of cheap pocky tasted the least like its faintly disturbing pseudochocolate ingredients? ... Actually that's probably what almost everyone would think of. But would they think Nightbringer was a <i>girl</i>?! Ha, no, probably not! Haha! Yes, you play your own sex online! Take that, expectations! Haha. Ha. ... Haaa.\n\n"Heeeey, Yamiiiii," your roommate says, knocking on the frame of your door and causing you to perk up a bit and look over at her. "I got our mail while I was downstairs. Is this that thing you were waiting for?" she asks, holding up a package perfectly sized for a VRMMO quantchip.\n\nYour eyes light up, and both pocky sticks get shoved in your mouth in your hurry to go scrambling over, causing you to almost choke when you blurt out "Yes!" You grab for the package with both hands, only to have to jump for it as she lifts it up higher, your shirt flapping up over your skinny butt. "Not funny, gimme gimme gimme gimme! Oof," you add as she brings her hand down between your upstretched arms and thunks the package directly on the top of your head.\n\n"This is that new one, isn't it? The one everyone's talking about, the 'death game'?" At your shifty look and twiddled fingers, she rolls her eyes. "Lord, it is, I knew it."\n\n"It's not a 'death game'!" you blurt after recovering yourself a bit, scowling up at her. "That's total game journo hysteria!"\n\n"So it doesn't suck the neural pattern out of your brain and keep it on the servers forever if you lose?"\n\n"... I mean..." You flick your eyes back and forth nervously, twiddling your fingers again. "... Only if you set it up that way?"\n\n"Which you of course will." At your face going solid red, your roommate sighs. "C'mon, Yami, seriously?"\n\nSee, your ascendancy to the top ranks of VRMMO players wasn't exactly because you're just that passionate about playing the game. What you're passionate about is... well, losing. Losing dramatically and decisively and, preferably, <i><b>extremely lewdly</b></i>. Except unfortunately, most actually decent combat VRMMOs are strictly R-17 at the very most... you might get your armor torn off or some Implying Implications fade to black, but the games tend to block anything actually sexual from happening. And the games that do allow actual virtual sex tend to be... well, boring. They're either complete sandboxes where people just go to fuck around and indulge their entirely discussed and contractually agreed-upon kinks (like Twenty-Second Life), or they're lame low-effort barely-feedback crap where it's just assumed you'll lose and then unf unf unf oh noooo game over start again automatically. They don't feel real, the danger doesn't feel real, and it just... doesn't... scratch your itch for actual danger of something wicked, despicable, and cruel potentially happening to you. It's been a lifetime's worth of teasing, essentially.\n\nUntil Devious Dive.\n\nDevious Dive, the first Ultra-X rated VRMMO. When it was announced, it was called overly ambitious, overly complicated, likely never to be finished. It was laughed off as the greatest vaporware since Half-Life 3. (Still hasn't come out, beeteedubs, if anyone from the past is wondering.) And yet, after only twenty-five years, its creator Devious Nuke declared it was going gold, and now it's here, in your apartment, being held just out of reach by your overprotective friend.\n\nThe thing is, Devious Dive is not only the most 'complete' sandbox action-adventure VRMMO ever completed, featuring numerous different genres and playstyles and character options, or the first Ultra-X rated one meaning that it's extremely sexual and with no warnings or safewords, it's the first VRMMO to (sort of) realize the dream of Mad King Kojima, Lord of Australia and one of the most revered creators of video games in history despite his entire body of work being banned due to having an overly high Eldritch Rating. (No one's entirely sure why he's revered, but he is.) It's a game that can hurt you... kind of. While many VRMMOs provide some amount of pain feedback, and the more hardcore ones enforce a "realistic" (read, roughly tripled) amount of pain, it's all just sensory hallucinations, guaranteed to turn into nothing but a memory the moment you log out. Devious Dive, should you choose, carries an actual risk of your mind being transferred into the game to eternally reap the consequences of your loss. Whether it's character death or some form of Bad End, you could wind up experiencing it eternally. (There's widely rumored to be some form of afterlife in the game, but much like the real world since no one who's actually gone there can come back to confirm it, well, that's how you get labeled a "death game".) That's only if you go through a very thorough legal process and actually consent to that level of risk, though.\n\nWhich, as your roommate has correctly deduced, you have.\n\nFinally you huff and put your hands on your hips. "... My neurons, my choice! I've already made all the arrangements and signed all the forms, so lemme live my life, would you?"\n\nShe sighs. "I will never understand this fetish of yours. But honestly, I guess in the end you're right, it's your body and mind." She hesitates a moment longer, then places the box in your reaching fingers. "Have fun, I guess."\n\n"Yesssssss!" You leap up, doing a twirl in happiness before running over to your rig. You've installed extra support fluid cannisters, the extra big ones, and even splurged for the more decent stuff that lasts longer... supposedly some of the bad ends can still last a good long time before it's decided one way or the other whether they're permanent, so you wanna be able to stay under for however long is necessary. You make sure to wipe everything down well, partly because hygeine is important for long VR dives, partly so that your roommate will take the hint and leave, thankfully closing the door after herself. You rip open the packaging, taking a moment to set the little commemorative cyborg figurine of the game's creator on your desk, then do one last check on the complete rig. Then you push your panties down, stepping out of them with one foot and kicking them towards the dirty clothes pile with the other. No sense getting those all soaked if this goes well! You settle down into the well-padded chair, pushing your sleeves up before putting your arms through the connectors that will deliver the support fluid to your veins and help cleanse your blood of any toxin buildup. You tap the control, an armature lowering the neurodome over your head. "Computer, boot up game loaded in slot One-A and initiate dive."\n\n"You got it, motherfucker!" your computer answers, in the distinctive voice that all smart devices have used since sometime in the mid-21st, though no one knows why or why it calls everyone a motherfucker.\n\nYou quickly find yourself loaded into a 'half dive'... which is sort of the shallowest level of a VR dive there is, where it's basically just like looking at one big screen. Specifically, the screen where you usually accept the usage agreement... though this one is, of course, a bit different, and rather than skipping through it you do in fact read carefully, because it sends a thrill through you.\n\n<h4 style="text-align: center;">Welcome to Devious Dive: Permanence Edition</h4>\s\n<h4 style="text-align: center;">By continuing, you are agreeing that you deliberately purchased the Permanence Edition of this game, and have followed all necessary legal procedures in your country, nationstate, or autonomous collective to own it. Devious Dive: Permanence Edition is classified by the Neutral Ratings Board as having a level five degree of danger to one's mental integrity.</h4>\s\n<h4 style="text-align: center;">Permanence Edition allows for the player to experience lasting and even permanent consequences due to gameplay. This option must still be configured in the settings, as it defaults to "Off". If this setting is not changed, the player will only experience the consequences of their loss for a predetermined (and configurable) amount of time.</h4>\s\n<h4 style="text-align: center;">In the event this option is set to "On", players are accepting the possibility that their neural pattern may be transferred to Devious Dive's fully autonomous and Omega-rated apocalypse-proof servers for a period not to exceed "eternity" (as legally defined by Intercolonial Legal Quorum of 2077). Players will still receive one (1) chance at the time a situation is determined to be permanent to opt out; if this option is chosen, only the character data will be locked into the situation, and the player will disconnect after the preset time. If the player declines to opt out, the fate is permanent for both character and player.</h4>\s\n<h4 style="text-align: center;">Please note that in Permanence Edition, even with permanent consequences disabled, players can only willingly disconnect in designated "Safe Zones". All non-permanent interactions and consequences are still enforced and the player cannot opt out or disconnect to avoid them.</h4>\s\n\nSince it's just a shallow dive, you can still feel your stiff nipples rubbing against your shirt as you breathe faster. Even without turning on the permanent consequences option, you're about to enter a game where it's truly a free-for-all... not only the AI opponents will pose a threat, a potentially very lewd and rough and mean threat, but other players on the Permanence Edition servers will too. There will be no panicquits, no 'Action Denied' warnings, no admin reports... if another character avatar that has a real flesh-and-blood person on the other end of it wants to sneak up on you while you're out in the wild and hit you with a paralysis dart and then yank off your armor before fucking you in the ass while pulling your hair and calling you a stupid, pathetic whore, all while streaming it to their thousands of Omnistream followers, that is absolutely, totally a thing they can do and there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it. ... Other than, y'know, almost cumming a little just now thinking about it.\n\nTaking a deeper breath to calm your heart rate so the sensors won't read it as duress, you click the 'Yes', 'I'm sure', and 'I'm really REALLY sure' indicators to actually be allowed into the game proper... or rather, character generation. After a brief rushing sensation that carries you into a full dive you find yourself standing as yourself, completely naked, in what looks like some sort of large costume store. You can't help but flush and squirm, resisting the urge to tuck a hand between your legs and rub at the sudden feeling of being thrust into public naked. Most VRMMOs put you in some sort of "colored void" for character generation, and the ones that don't all have you in underwear at the least.\n\nThe first thing to appear in front of you is a 'Settings' box, with various options for things like amount of bloodshed where available, pain intensity, and so on, most of which you leave where they are. (You do set 'Incidental Gore (Sexual)' to 'Off', though... you may wanna get Bad Ended but you don't necessarily want to get torn apart when you do. Little quirks.) There's also the big one, which you find on its own tab... 'Permanent Consequences'. As the chargen text said, it's currently set to 'Off'. You raise your finger up towards it, then hesitate... do you <i>really</i> want to go this far? After all, just for kinky play, everything else about Permanence Edition has plenty to offer! It's way more than any other VRMMO has ever offered you... both challenge and goal, as well as lewds and consequences. You'll lose characters you worked hard on if you get Bad Ended after all, and still get to experience the Bad End up until it's determined to be permanent, isn't that threat enough? Do you really need your <i>actual</i> life to be threatened?\n\n<hr>\n[[M-maybe not...|YamiStart2]]\n\n[[Hnnnh your soaked pussy says FUCKING YES.|YamiStart3]]

Devious Mundanity doesn't have enough unique stuff for a glossary yet!

Well, it doesn't really matter who you pick, it's basically random, isn't it? "Number three."\n\n"Hm. That is the number displayed on this ridiculous thing I am wearing," Warya speaks up, glancing at her wrist as if just to confirm.<<set $waryasecret to true>>\n\nHuh. Warya's... fantasy? Honestly, you're expecting her to boast something about how a Tygarian gladiator doesn't fantasize, they go out and make all of their wishes come true the moment they have them, or something like that. But she actually seems to be thoughtful, rubbing her chin as she clearly considers, before making her way over towards you. She hasn't exactly been shy about her nudity so far, and she continues to not be so, her cock brushing along your hip and her breasts pressing against your shoulder as she leans in, lips almost brushing your ears, her voice lowered to a volume that sounds almost like a purr.\n\n"There are times late at night, when I lay in my bed after a day of combat against and amidst all these luscious, fertile females who display themselves as if for mating, and I think about what it might have been like had I kept my place as Warmaster of Tygaria as I'd earned the right to, instead of venturing to Earth in search of stronger battles. How I might have rallied all of Tygaria's armies and brought them here, conquering the planet and subjugating every last one of the heroes I now fight beside. And then, as would be my rite of conquest, I would dominate and impregnate all of the strongest, most powerful, and most beautiful women of the entire planet, right in front of their males."\n\nYou squirm a little as she starts to more obviously purr, a bit of a teasing lilt now in that deep, rather wicked smooth voice. "Yes, that would include your mother... oh, I would enjoy that very, very much. You and your father, in bondage and kneeling before me, your cocks jutting and stiff as I made your mother moan and beg and plead for more, until finally I impregnated this world's mightiest hero as her eyes rolled and her tongue lolled and she promised to be my brood creature forever. But... you know... I don't think I'd necessarily stop once I'd impregnated the hundreds of thousands of worthy women on this planet... no... there are just so many powerful... beautiful men, and so much fascinating technology to change the body..."\n\nThe alien tigress chuckles softly before cooing, "That is right... I have often lain in bed, stroking my mighty member to the thought of changing you into a woman, then lifting your legs and pinning your body, pounding your new little pink pussy for all you're worth until you break and beg me for more, seeing that look on your pretty girl's face that says you understand your only purpose in life is to pleasure my cock and bear my young. Each time my mighty, virile load spills onto my belly, I think what a shame it is that I am not spilling it in yours." With that, she gives your ear a quick nip and then steps back, prancing almost proudly back to join the others.\n\nYou stare after her, with the most confused hardon you've ever felt jutting out in front of you. You're part shocked, part almost terrified, and part... you're not sure you've ever felt the particular sort of aroused that you're feeling now.\n\nBut the gladiator's dirty fantasy is apparently pleasing enough to Dr. Deathtrap, as the exit door slides open.\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|CalKLHallway2]]

"Alright, so... number two," you decide after realizing that it doesn't really matter that much what you say, since it's effectively random.\n\n"Um." Snow Leopard shrinks in on herself a little more. "That's... me."<<set $snowleopardsecret to true>>\n\nOh dear, the shyest and sweetest of the group. You can't help but feel bad as she fidgets, obviously deeply humiliated by the very idea of having to share any kind of sexual secret with someone else, let alone a particularly deep and perverse one. But after a few seconds she takes a deep breath and stands up straight, lowering her arms to bare those round, soft breasts and her closely-trimmed sex, and marches around behind you, the edge of her blush visible below her cowl as she moves behind you. You try not to blush yourself as you feel Snow Leopard's breasts brush against your back and arm as she leans up closer to your ear.\n\n"... I fantasize," she whispers very softly, her hands coming up to rest on your back for balance just as she says the next words, the combination of sensation and what she says sending a shock through you enough to make you shiver all over. "About being raped. Like... almost all the time. When I'm out fighting villains, I think about what would happen if they overcame me and shoved me down and took me. Even if it's not a male villain... even though I don't like girls, the thought of a villainess defeating me and then mounting my face and making me lick her, rubbing herself all over me while she orders me to suck her clit, makes my pussy wet. When I get captured and tied up I'm both afraid they'll tear my clothes off or fondle me or even fuck me and I also kind of want them to do it."\n\nYou can feel her nipples getting stiff against you, and fight against your own steadily harder cock as you hear the soft sound of her tongue flitting over her lips before she continues. "It's... it's not just villains either, I fantasize about the other Guardians raping me too. Every time I'm on watch duty, I spend most of it thinking in the back of my mind how much I wanted one of the men to come up and just take me right there in the chair without a word, not asking, just taking me, being rough with me, degrading me. ... I've wished it was you a lot of times. Then I go home and I pounce my boyfriend, but his cock is never as satisfying as my fantasies of you." ... Yeah, there's no hope now, your cock's like steel jutting ahead of you, your breathing shallowed a bit.\n\n"The entire time I was stripping down in that room out there, I was terrified you or Trickshot or Mazinon or Warya would lose your minds and just shove me over and rape my ass with your big cocks... because I was wishing for it so hard I knew I'd be moaning like a slut the moment any of you put it in."\n\nAnd just like that she steps back, quickly covering herself again and ducking her head, blush worse than ever as she moves back over to join the group, who's all watching-but-trying-not-to and clearly curious as hell about whatever the shy, sweet little innocent kitty said to you that has pre beading at the tip of your prick.\n\nGoddamn, girl.\n\nApparently Dr. Deathtrap is satisfied though, because the exit door slides open.\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|CalKLHallway2]]

Oh, whatever. Someone's gonna have to reveal a dirty fantasy no matter what, may as well just pick a number. "Number five."\n\n"That's me," Marielle answers, holding up her braceleted wrist, apparently not particularly bothered by the idea. She must really trust your discretion.<<set $mariellesecret to true>>\n\n"Oh, uh, okay," you murmur as she walks over to you, almost casually moving behind you. You wonder exactly what sort of dark fantasies an elf maiden might have... and are then distracted as she leans against your back, pressing her breasts against you as if it were no particularly big deal, lips moving in close to your ear. As always there's a soft, lyrical quality to her words... but with her whispering to you like this, naked and close and almost like lovers, it has your cock stiffening to full hardness before she's even finished a single sentence.\n\n"Mm, it is difficult to pick one... I have so many, if I am honest," she murmurs, and despite not being able to see her you can almost hear the little smile on her lips. "But if I am to pick a suitably embarrassing one that our adorable host would probably like... let me see. Not long after my brother and I emerged into the modern world, I saw an old animated film called 'Sleeping Beauty'. I do not know why, but somehow the sight of her there, living but immobile, stretched out and on display, helpless before a man's passion even if it was only a kiss... that awoke something in me."\n\nShe wiggles just a little against you, even the slight extra pressure of her breasts urging a small bud of precum out of your cock. "I began to fantasize almost nightly about myself being put into a similarly enchanted sleep, waiting for a man to come and claim me... sometimes I was displayed wearing my own clothes, or other times the princessly finery from that movie or others I had watched. Sometimes I dreamt of myself in bridal wear, to show that I was claimed in all ways as soon as he did what he wanted with me. Sometimes I was naked... or dressed in lingerie that left little question that it was not merely a kiss that he was free to take of me."\n\nShe sighs softly. "I dreamed of many men coming to me in my enchanted sleep, having their way with my body... sometimes with me waking up to play the whore for them partway through, sometimes with them using me again and again and again as I slept, as if I were naught but a sexdoll for them to use to relieve their lusts. Many men... sometimes from fiction... or men I had known in my old life... my own brother... sometimes those I know now in my own life... like you... the thought of you over me, your hands on my breasts, your member inside me pulsing over and over as you emptied yourself into me has more than once brought me to the point of ecstasy."\n\nYou actually very nearly cum as she breathes a soft stream of air against your ear, managing to hold on Marielle lowers herself and elegantly strides back to stand next to her brother, every inch the proper elf maiden again, even as she gives you a smile... that's rendered rather wicked by a brief sparkle in her eyes.\n\nBut apparently she was right, the story looks to have satisfied Dr. Deathtrap, since the exit door slides open.\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|CalKLHallway2]]

Any number is as good as another, right? "Number four."\n\n"That's... my number," your mother says with a little sigh, straightening her shoulders.<<set $excalibursecret to true>>\n\nYeah, you were wrong. Dammit, you managed to pick her number <i>again</i>. You do your best to keep a calm facade, but your face is blushing brightly again... and your cock annoyingly starting to stiffen already... as she walks over to you, large breasts jiggling, and then pressing against your back as she leans in from behind.\n\n"... I'm sorry, honey," she murmurs after a brief hesitation, her hands resting on your bare upper arms. "I... only really have one deep, dark fantasy to share. And I've little doubt Deathtrap will know if I'm lying or try to invent something, I've been fighting her for too long and her equipment is too good. It's... going to embarrass you, and things might not be the same after, so..."\n\n"It's okay," you whisper back. "We already said that we'd understand whatever we had to do for this, right?"\n\n"Yes." Still, she's silent for another moment, before sighing and starting to speak in a soft whisper. "When you hit puberty... and your powers began to emerge... I was so happy for you. And for myself, I admit. But something else also happened... something I couldn't control. Every time I was in the room with you, my temperature rose, my nipples stiffened, my pussy got wet... my body wanted incredibly badly to mate with you." She swallows softly as you draw in a hard breath, but apparently feels she can't stop now. "I hadn't been around an Avellonian male since I was fourteen... our pheremones are stronger and more intense, especially to each other, my body had lost almost all its resistance to my own peoples' innate sexual signals. I knew what it was, so I ignored it and fought it off, but I... wanted you... badly. For years."\n\nShe swallows, and you're not sure she even realizes that she's now pressing her breasts a little more firmly against you. "At night I would check in on you as a mother should, but instead of being satisfied that you were asleep and safe, my hand would press between my legs and I would rub myself, sometimes all the way to orgasm, while staring at your face. When you would get erections in your sleep it was all I could do to hold myself back. Several times... several times, even in the clear light of day... I almost convinced myself it would be alright to fuck you. With Avellon gone, after all, we were the last two left... didn't we have an obligation to try and bring back the Avellinian species? Once I... once..." She shudders, letting out a breath that's somewhere between ashamed and intensely aroused. "Your fifteenth birthday... I thought we were going to be alone the entire night... I actually had on my sexiest... my <i>sluttiest</i> underwear under my 'mom clothes'. After we finished dinner I was going to take you back to my room and... I was actually planning to go through with it, I had every intention, but your father came back from his overseas conference early because it got attacked by the Luddite and was canceled. Him walking in that door was both the biggest frustration and biggest relief of my life, because if he'd been just half an hour later, he likely would have caught me in our marriage bed, riding our son for all I was worth, begging to be impregnated."\n\n"O-oh," you murmur, swallowing hard as well, flicking a glance at the others... they don't seem to have actually heard, but they're definitely trying not to stare at the fact that you have a hardon of steel at whatever fantasy your own mother's confided in you.\n\n"After that splash of cold water, I managed to get the fantasies and my desire under control, but... they never completely went away. It was actually a relief when you moved out for college, because every time I caught the scent of your cum on a trash bin or towel or I handled a basket of your sweaty clothes, the fantasies would come rushing back and my panties would be soaked and sticking to me in an instant. With the years and some distance I got acclimated again, but still... still... every so often... like now, when your body's all hot... when pre is welling out of that big, Avellonian prick of yours... I still... want you... to fuck me and knock me up," the most powerful, refined, and controlled hero on the planet murmurs, her lips having drawn closer to your ear with every brief pause.\n\nFor a long second the two of you are frozen in that position, time enough for you both to take deep, shuddery breaths and let them out. Then without another word, your mother straightens up and walks back over to the others, keeping her back straight and refusing to acknowledge any embarrassment at her nudity or what she might have said... or the arousal now running down her inner thighs.\n\nShe was right on the money about her admission pleasing Doctor Deathtrap, though, because as you fight to get your whirling thoughts under control, the exit door slides open.\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|CalKLHallway2]]

You have to pick, so, well, whatever. "Number six."\n\n"Yeah, that's me," Trickshot says with a sigh, shaking his head.<<set $trickshotsecret to true>>\n\n"Ah." Well this is basically 'guy talk', right? Just... probably particularly dirty guy talk, and with an even stricter 'code of silence' than usual. You and Trickshot are continuing your unspoken competition of both trying to seem as unperturbed as possible as he walks over, briefly trying to figure out the best heterosexual male friendly way to lean in and whisper to another heterosexual male before he settles for clapping a hand on your shoulder and leaning in, simultaneously jutting his hips back a bit.\n\n"... So, listen man," he starts with a sigh. "I know we said no judgement and all, but I still gotta make it clear before I start this... I have nothing but respect and admiration for your parents. Your dad's done right by me plenty of times, and I'd never disrespect him or your mom intentionally, okay?"\n\nHoo boy. That is not an inspiring lead-in. Still, you nod a bit. "Hey, stuff happens in fantasies, it's not like it's real," you whisper back.\n\n"Yeah," he sighs. There's another moment of hesitation before he finally starts revealing his dirtiest fantasy to you. "Sometimes your dad's invited me over to one of his workshops to work on my arrows and give me some tips, or even ask me my thoughts on some of his stuff, and man that was an honor... the hero that's literally known for his gadgets asking me how he can improve his? But a couple of times when we were, your mom's dropped in to say hi, and it's just... being almost alone with her in 'private' like that, it hits a guy hard. And I couldn't help having this fantasy of... bending her over the worktable and fucking her."\n\nHe sighs again, clearly expecting you to haul off and punch him or something, but you keep your expression under control and just give a small, understanding nod. Perhaps emboldened, he continues without quite as much shame in his voice. "I mean it just sprang in there, one minute I'm thinking about sequence processor trips, the next my head's full of having my hands full of Excalibur's tits as I pound her pussy. And the more often that situation happened the dirtier the fantasies got, and the more I'd have 'em when I was by myself. Like... some pretty heavy stuff, man. Her saying things like... 'fuck me with that big black cock'. Only, y'know... not that nice." He shifts a little bit, before continuing. "And sometimes in the fantasies your dad was still there, and he's just... jerking off while he watches me fuck his wife, like he acknowledges how much more of a man I am than he is, that I'm making her cum more than he ever could, just... on and on with bullshit like that, like he's practically bowing down and worshiping me for stretching his wife's pussy like he never could."\n\nThere's a longer hesitation, where both of your eyes track over towards the door, watching it for any sign of movement. When there's not the faintest hint of it, Trickshot draws in a deep breath, then murmurs, "Sometimes... sometimes in the fantasy, when he's there... after I've fucked his wife... I bend him over the desk too. And I fuck him, and he moans like a girl and tells me I'm the real man, that my cock would make anyone want to get fucked. I can't even help it, every time he shows up in the fantasy I wind up thinking of him being the one I'm fucking when I cum."\n\nYou swallow, hard, a strange whirl of emotions mingling outrage, understanding, and several very strange varieties of arousal tossing about in your chest. The two of you almost jump at the sound of the door sliding open, Trickshot quickly stepping to one side. He tosses an ashamed glance at you, but you do your best to nod back to assure you don't hold it against him. It's best to be understanding here, after all... even if you don't entirely understand your mind (and body's) reaction to the story, trying to mentally quell your raging hardon without actually acknowledging it... or his.\n\n<hr>\n[[Continue.|CalKLHallway2]]

This sounds like the sort of thing you can take care of. Calling up the number on the note, you wait for the pickup and somewhat dubious 'Hello?' on the other end. "Yeah, it's Valerie. You bought me fries?"\n\n<i>"Oh. Yes, well... yes, thank you."</i>\n\n"Would you care to meet up and tell me about your problem?"\n\n<i>"I suppose so. The low brick wall out in front of the arts building?"</i>\n\n"I know it well. See you there in about five minutes."\n\nWhen you stroll up towards the building where you spend a lot of your own classtime, one of the first thoughts you're struck with is 'Yeah, no wonder the guy doesn't want to go.' Maybe it's not fair to think it because you haven't even met him, if it was indeed the dumped boyfriend who wrote the other note, but just from your immediate impression this girl is waaay out of his league. She's pretty much gorgeous, long lustrous brown hair clearly cut at a way nicer salon than you'd ever consider, gorgeous face done artfully with what's probably expensive makeup, clear brown eyes. She's wearing a somewhat baggy yellow sweater-dress that still shows off decently large breasts, and is even more daring downstairs, showing a lot of slender, smooth leg right up to the lower curve of her rear, daring anyone to guess whether she's wearing anything but perhaps panties under the sweater. Designer boots, matching designer black leather backpack, yeah, this isn't someone who will have trouble paying for your services, you're fairly sure. \n\n<img src="images/Luna.png">\n\nStopping beside her, you say, "Luna, right?" and hold up the note she left earlier with the box of fries.\n\nShe blinks and looks up from her phone, which she'd been staring at with a pensive expression. "Oh? Oh, yes, you're the... um, the person that's supposed to be able to help with problems like mine, right?"\n\n"You can just say 'witch', if you want," you reply dryly as you take a seat next to her, resting your bag on the wall. "I don't exactly put out a big neon sign declaring it, but no one's going to care much if they overhear us say it like this."\n\n"Right," she murmurs, glancing at her phone once more before tucking it away. Obviously not quite a true believer, but that's about standard... you get a lot of people who are getting into the 'try anything' stage despite being nonbelievers.\n\n"So what's this guy doing, anyway?" you ask, deciding to start at the more extreme end to gauge her reaction. "Is he being violent, making threats, stalking you?"\n\n"No!" Luna immediately blurts, looking briefly horrified, fingertips flinging to her mouth. "Kyle would never do that!" Then she winces as if realizing that her reaction might be a little much for someone who's trying to lose a troublesome ex. "I mean, no, it's not that sort of problem. I don't think I'd call it 'stalking', really, he just seems to be having way too much trouble realizing it's over. I mean, I told him I thought maybe the romantic part of our relationship wasn't really working, and maybe we should just go back to being friends. But he's still sending me things like... well, look." She draws her cellphone out again and clicks the screen on, showing you the lockscreen display of text messages.\n\nYou lean in and read aloud. "'Hey, how's your day going?'" You straighten up and shrug. "Seems friendly enough."\n\n"But I know how he means it," she mutters, glancing at the phone.\n\nTrue, between, well, most relationships where someone says 'let's be friends' and the other note you got, you'd have to figure this is more him trying to wait her out to see if he's actually dumped or if they're On A Break. "Okay, but just so I understand the situation, why'd you end it with him in the first place?"\n\nShe purses her lips. "I don't need a reason not to date someone."\n\n"No, you don't, but it sounds like you guys started as friends first and then started going out. For awhile?" At her hesitant nod, you continue, "So probably a couple of years at least. Usually when a relationship like that ends there's a reason, it's not just because."\n\n"... Well." Luna sighs a little, obviously gathering herself. "The thing is, when I came to college, I really decided that I was going to pursue my passions. Not just my classes and interests, but I was going to really grab life by both horns, I was going to go after everything about myself as strong as I could!" she declares, obviously getting a little passionate in the telling. "I looked at everything I'd just said 'good enough' with before and decided no, it wasn't good enough, it could be better! And I felt so good about myself, you know?" she continues, putting a hand to her chest and giving you a warm smile.\n\nThen she sighs and shakes her head. "And Kyle was... I mean, I guess it's not like he hated it, but I don't know that I'd call him supportive. And after an entire year in college, he was still just... my high school boyfriend, you know? But high school was over... and so was our relationship, it was just up to me to tell him," she finishes, unable to keep the sadness out of her voice.\n\nSo yeah, you get it. Luna came to college and made a whole new her, but realized she had the same old boyfriend. You're not certain it's the best reason in the world to end a multi-year relationship, but it's far, far from the worst. "Yeah, I hear you."\n\n"So I'd like to just move on, but he won't," Luna mutters with another pout. "Every time he messages me or bumps into me somewhere, I'm reminded that he's still hoping we'll get back together. It's not even that it sucks just for me, it sucks for him too. How's he going to feel when he 'randomly' bumps into me while I'm on a date or something?"\n\nHm, yeah, you'd have to agree with her that resolving the issue before then is definitely preferable. You can tell she's still a little uncertain about hiring you, so you should say something to put her at ease.\n\n<hr>\n[["Don't worry, we'll figure this out together." (Work with her.)|ValJobs]]\n\n[["Leave it to me, I'll handle it." (Do it yourself.)|ValJobs]]\n\n[["You're in good hands now, Luna. ♥" (Toy with her.)|ValJobs]]

Yeaaaah let's just be honest, when you decided to go "outside" it was because the place where there's tons more games, collectibles, and other fun stuff is outside. Specifically several train stops away. Starting to feel a bit brighter about your departure from your gaming equipment, you turn and head down the stairs, practically trotting down the sidewalk to the train station.\n\nOnce you learned about Akihabara from the internet, it pretty quickly became one of your favorite places. All these exquisite toys and beautiful figurines and so. Many. Games! And other fun stuff that you had no concepts of in your world. ... Well okay you had things that were kiiiinda in the same general vicinity as some of this stuff, but not exactly. Every world has brothels, but this world came up with the idea of cafes where the girls are dressed extremely cute and just act nice to you and flatter you and so on. Who does that?! Japan does that! And you've discovered how charming it can be! How wonderful!\n\nYou take a deep breath as you take out of the station. Ahhh, otakus and consumerism! ... Actually it doesn't smell that good objectively, but. You take a look around, trying to decide what to do. In the process you notice that someone's actually set up a [[job-seeking station|SiphaJobStart]] beside the station entrance/exit, featuring both official pamphlets and a posting board. Huh... not exactly something you <i>need</i>, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try, just to attempt something new if nothing else. Besides, having at least a little income might be good in case your nest egg and "consultant" fees ever dry up.\n\nAnyroad, let's see, down that way is one of the better [[shopping|SiphaAki1x1]] areas, as well as the [[arcades|SiphaAki]], and [[manga cafes|SiphaAki]].\n\nThe other way leads to the [[karaoke bars|SiphaAki]], the [[cafes|SiphaAki]] (maid and otherwise), and the [[host clubs|SiphaAki]] (as well as their even less savory counterparts).

"Y'know, you look vaguely familiar, did you maybe ever work at the Blushing Elf Maiden?" you ask, deciding for a light, casual tone that you hope will relax Aiane. She's just a person, after all, no reason you can't talk with her like one.\n\n"Hm?" The girl frowns a bit and straightens up. "I don't work there, but I live there. Mirielle keeps saying I'm not quite old enough to sign on as one of her girls, so I just go out instead."\n\nA nagging suspicion is starting to build up in the back of your head, but your conscious mind is rejecting it hard. Instead you say, "Hm, the rooms there are really nice and insulated too... I'm sure some of your Mom's friends would like to meet you, if they're still there, Aiane." You fish a gold coin out of your jacket, since you came prepared this time, and proffer it to the girl. "We're not familiar with the city, so if you'd guide us there?"\n\nShe looks rather dubious for a moment, but finally nods and plucks the coin out of your fingers, tucking it away somewhere as she turns and starts walking. "Guess so, follow me."\n\nSoon you spot the familiar building... no girls outside advertising this time. It actually looks a little busier and livelier than when you were here before, but you guess you arrived fairly early that day. This time there's a handful of customers drinking, talking, and playing games in the bar area, as well as a number of girls obviously working, either serving the drinks or dancing attendance on the customers. You don't need to glance over to know Aiane's ears are red, though your new acquaintance seems entirely unfazed... well, she said she lives here, after all, though it kind of looks like not much flaps her. It only takes a moment after the three of you have walked in for the familiar form of the prim-looking 'head maid' of the establishment walks up... actually it looks like the girls are dressed like 'naughty aristocrats' now, and the madam... Mirielle, apparently... looks like she could attend a dance party at the castle without most blinking twice. You do notice her gaze cool perceptibly when she sees you, though there's also the faintest flash of something else in her eyes... fear? But then it's gone, turning to just as brief and suppressed a moment of shock as she sees Aiane. But she doesn't let her stop her for more than a moment as she walks over to stand in front of you.\n\n"Mister Leo. Welcome back to the Blushing Elf Maiden."\n\n"Thanks. Ah, ma'am, I wanted to introduce you... this is my and Starielle's son, Aiane."\n\n"Aiane, it's a pleasure," she says formally, bowing her head slightly, and not so much glancing aside as she adds, "If you would, Leonalith?" The caramel-skinned elf beside you freezes from having turned to go, and quickly pulls on a mask of indifference as she turns back and settles in (slightly sulkily) at your side again. "Now. Aiane, my name is Mirielle, and I was your mother's acquaintance and manager for some many years. Mm..." She looks him up and down briefly, then actually gives him a small smile. "I see a bit of your mother in you... even if it's mostly your father." ... Ow. How did she manage to say that last bit so that the fact she was unhappy about it was audible to everyone but Aiane? At least you heard it, and you're pretty sure Aiane didn't hear it because he's smiling without reservation... and Leonalith definitely heard it to judge by that little kittenish smirk of hers. "Hm, now, I do wish to talk to you a bit more, but I've a few other things to take care of. Did your mother ever get around to teaching you Discalotora?"\n\n"No ma'am," Aiane answers in that perfect polite youthful voice that you're fairly sure causes some pairs of ovaries in the room to do a hitch to judge from the glances.\n\n"I see, well that's a shame. Leonalith is quite good at it... if you would, Leonalith, teach him the game?" The girl rolls her eyes, but apparently she's either starting to like Aiane or she doesn't disobey her apparent surrogate parent, because she heads for one of the tables in the bar while beckoning to your son. As she goes past, Mirielle snags her by the upper arm and looks at her over her glasses. "<i>Just</i> teach him Discalotora, understood?"\n\nCrap.\n\nAs the two teenagers head to a table, and safely out of earshot, Mirielle looks back at you rubbing your face with one hand and quirks an eyebrow. "Starting to recall that you left something behind the last time you were here, Mister Leo?"\n\n"Yeaaaah," you grumble, rolling your eyes as your hand slips off your chin. "Dammit. Starielle told me our birth control methods canceled each other out, but somehow it never occurred to me that the other girl was probably using the same kind."\n\n"I wonder why," the madam says coolly, before holding up a hand at your frustrated look. "... I'm sorry, I'm not being fair. Especially since even with the methods we use, these things still happen, it's simply a hazard of the job. Leonalith is hardly the first child born in these walls and I doubt she'll be the last. Excuse my slight shift of subject, but... Starielle, is she well? Are you two together now?"\n\n"Yeah, she's great... she's actually on a mission with my sister right now," you explain with a wry grin, still trying to process everything in the back of your mind as you look over towards the table where your so-... your offspring... are playing some board game with numerous little colored checker-like pieces. Then you shake your head. "We're not a couple, no, I didn't know about Aiane until he was about ten. Since then we've both been his parents, but never really-"\n\n"Hey Leooooooooooo!" comes a happy squeal from off to the side.\n\nYou turn just in time to get ballistic hugged by a busty brown elf with a bright smile and dancing yellow eyes. 'Oh crap oh crap oh crap her name is, it was, it was uhhhhh-' "Um, hey, Kaialith," you say, grinning a little sheepishly at her.\n\n"Hiiii! Wow, it's been so long since you dropped in! That was a heck of a night we had with Starielle, even all these years later I remember that one, 'specially since it turned out to be a goodbye fling with my friend, y'know?" Kaialith smiles brightly at you without reservation... before her own smile turns sheepish and she steps back, still grinning as she looks aside and brushes a fingertip against her cheek. "So heeeeeeeeeey, there was something I wanted to tell you!"\n\n"Yeah, I know already, I met her," you can't help but be a bit flat as you say.\n\n"Oh, really?! Whew, that's some worry off of me on how to tell you!" Kaialith puts her hands on her hips and laughs brightly, while you and Mirielle each put a hand to your face. "Man that was waaaay less awkward than I was worrying about, hahahaha!"\n\n"So, uh... is everything okay with you two?" you ask, unable to help frowning a little now. "I met Leonalith... wait, you named her after me?"\n\n"Sure! Why not?"\n\n"That's... ... well, I mean thank you. Er, what I mean is, I met her out on the street, apparently she's, well... ... she's out soliciting on the street?"\n\n"Oh, yeah. I mean it's not like I encouraged her or anything, y'know, Mirielle and I both told her all that she was growing up 'You can be whatever you want to be and we'll help make it happen' but she seems to want to do this, you know?"\n\n"Which would not be a problem, but I often wonder how much of her desire is shaped by the fact that she knows very little other than this world," Mirielle murmurs, shaking her head. "We sent her to outside schools, and have both done what we can to expose her to outside elements as much as possible, but this is where she comes home to, after all... I suspect it is very comfortable for her, she's simply 'settling' into it."\n\n"Which, hey, Leo, actually we kinda discussed something if you ever showed up, y'know?" Kaialith beams as she says, "How about you take Leonalith back to that 'Guildhall' of yours with you for awhile?"\n\n"Uh." Wow, this is all moving... very fast, you haven't even gotten to tell Leonalith you're her father yet, and they're already asking you to take her home with you. \n\n"Just, y'know, for a few years. Like maybe five at the most?" Kaialith continues blithely, holding up one hand with her fingers spread. "Show her some stuff that's not here, let her see a different sort of life, maybe take her some fun places?"\n\n"I do have to concur," Mirielle cuts in smoothly. "It would do Leonalith some good to experience a broader taste of what the world... in your case, universe... has to offer. If in five years time she'd still like to come back and become a worker here, I would welcome her back with open arms, feeling secure that she had been shown other options."\n\nWell. They've got it all worked out, don't they? You glance back and forth between the two, Kaialith beaming and cheerful as if unaware of the enormity of what she's asking, Mirielle even and calm with a look in her eyes that says she's fully aware of the enormity of what she's asking and just daring you to not be man enough for the task.\n\n<hr>\n[[No way, nuh-uh.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[Yeaaah, okay.|LeoSon]]\n\n[[... Kaialith has to come too.|LeoSon1x7]]

"So it's you," you snort, urging just a little more power into the spirit, enough so it can properly hear you and respond. "Awful long way from some pastoral fields, aren't you?"\n\n"Konkoooo, I'm sorryyyyyy," the spirit whimpers, the long misty trail of it flicking back and forth, practically quivering in a mixture of dread and sorrow. "I didn't meeeeean tooooo!"\n\n"You didn't mean to help give the humans the energy to perform the ritual those asshole gods gave them?" you reply with a derisive snort.\n\n"... They said I had to," the spirit answers, its 'voice' becoming even more of an indistinct whisper on the wind. "They said if I didn't, they'd destroy me. I wasn't as strong as you... they could have done it."\n\n"So you let me be sealed away instead. And look at you here, just a few meager centuries later, on the verge of disappearing anyway." You scowl at the swirling mist. "Fat lot of good it did you, huh?"\n\n"I was scared. I was scared, I was scared, I was scared!" the fading spirit wails, quivering, before slowly descending through the air in an exhausted swirl. "... but you're right... you're right... I betrayed you... I'm sorry... I'm really sorry, I never wanted to and I'm sorry..."\n\n<hr>\n[[Hmph. Sorry doesn't give you back all those centuries!|KonFren]]\n\n[[... well...|KonFren1x3]]

Skooma

"Let's bring in that 'Red' monster hunter," you suggest.\n\n"Yes, my queen! I cannot wait to see what you have planned for a human who has the audacity to even slay demons!" Xenith chirps happily as she and the others go to work, while you whip up an entrance area for her.\n\nSoon the crystal is focused on a tall, dome-shaped cavern with numerous tunnels branching off from it. The portal opens, and with a yelp a form in peach and red drops out of it and thuds to the floor with a loud 'OOF!', the portal quickly closing. The infamous monster hunter is of course a beautiful young woman with pretty blonde hair and gorgeous blue eyes... wearing little more than a black bikini (the top of which barely covers the nipples of her particularly large breasts), boots, gloves, and the hooded crimson half-cape from which she likely takes her name.\n\n"Hahaha! Ow, that was quite a bit further of a drop than I thought!" she declares, already smiling as she sits up from her sprawled position.\n\n<img src="images/Red.jpg">\n\nShe looks around quickly, then blinks as she turns her gaze upward. "Whoa," she murmurs, spotting the hole you left in the ceiling. "Did I fall all the way from up there? Geez, I'm lucky all I got was a sore butt," she adds before leaping to her feet, breasts and said sore butt both jiggling visibly. "Hm... doesn't quite look like the same cave system. ... No tracks or spoor though," she adds as she glances around at the floor and walls. "Lots of passages... ... well, one's as good as another for trying to get out, I guess," she adds, before setting off down one of the tunnels.\n\n"Of course, I set them all to go to different fates for her," you note to Xenith.\n\n"Oooo, I'm atwitter with excitement, my queen! Which one did she pick?!"\n\n<hr>\n[[The arena.|RedArenaStart]]\n\n[[The courtroom.|RedCourtStart]]\n\n[[The dinner table.|RedCourtStart]]\n\n[[The zoo.|RedZooStart]]\n\n[[The orc room. Natch.|RedOrcsStart]]

"Hm... oh, hey, did we ever do anything with that Tifa Lockhart we summoned?" you ask suddenly, glancing over at Xenith.\n\n"We did not, your excellency, she's been 'on hold', so to speak," your assistant succubus answers, gesturing to the crystal and showing the busty brawler still wandering through the stone tunnel full of glowing crystal lights. "We've been using a mild bit of mind magic to make her not notice how much time is passing. Would you like to do something with her now?"\n\n<hr>\n<<if $cowtifa is false>>[[Let's put her out to pasture!|CowTifa]]<<endif>><<if $cowtifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's been turned into a brainless cow, routinely getting fucked and milked. You can have a succubus bring you some of her milk, if you like!<<endif>>\n\n<<if $orctifa is false>>[[Send her to an orc room!|TifaOrcs]]<<endif>><<if $orctifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's being eternally gangbanged by orcs. Wonder how many big green cocks she's got inside of her right now? Well, you can always check the crystal if you want to know!<<endif>>\n\n<<if $titstifa is false>>[[Let's have her set off a booby trap!|TifaHourglass]]<<endif>><<if $titstifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's been turned into little more than a life support system for a pair of tits and a giant ass. She's probably still down there pretty much filling that room, wiggling and orgasming constantly.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $chocotifa is false>>[[Let's give her stable employment!|TifaChocobo]]<<endif>><<if $chocotifa is true>>You already have a Tifa that's been turned into a chocobo breeder. She's no doubt either taking a big chocobo dick or laying a nice big egg right about now!<<endif>>\n\nHm... are you having trouble of thinking of something to do? You could always [[release Tifa|MaxTifaRelease]] and then go do something else.

Makoto squeaks cutely as you lean in to kiss the side of his neck, before he beams beatifically at you. "I can reaally become exactly the me that I want to be?!"\n\n"You can," you assure him, grinning as you straighten up. "Now, this is a path that requires you to work hard too," you note, raising a finger to indicate you're serious. "You can't just show up once a year and have this incanatation done. You have to truly seek out who you want to be."\n\n"But I know who I want to be, Sipha-neechan!" Makoto declares enthusiastically. "I wanna be a strong hero!"\n\nYou grin and reach out to ruffle his... hat, since he's replaced it already, rubbing it around atop his hair. "But you'll need to find out what that means for you. Don't worry, you'll figure it out more the older you get. Lots of people question who and what they want to be... you have to have conviction. And you have to do your best between our visits to be that person too."\n\nHe looks at you silently for long moments, then nods eagerly. "I think I get it! If I want to be a strong hero... I have to act like a strong hero! I have to do what I can, and the spell will help me out!"\n\n"That's pretty much it, yeah." You wink at him, tapping his nose. "So be a good kid, Makoto, and I'll see you next year, alright?"\n\n"Okay, Sipha-neechan! I promise, I'll become a hero you can be proud of!"\n\nAnd that's how it goes, year after year. Little by little, you watch Makoto grow up, seeming stronger and more energetic every time you visit him. He continues to be rather slender and short, compared to the other boys, but even by the next year he looks healthier and more full of energy, greeting you brightly and without reservation. Every so often you drop by the park, keeping yourself at a distance so as not to intrude on his life, just watching. In comparison to that shrinking violet that literally faded into the scenery the first time you saw him, now he's the kid that always wants to climb the highest, run the fastest, engage in every challenge and be a good sport about it, and never once do you see him be anything less than kind or fair to the other kids he's playing with.\n\n'... Makoto, you really do make me proud,' you think one day as you stand there watching him help a smaller boy up and soothe his tears. 'To think that a NEET like me, someone who stumbled out of an epic story before the end, could inspire someone like you... yeah, that's worth being proud of.'\n\nYears go by, and you look forward more and more to those bright, sweet calls of 'Sipha-neechan!' In fact today you're waiting on it because he's sitting with a girl and talking gently with her as she cries over something on her cellphone. 'He grew up to be such a beautiful boy,' you think, looking at his long white hair, slender body in its immaculate white shirt and blue jeans, pretty face solemn and gentle as he speaks inaudibly to the crying girl. 'He could have been a complete heartbreaker... instead here he is comforting others for their broken hearts. Makoto... you really are the best.'\n\nStill, you can't help but feel relieved as he stands and hurries towards you, seeing him start to smile again. "Sipha-neechan!" he calls, waving before arriving in front of you. "Sipha-neechan, guess what! My kendo team won the nationals!"\n\n"Way to go, Makoto!" you gush back, feeling honest excitement flood your chest. You grin, reaching out to flick your thumb along his cheek. "Bet it was 'cause of you, huh?"\n\n"Eheheh, I mean, it was because of everyone, but I did work really hard for it," he admits, ducking his head bashfully. "Everyone said they were relying on me, and I didn't want to let them down."\n\n"... You've grown up to be such a wonderful person," you say quietly, actually feeling yourself choke up a little, eyes hot as you rest both hands along his fine jaw. "I'm gonna miss you, Makoto."\n\nThe look that comes over his face looks like you just punched him in the forehead. "W-what? Sipha-neechan, are... are you going somewhere?"\n\n"No... I'm not going anywhere," you murmur, shaking your head, then smiling at him as you fight to keep the tears in. "But you obviously are, Makoto. You've become that hero you always wanted to be, always strived to be. This is probably going to be the last time we ever see each other... then I'll go back to my video games, and you'll go off to make the world yours."\n\n"But... Sipha-neechan, I can't... I can't do that without you," he whispers, clearly losing the fight to keep his own tears in as they slip down his cheeks and along your fingers. "You're the one who's allowed me to become what I want to be. Without you, I..."\n\n"Without me, I think you still would have become strong and brave and good, Makoto. I just helped you along and made sure you were healthy too. I... am really, really proud of you," you whisper, unable to keep your voice from cracking. "But... this is the last time. If there are any changes left to be made for you to be who you want to be, they'll happen this year. I don't know what those will be, or who you'll be at the end of them..." Your smiling lips tremble as you bring them to your lips. "But I don't think that will be someone who needs me. ... Spirits of this world... heed my urging and answer my entreaty," you whisper, forcing your voice to be steady, despite watching Makoto's heart breaking in his pretty pink eyes. "I ask you to watch over this boy, Makoto, as he completes his growth. Please answer this call, and see that he becomes what he wants to be," you finish softly, murmuring the last word against his neck as you kiss it softly. Then you sniff sharply and step back, making sure your smile is in place again. "There! All done! So... so long," you conclude, giving him a quick wave and whirling around, doing your best not to break into a run.\n\n"Wait!" Makoto lurches forward, grabbing your wrist, making you stop in place though you can't bear to turn and look at him. But you can hear the conviction in his voice as he says, "Sipha-neechan, please come see me one more time. A year from now. Like always, come see me just one more time."\n\n"... Makoto, we don't need to, the spell's-"\n\n"It's not about the spell!" he snaps, before urging softly, "Please, Sipha-neechan. I've been working on something for years... but now, I promise, this next year, I'm going to devote my absolute everything to it! I <i>need</i> you to see the results! Promise me, Sipha-neechan! Just one more time, one year from now! Promise me!"\n\nYour shoulders trembling, with it taking everything you have not to break down, you finally nod, silently promising. Only then does Makoto release your wrist and allow you to flee, not quite managing to leave the park before you start sobbing.\n\n<img src="images/OYL.png" alt="One year later...">\n\nYou sit and stare at the calender on the wall. The date is circled, not that you really needed to. Similarly you didn't actually need the alert on your AI assistant, even though it's chiming at you over and over again. Because today's the day. One year since you said goodbye to Makoto, telling him that he didn't need you anymore, and he forced you to promise you'd come anyway. But has anything changed about what you said? You're still just a NEET elf living day to day playing your games, locking out the outside world. ... It hurt... so much to say goodbye to Makoto. To watch him grow into someone who was, if you admit it, better and stronger than you ever were. A far more admirable person who didn't have to wait until he was an adult to be someone worthwhile in more than magical ability. How much more would it hurt to say goodbye again?\n\n... Worse, what if in the year since then, he realized that what you said back then was right? That he doesn't need you and that you're just a waste of his time? What if he didn't even bother to show up to the meeting he begged and pleaded with you to be at, because you really didn't matter anymore? Could you live through that?\n\n... Could you live with it if you broke your promise to him?\n\n<hr>\n[[Go to the meeting.|SiphaKids3xa1]]\n\n[[Hide inside.|SiphaKids3xb1]]

All characters are fictional. Like super, duper, ultra fictional. Never existed. Don't exist. They have not ceased to be, they never were.\n\nOh yeah and all of them are portrayed by characters over eighteen. However that works for fictional people.\n\nAhem. Anyway. Also like has been said like a billion times on the start page, this is only meant to be played by someone over eighteen who is allowed to look at all of the various sexual stuff portrayed here. If you're not supposed to be looking at any of it and you do, you are just absolutely terrible. Go turn yourself in to the police for a beating right now.\n\nKhajiit accepts no responsibility for legal troubles, family troubles, emotional upset, social justice offense, or lost lunch that occurs from playing of khajiit's game. Thank you.\n\n[[Back.|Start]]

You pluck the image, voice, and behaviors of his mother from Ryo's head, then pop yourself to the other side of his door, simultaneously taking on her appearance... ah, it's so nice to live in a day and age where diet, beauty treatments, and medical care lead to so many hot moms! You make sure to manifest her nurse's outfit from work, briefly adjusting the little hat perched atop your now braided black hair and smoothing out the skirt over your round hips. Taking a moment to snicker and giggle to yourself, you clear your throat into the proper voice before plastering an outraged expression on your face and throwing open the door with a slam. "RYO!"\n\n"WAGYAHA?!" Ryo had just been unzipping his pants and wiggling them down when you made your entrance, his flailing flinging the doujinshi to (conveniently) flop open in front of him.\n\nYou don't even bother to look at it... you're fully aware that in his current state, 'Mom caught me' is the only explanation he needs. "How dare you?!" you demand as you stomp across the floor towards him. "Pretending to be sick, just so you can stay at home and look at <i>filth</i>?!"\n\n"M-Mom, wait, I can explain, I WAWK!" he yelps out as you abruptly drop to sit on the bed and yank him forward across your lap, pressing him over the snug white miniskirt portion of your nurse's dress. (Really, his mother's employers must be a bit lewd themselves, you should look into visiting the hospital where she works sometime!) His eyes go wide as you yank down his already undone and loosened pants along with his underwear, baring his ass and letting his still half-hard cock press against your currently rather thicc thigh. "Mom?!"\n\n"This is for being such a naughty boy!" you declare in an utterly serious Mother Tone, before swinging your hand down and swatting his pert ass. He yips in startlement, continuing to make amusing yelps and yowls as you start spanking him regularly, making sure to use plenty of overlap so that the gradually pinker handprints cover most of that adorably (and slightly moreso once you've gone to work) round boybutt. "Here I am going to work, working hard every day, while your sister studies diligently, and you're in here doing lewd things to yourself, looking at filthy comics you shouldn't even have!"\n\n"I'm sorry~!" he wails, his face flushed and tears running down his cheeks. Ah, even if you weren't watching his body's reactions, his thoughts would be truly delightful... a heady mixture of multiple types of intense embarrassment and humiliation, partly at being caught, partly at being bottomless and bent over his rather hot mother's lap, her hand smacking his bare ass and his cock rubbing against her short skirt and thigh, enough to leave a few smears of pre soaking into the white hose that the uniform includes. Some of that's natural... you did give him a really good shock while he was all turned-on and about to masturbate, the sudden rush of adrenaline had already started to create a connection in his mind, you're just egging it on the tiniest bit with your magic to nurture it!\n\n"You had better be sorry!" you declare, bringing your hand down on his dark pink ass, hard enough to make him yowl lightly. You let your hand rest there momentarily as if it weren't an issue, "utterly by accident" letting one of your fingertips brush against his pucker and making him squirm. "Now, you know what you have to do now, yes?"\n\n"W-what's that, Mom?" he whimpers.\n\n<hr>\n[["Never be lewd again!" (Continue pranking him.)|Konko]]\n\n[["Get rid of all your filth!" (Complete pranking him.)|Konko]]\n\n[["Never speak of this again!" (Go check out the hospital.)|Konko]]\n\n[["Fuck Mommy!" (Fuck him. ... Duh.)|Konko]]

"Red alert!" you blurt. "Shields up! Prepare to repel boarders!"\n\nThe bridge crew all simply looks stunned for a moment, but to the security chief and ops officer's credits, they're the first to respond, immediately flinging themselves to their boards and typing in, a siren starting to blare as red lights flash.\n\nAlmost in that same moment, there's a stretching flicker in the sky, and a slightly smaller but much sleeker and more deadly-looking ship than the space hulk appears, a beam immediately blazing out from it to hit the <i>Venture</i> with enough force that you can feel the deck shudder.\n\n"Dateher, report!" Captain Stroker snaps.\n\n"It is a tractor beam and it is also draining our shields. Wait, a signal is being sent through it to resonate with the shields and... multiple transporter signatures, sir!" she calls, raising her voice slightly to convey urgency as she whips up.\n\nIndeed there's a high whining noise and flickers of light starting to coalesce into bipedal but forward-slung forms. You whip your sidearm up and fire into one of them, the being inside giving a reflexive shriek as its transporter pattern is dispersed just before it can fully coalesce. But the others take form, though the big wolfman at the upper level is already on one before it can do more than turn its head, letting out a vicious howl as he grapples with it and quickly snaps its neck. Two more of the massive leathery-skinned predators are already leaping on the two officers at the forward stations, claws slicing through Dateher's uniform but scrabbling across her silver skin ineffectively, before she swings a fist hard and fast at its head, the sound of bone crunching preceding it flying backwards a good ten feet to slam against the currently unoccupied chair to the left of the central seat. The red-uniformed officer at the helm isn't so lucky, screaming as he's eviscerated by the alien's wicked claws, his scream gurgling into silence as its jaws close on his throat. Your blast and Captain Stroker's hit the alien at the same time, the combined blasts enough to cause it to give a surprised and aggravated screech as it disintegrates into orange mist.\n\n"Raptarrans," you huff. "We have to get out of here, now!"\n\n"Their tractor beam is now maintaining our shields, but at a frequency we are not in control of," Lieutenant Dateher informs all of you after a brief check of her board, apparently unperturbed by her chrome tits hanging out of her shredded uniform top. "We will not be able to beam through them."\n\n"Check for any areas of low coverage, my ship's teleporter might be able to get us through there," you urge.\n\nDateher's silver fingers fly over the board, before she nods. "Yes, there is a very small window in one of the shuttlebays where there is almost no shield coverage."\n\n"Alright, we'll have to head there with who we have now," you say, glancing at the three command staff and small handful of junior officers. "Any minute now they'll figure out their bridge team actually got repelled, and they'll only be amused for about ten seconds before they send over another, larger one."\n\n"What about the rest of the crew?" Captain Stroker asks with a frown. "Our people who are off the ship?"\n\n"There's nothing we can do, this ship is probably swarming with Raptarrans and it will be all we can do to get ourselves out. Even if we could repel the boarders, that ship's full of thousands more and we won't get away from it. We need to run."\n\nCaptain Stroker hesitates for the barest second. You're aggravated considering the danger you're all in, then remind yourself it's his entire crew he has to think about. "Are you sure nothing could be done?"\n\n<hr>\n[[No, nothing.|FioTrek]]\n\n[[... Well, maybe one thing...|FioTrek1x3]]

Probably best to spend the day accumulating some potential jobs. That will give you the rest of the week to spend doing any necessary research or prep work, and completing any of the easier tasks themselves, and saving anything that might require more footwork or interaction for the weekend.\n\nYou have a very simple, discrete system that is spread by word of mouth. Since a lot of people feel awkward about voicing their requests directly, especially to someone purported to be a witch, you have an indirect way of taking requests. That being that when you visibly park yourself in a booth in the student center's food court, it means you're available and taking requests. The method of those requests is ingenious for two reasons... that method being, to buy you a carton of french fries from the 'Spuds McFrenzy' stand nearby. The fry boxes are constructed in such a way that a folded piece of paper can easily be tucked into the back between the folds and the actual back of the container, so that they don't get fry oil and salt all over them. This allows people to drop off their requests discretely without feeling embarrassed, and also allows you to accrue a fuckton of french fries. (You might be a little addicted. Luckily between a still teenaged metabolism and a bit of minor magic to help you turn food into literal energy rather than calories, you can eat all you want.)\n\nYou intend to sit there for a good long while today, and clearly either people who have been waiting notice or word gets around, because soon people are walking by and setting cartons of fries on your table, with varying levels of success in seeming casual about it. Some act like such smooth operators that they have to have practiced it by themselves, which makes you smirk a bit, others dart furtive glances at you and almost stumble as they're walking away. You pluck the message out... sometimes on torn scraps of notebook paper, others neatly typed and folded, and virtually everything between... and set them in your bag, not wanting to be seen reading them in public. Discretion is, again, sort of the point after all. Instead you look at your phone, tapping at it and seeming absorbed, letting people think you're not even looking at them as they drop off their pleas for salvation.\n\nEventually when even you've had all the fries you can stand, you slip your messenger bag strap up onto your shoulder and stand, giving the guy who works at Spuds McFrenzy a wink in passing, which he chuckles and returns. The two of you have a bit of agreement... he keeps your table clear (both of people that might want to use it and of the trash you leave), and you quintuple his business every time you drop by. You head out to a more distant corner of the campus, one that's a lightly wooded parklike area. For the first few weeks it's always populated by students trying to do things they've seen in the brochures, like reading under a tree, but by now those have pretty much all cleared out and left it a private spot. You settle down behind one of the larger trees, where you'll be out of sight of anyone approaching from the walking path, and start pulling out notes.\n\nThere are a handful of types of requests that always get discarded immediately. One of those is requests for answer sheets for future tests... you're perfectly fine with someone asking to be made luckier, or smarter, or given more time to study somehow, but answer sheets? You're not some common 'fixer'. Another is requests for horrible things to happen to teachers or politicians that have simply angered the petitioner with something they've said (or just by existing)... if it's an actual personal issue you might consider intervening, but "Can you believe this shit?!" outrage is beneath you. And then of course there's just the 'blatantly horny' missives... "I need to get laid", "End my dry spell", "big tiddy goth gf plz". You're not rejecting them on principle of despising horniness, just lack of imagination... if they're so anyone-would-do hard up, they can hire a prostitute, which you are not. Most of the 'rejects' you simply crumple up and toss in a small trashbag you keep in your bag, but a few are annoying or offensive enough to go in your 'hex' pile. (You suppose it could be considered poor business practice to drop bad luck on people that make requests with you, but there's also something to be said for making it clear that you're not to be trifled with.) There are also several that just get discarded for not including the proper information.\n\nYou sort out another stack for the simple requests that you can do as a matter of course once you get paid for them... luck charms, health & beauty remedies, things like that. Then it's time to turn your attention to the actually engaging requests... the ones that will probably require you to go speak to the petitioner face-to-face to get more details and decide how you want to handle the matter.\n\nFirst off there's [[a girl who says a guy won't leave her alone|ValJobs4x1]]. It sounds like they may have gone out a few times before she broke it off and he won't take the hint. You doubt it's gotten too bad since she's coming to you instead of the campus police, but it's definitely the sort of thing you can handle.\n\nThe next is [[a guy who's heartbroken after being left by his girl|ValJobs3x1]]. ... Wait, could it be...? You hold the two up at the same time and look back and forth between them. There's enough commonality of phrasing that it seems distinctly possible that this is in fact the guy from the first request. Ha! Now that's interesting, you've never actually had this happen before, though you suppose it was probably inevitable. \n\nThere's the head of a sorority who [[says their sorority house is haunted|ValJobs1x1]]. You've communed with spirits before, though you've never taken care of a full-fledged haunting, if that's what it is. Still, one of the reasons you take these jobs is to push yourself and expand your boundaries, it might be good practice.\n\nThere's also a guy who [[thinks he's been cursed|ValJobs2x1]]. There are a lot of people that think that when they have a little run of bad luck, but the obvious worry bordering on panic in this note does make you think it could be something more serious. Might be worth looking into... if nothing else, if it's an authentic curse, breaking it should power you up nicely.

'High fantasy' is the sort of default MMO dynamic, even the VR ones... it's also the one with the most potential for weird and wild things to happen to you, in your opinion, which has your heart thumping rapidly as you make your way over towards that section. Finally, after all this time, when you tank for your team or go in for a killing blow on a boss only to get smacked down, something more might happen than just a status effect icon! \n\nYou step up to the section, which you notice is ringed mostly by weapons racks, effectively forming a barrier around the clothing section within. As you step close to the shelves, there's a shimmer in the air and then a burst of purple sparkles, heralding the appearance of a tiny woman... or rather a fairy, considering the rapidly-fluttering wings. She's brown-skinned, with pale purple hair with a 'crown' braid tied with a pink bow and sparkling blue quad-wings, wearing an outfit on her luscious little body that can best be described as 'two large squares of blue cloth tied on by more pink ribbons'... well, that, and matching leg-sheaths.\n\n<img src="images/Moonsugar.jpg">\n\n"Hiiiii! Moonsugar the helper fairy here!" she chirps happily. "Looks like you're interested in heading to the High Fantasy area! Since this is your first time, let me explain how this section works. While Devious Dive doesn't have a strict 'class' system, for certain areas like this you'll be starting off with certain base skills and equipment, based off of the type of weapon you choose. You can learn whatever skills and abilities you want over the course of the game through a lot of different methods, picking a weapon just gives you an early framework to work off of! Once you've chosen one, you can go inside and pick an appropriate outfit to go with it!"\n\nAh, makes sense... even most 'sandboxed, no classes' RPGs still have starting stats and things like that. You guess picking a weapon is as good a place as any to start it, so you start looking through the racks at what's available.\n\n<hr>\n[[Zweihander.|YamiHF1x1]]\n\n[[Bow.|YamiHF]]

You're not particularly stressed, but then do you really have to be to engage in retail therapy? Or at the very least the windowshopping equivalent thereof. Besides, the area in question is actually within walking distance of the campus (or at least the bus route for it is), making it less expensive to actually go out and about.\n\nSoon you're strolling down the sidewalk through the rows of 'we totally refinished these buildings but left them looking kind of old on purpose' shops, along with an authentically new one here and there. While you do intend to actually go browsing around, whenever you're in the area you always make your first stop one store in particular, especially if you haven't been by in awhile. 'Necessities' is a simply-named place, but it does in fact have a nice assortment of basic necessities for a variety of pagan religions... and also for actual practitioners like yourself. But more than that, you visit it to see the proprieter.\n\nAs expected when you walk in, he's behind the counter, and gives you a smile and a little wave as you walk over. Orrin has pale, almost white hair and pinkish-red eyes, his skin pale enough that the reason for both is fairly obvious. He's not a full practitioner himself, more a dabbler... his power runs more towards a 'talent', meaning a specific magical ability that's innate rather than learned. That being that he picks up gossip and current events out of nowhere rather than needing to be told or overhear it like other people.\n\n"Morning, Orrin, how's it going?" you ask, stopping in front of the counter and resting a hand on your bag.\n\n"Doing okay, Val. Been awhile, everything alright?"\n\n"Yeah, just thought I'd drop in, since it has been awhile. Anything interesting going on?"\n\n"A few things, I guess." He considers for a moment... you wonder if he's checking for anything new since the last time anyone asked, or if he's just trying to remember the last time you were in... before he continues. "Well, old man Samedi died..."\n\n"Oh wow, really?" That makes you quirk your eyebrows. "I hadn't heard anything."\n\n"Well apparently the family didn't want it spread around too much. But apparently his nephew's taken over [[Samedi's Antiques|ValNA]], and he's selling stuff off at rock-bottom prices, probably trying to clear the store out. Probably has no idea what half of it is or what it's actually worth, so you might get a bargain there. Just be careful."\n\n"Yeah, I know, who knows what that old devil-worshiper did to half that stuff. Still, you're right, there's probably some finds to be made there."\n\n"Oh, and you know that big building a block over, the old warehouse they thought no one would ever rent? Well, someone bought it, a pretty powerful witch apparently, and she's turning it into a [[nightclub|ValNA]]... apparently it's going to have a special VIP area for practitioners."\n\n"Wow, I've heard about 'clued-in clubs' but never thought we'd get one here."\n\n"I know, right? Well, anyway, there's one other new person in the area, she rented a shopfront but it's not actually open yet. She claims to be a scientist who's investigating the occult."\n\n"One of <i>those</i>," you mutter, rolling your eyes.\n\n"This one seems pretty serious, at least, she does apparently want to open the storefront as a business at some point, and she's [[looking for people to help|ValNA1x1]]." He grins some, and raises a hand to his chest. "Of course, you could always make me feel good and reveal that you really came [[to see my new stock|ValNA2x1]] instead of just getting the occult 411."

"Diore, bear right!" you call, tilting that way yourself.\n\n"What the fuck, kid?!" Niobe snaps back, even as the mouse boy semi-reflexively follows your order, shooting down one of the Street Demons that had actually been making a beeline for the huddled chemlord. \n\n"Just trust me! Make for that corner!" You keep doing your job, putting down more Street Demons and occasionally scooping up a fresh gun and tossing it Diore's way when you hear one of his click empty. Once the three of you have moved into a more defensive position, you tell Niobe, "Okay, set her down, take over guarding and I'mma try to get through to Moore." Once Cammy's been laid on the floor and Niobe's back to being a raging lioness, you go to a knee and lean in, reaching into Moore's hood to put your hands on her cheeks and tilt her head up. "Moore, hey, Moore, listen! Focus!"\n\n"Wha?" She stares at you with dull, almost milky eyes. "Wha? Dead yet?"\n\n"No Moore, you're not dead, you're gonna live, but I need you to focus, okay? Focus up for me, what've you got that'll get you thinking?"\n\nThat last actually seems to get through to her, and with jerky, slightly halting motions she brings her finger to the holopad projected from her wrist and stabs at it. A moment later she sucks in a hard breath, and her eyes clear... moving from dull to glassy, but now actually focusing on you despite her dilated pupils. "Yeah okay yeah I'm thinking what is it Kai how do we live?"\n\n"Can you get her on her feet?" you ask, putting a hand on the unconscious Cammy's shoulder.\n\n"Maybe maybe but she might oh wait gene soldier okay yeah I can do that forty-five seconds I can do that in forty-five seconds yeah," she mutters rapidfire to herself, drawing out a glowing yellow vial from within her coat and plugging it into an aperture on her glove.\n\n"Kid, c'mon!" Niobe calls as more Street Demons start diverting from other fights to attack your huddled group, perhaps having noticed you're close to the exit.\n\n"Just a little longer!" you urge, before Cammy suddenly gasps loudly, her eyes snapping open wide and her upper body lurching upright. Without waiting you grab one of her arms and haul it over your shoulders, pulling her up as you get to your feet. "Okay, let's go!"\n\n"Iiiiii do not feel so good but also fantastic," the pretty purple-haired woman groans, wobbling a bit against you even as she manages to start taking steps with your movement.\n\n"Yeah that's normal that's pretty standard that happens a lot that's me most of the time OH SHIT!"\n\nUnfortunately while your group is able to move better with Cammy actually mobile, having three people that are effectively noncombatants has left an opening, a short but extremely burly Street Demon hurling himself through the air towards you bellowing like some beast from the Dark. His flight is abruptly cancelled, however, as a hand grabs the top of his head and yanks back, then twists sharply to one side with multiple audible snaps. Adam opens his hand to let the dead man drop to the ground, the android's face still composed despite his dented face and one arm ending abruptly, trailing a few dripping tubes and inert cables. Without a word he turns and marches to the exit, holding it open for the rest of you before stepping through after you and slamming it closed hard enough to twist the edges of the door in the frame.\n\n"I will see Moore home from here, to ease your tasks," he says simply, before beckoning to the glassy-eyed woman who scampers towards him like a puppy.\n\n"Thanks, Adam," Niobe murmurs, hesitating briefly before adding, "I owe you one."\n\n"Thank you. I will keep the level of your debt in mind, considering you assisted Moore." With that he turns and walks off, Moore clinging to the back of his tattered jacket with both gloved hands.\n\n"What's with them?" you ask, shifting Cammy a little to get her a bit more on her feet.\n\n"Long story," the injured woman whispers, voice hitching a little.\n\n"No time for it now, let's get the hell out of here," Niobe adds, gesturing one way down the alley. "No way we're going through the melee, head there and look for a door marked with a curvy X in red or white paint."\n\nThe path back to Niobe's place is long and circuitous, involving a lot of back alleys, access panels, and moving through the back areas of shops and the utility rooms of apartment buildings. But finally Niobe hauls open the heavy door of what looks like an old blast bunker and ushers the rest of you inside. It's a bit more kept-up in here than you might have expected... cleaner, obviously refurbished, more people with various obvious animal traits rushing over and taking Cammy from you to carry her into one of the back rooms.\n\n"What's the lowdown?" Niobe asks one of the ones who remains, a brown-skinned girl maybe a bit younger than you with 'spots' across her face and shoulders and a long ponytail that curves up at the end, wearing a black zip-up bodysuit.\n\n"... It's looking like everyone at the sound lounge is probably dead," the girl answers quietly, averting her eyes. "A couple of Slicers might have gotten away but they're in the wind if they did. Same for the ones who were outside... we know Kieran, Leo, and Hipsa are dead, no word on Jule and Joey. Someone thinks they saw Jule go off with the Freedroids, but... they're not sure."\n\n"... Fuck," Niobe hisses, putting her hands to her face and stalking off in a random direction.\n\nThe girl in the bodysuit looks over at you as you resheath your sword, her cute lips pursing in a scowl. "Why'd you bring a <i>human</i> back?"\n\nNiobe instantly whips around and looms over her, lips pulled back from her teeth. "I told you I don't wanna <i>hear</i> that sort of shit out of you! That <i>human</i> is a chipped slave who I guarantee you's had a rougher life than you, because I know the shit she's been through, same as I know yours!" She stabs a finger towards you as she continues, "That <i>human</i> and another one are the reason Cammy walked in here instead of bleeding out on the fucking floor of a bar! You ever say that shit again and I'll-!"\n\nThe girl had almost instantly huddled in on herself the moment Niobe wheeled on her, and you watch with half shocked, half fascinated eyes as she turns ghost white all over, the color flickering across her skin, her 'specks' turning several other shades as the rant goes on, clearly signaling her distress. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't make me leave, please don't make me leave, I'm sorry!"\n\nNiobe continues to snarl wordlessly for a second before visibly pulling herself back, pulling a hand across her lower face and sliding it behind her neck to rub. "... This's your home. You belong here," she mutters quietly. "Just don't say that shit. She doesn't have it any better than the rest of us. ... Go check on the comms, see if anything else has come in."\n\nSlowly starting to turn caramel-colored again, the girl nods and slinks off towards one of the doors, but not before tossing a look that's a weird mixture of hateful and apologetic your way. You slowly step over to Niobe. "No love lost, huh?" you note, before looking up at her.\n\n"... Lotta cases, no," she murmurs. "Most people here know what it is to be treated like shit by humans... property, or closest thing to, to be used up and tossed out. Me too... just that since it was the old man, I got to see up close that it ain't about race or species, that's just how some are. Shit, plenty of the gene soldiers here know what it is to be abused and used by nonhumans too, often enough their own kind. It's just easier to get pissed at humans and blame them for it all than it is ta see that everything that can think can be a shit." She glances at you and gives you a halfhearted smirk. "But y'know me, kid, when'd I ever do it easy?"\n\n"You made it look easy lots of times," you reply, managing a grin of your own. \n\n"Yeah, well, not tonight." Niobe lets out a huff as she walks over and flumps down on a couch, Diore following after her and flopping with his head in her lap (making you briefly envious and you're not entirely certain it's just of him). "This was a hard one. ... Not sure what we're gonna do," she admits after a glance around that shows the three of you are currently alone in the lobby-like area. "We lost most of our top fighters and street peeps tonight, kid. Not all of 'em and I kept some of the biggest badasses back just in case of some shit like this, but a lot of what we're left with is not exactly war material. Lotta former sex pets, logistics workers, noncombat specialists, menials and laborers... and not exactly a ton of those. Right now it's looking like the most we might be able to do is hunker down and wait it out, and we-" One of her ears twitches slightly and she glances over. "Yeah, Ilia, s'up? Any word?"\n\n"Not on our people," the girl from before murmurs as she emerges from the shadows of the doorway where she'd been hugging the wall. Instead she looks at you, something close to normally. "Um, you're 'Kai', right?" At your curious nod, she glances back to Niobe to add, "That dragon guy who's not actually a dragon is calling for her."\n\n"Oh, fun." Niobe heaves a sigh as she looks at you. "Shit, I forgot in all of this you were even with the Dragons to start on this one. How you wanna handle this, kid?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Just hang up on him.|Kai]]\n\n[[Let Niobe handle it.|KaiGS1x1]]\n\n[[Go talk to him.|Kai1x13]]

Somehow taking the very first available path feels like a trap... well, really, every room here is a trap of some sort or another. But you go with your gut and lead the rest of your team past the first right, instead heading for the right at the end of the hallway, everyone shuffling along in their various states of comfort about their nudity. Eventually the hallway opens into a room, much as suspected, the door sliding shut behind you.\n\n'THE CHOSEN NUMBER MUST WHISPER A DEEP, SHAMEFUL, EXPLICIT SEXUAL FANTASY TO THE KING.'\n\n"Oh, and before you think of standing there and muttering 'peas and carrots' under your breath for two minutes, I should tell you that the microphones I have rigged up in here are <i>extremely</i> good!" Dr. Deathtrap's voice belts out. "So if it's not deep, and dark, and really perverse, I'll be perfectly happy to sit here browsing celebrity nude selfies until you all wither in there."\n\nThe group exchanges dour looks. Well, you can't really get out of this one... you're included in the challenge by default. Which doesn't seem particularly fair but, well, what are you going to do? You're already here, the challenge is there, all that's left is to pick which of your teammembers has to divulge one of their deepest fantasies to you.\n\n<hr>\n[[Number one.|CalKLDFRx1]]\n\n[[Number two.|CalKLDFRx2]]\n\n[[Number three.|CalKLDFRx3]]\n\n[[Number four.|CalKLDFRx4]]\n\n[[Number five.|CalKLDFRx5]]\n\n[[Number six.|CalKLDFRx6]]\n\n<<if $youareskooma is true>>\n1 Mazinon\n2 Snow Leopard\n3 Warya\n4 Excalibur\n5 Marielle\n6 Trickshot\n<<endif>>

A haunting... it would be interesting if it's true. Well, if it's not, there's something you need to get rolling first. Pulling out your cellphone, you dial the number written at the bottom of the paper and put it to your ear, waiting. You almost think you're about to get sent to voice mail and are pondering whether it's worth your time and effort to leave one when there's a click. <i>"Hello?"</i>\n\n"Yes, hello, this is Valerie. You bought me fries, earlier?"\n\n<i>"... Right."</i> The girl on the other end of the line's tone is one of someone who doesn't really believe she's done what she's doing but isn't sure what else to do. Which actually kind of works out... people who leap in with both feet are often a bit more gullible. (Which is good if you want to bilk them but not if you want to do honest work.) <i>"I... well, we, kind of have a problem, and... ... yeah."</i>\n\n"Alright, first I have to get a few questions out of the way. First of all, do you have CO2 detectors? Has someone checked for bad wiring? The foundation?"\n\nThere's an annoyed huff on the other end of the line, but she apparently has the self-control to (mostly) control her annoyance before she speaks again. <i>"<b>Yes.</b> We actually already went through this with someone else who... said they could help. They told us to do all that stuff too, so we did, and it was all fine. Then she came out, took a look around... and then she just blurted she couldn't help and hurried out like she'd just realized she'd left her oven on."</i>\n\nMore and more interesting, they actually had someone that was sincere enough to do a mortal causes check and then ran out on them? "When was the house built?" you ask after only a brief pause for thought, since you don't want to leave her hanging. She seems nervous. \n\n<i>"In 1898, I think. It belonged to one of the families that founded the university, and was pledged to the university's eternal use in one of their wills, so it's been kept up and everything. Er, I mean, is that important?"</i>\n\nDefinitely important. You haven't done too much delving into it juuuust yet... you've been saving that for senior year to some extent just in case you risk treading on someone's toes... but it does sort of seem that the small group of families that founded the university were into some weird shit from your side of the aisle, as it were. Plus it being old means it's got history, so it actually could be a haunting as opposed to a poltergeist. (You guess it could still be one of those, hurray for a house full of young hormonal women.) "Alright, I'll come by and take a look. Is now okay?"\n\n<i>"Yes. Please. Thank you."</i>\n\nYou get directions to the sorority house before ending the call. Finishing filing away the other notes in your organizer, you heft your bag and again set off. It's a bit of a long walk, but until you come across an issue severe enough that you think you can get someone to trade you their car for it, it's what you're stuck with. (You wonder which some rich college kid would rather part with... their Mustang or their soul?) But eventually you arrive at the area with a handful of old houses with a few newer ones scattered among them, most of which have been converted into dorms of some type or another. You have to admit that the one you're headed for doesn't look like the standard "haunted house"... no flaking paint, no busted windows, though it's obviously pretty old everything does in fact seem kept up well. You slip through the unlocked gate outside and head up to the porch, knocking at the door. A moment later it opens, revealing a hazel-eyed blonde girl wearing an off-the-shoulder white sweater that comes down below her hips, and a pair of grey yoga pants. "I'm Valerie."\n\n"Yeah, I know. I mean, um, I saw you earlier when I dropped off the note." The girl fiddles with her ponytail for a moment, then sighs and flips it to drape forward over her shoulder. "Sorry, sorry, I'm being rude. Um, come in." She steps back and gestures you inside. "My name's Sandy. And no, not with an 'i'. ... Sorry." She rubs her face as you walk in and take a glance around the slightly messy common room. "I haven't gotten much sleep lately and it's making me snappish. It's not doing great things for my classes either."\n\n"I can imagine," you say dryly, turning to face her.\n\n"Look, it's serious for us, okay?" Sandy frowns as she walks over to you and folds her arms. "We may be a bunch of cheerleaders and swimmers and tennis players, but our sorority also maintains strict academic standards! We aren't some bunch of bimbos screeching and clutching each other over some branches scratching the window."\n\n"Yeah, I don't think so either," you say, glancing around again. "I'll have to do more checking around, but you're definitely not imagining this." It's a weird sensation... a gentle pressure around your skin that seems to ignore your clothes, a taste in the back of your throat. "There's something. I'll take the job... but you know it's a job, right?" you add, looking at her and raising your eyebrows. "I don't do this out of the goodness of my heart."\n\n"So, what do you want? Money?" Sandy asks with a bit of a frown.\n\n<hr>\n[[Yes.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[You want membership in the sorority.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[You want a favor.|ValJobs]]\n\n[[You want her.|ValJobs]]

"<i><b>Go!</b></i>" You watch as he goes scrambling into the vehicle, the little underpowered machine still doing its best to peel out as he programs whatever emergency situation he can think of to override the safeties.\n\nYour heart drops as you hear the sound of bells tolling from your jacket pocket. You can feel the comm's vibration as you pluck it out, not even bothering to check the ID before thumbing the accept and putting it to the side of your head. "... Yeah."\n\n"That wasn't what I told you to do, Kai," Horace's voice says immediately, far too cool and neutral to mean anything good.\n\n"Look, he's gone, okay? He's headed straight off the planet and won't be back," you reply. You don't actually think your defense is going to work, but you feel compelled to try. "His who-gives-a-shit subordinate still gets promoted to replace him, he doesn't say anything about what he saw, it's the same damn result so what's the difference?"\n\n"Even if that's how it works out, the difference is that you <i>didn't do what I told you</i>," Horace answers, his still overly calm voice turning cold enough to make you shudder.\n\n"... Okay, so, deal's off, we don't do it," you try, for one last hope at heading off what you think is coming. "Didn't work out, we go our separate ways again, nothing changes."\n\n"That's not how it works. We shook on a deal, and then you didn't hold up on your obligations to making it happen. You know what happens to people that break deals with me, Kai." The moment he says your name, there's a skittering noise and a slight heat from the comm, and you pull it away just in time to watch the screen shudder and go blank, a small waft of blue smoke rising from around the edges of it. Then you drop the bricked device as you lurch to the side in reflex at the slightly distant but very distinct sound of an explosion from down the block as the bike's engine is set to overload.\n\n'Shit. Shit shit shit shit!' you think as you turn and start charging in the direction of home, desperately looking around for another vehicle. It takes you almost two blocks before you spot one, another but much older bike that you throw yourself onto, feverishly hotwiring it and taking a moment to bypass its speed limiters directly before taking off like a shot. 'C'mon, c'mon, at least have waited until I fucked up to send the guys over, at least don't have them have been waiting outside, please please please please!'\n\nYou almost lay the bike down screeching to a stop in front of the apartment complex, managing to tumble off of it before letting it go sliding away from you, snatching your sword out of its sheath as you charge up the front steps. "Zee! Zee!" Your skin crawls and your heart stops for a moment at the sight of the smashed front door. "ZEE!" you scream, flinging yourself through the doorway, desperately looking back and forth amidst the practically destroyed little apartment, but seeing no sign of your fellow slave. At a harsh, gurgling rasp from the next room, you turn and hurry in, then jerk to a halt and throw a hand to cover your mouth. "Crystal Dragon... old man..."\n\nDoonian's laying in the floor, beaten so badly you can't even recognize him beneath the mushed flesh and open wounds of his face. The rest of his body's not better, both arms at unnatural angles. From the look of the room and the few holes in the walls it at least looks like he tried to put up a fight, not that it did him much good in his condition, or against the likes of Horace's men. The only sign that he's alive is the blood bubbling up from his lips and what's left of his nose as he struggles to keep breathing. Uncertain what else to do, you hurry to his side, dropping the katana and reaching towards him, then stopping without actually touching him, hands hovering uncertainly over his chest. "Old man... old man! Hey, hey! Can you hear me?!"\n\n".. Kai..." The word is barely audible, or recognizable, and sounds like he's struggling to get even that much out through the pain.\n\n"Where's Zee?!" At his answering groan, you lean in, your voice growing more desperate as you urge, "Zee, what happened, where is she?!"\n\n"... took..." he manages, then again, "... took..." as if that's the most he can focus to say.\n\nSo Horace's men took her. At least they didn't kill her on the spot, but the thought of what they might do instead terrifies you to an extent you didn't know you could still feel. On the verge of panic, feeling lost and afraid and guilty, you look the battered, dying form of your owner up and down, struggling to think, knowing there has to be something to say, something to say. Hearing him start to struggle to breathe even harder, hearing the rasp grow thicker, it really hits you that he's going to be dead in moments, and two words come blurting from your lips.\n\n<hr>\n[["... Help me!"|Kai4x5]]\n\n[["... Fuck you!"|Kai]]

"Let's just go ahead and try this first right," you suggest, pointing to the branch hallway.\n\nThere's a few mutters of assent, but not much else apparently needs to be said as all of you move down the chosen hallyway. As expected, you soon come to an open doorway and into another large, open room, the doors quickly sliding shut behind you. All eyes go to the wall where 'KISS' was written in the first room, and quickly spot the text reading '#A SUCKS #B'S COCK'\n\n"You must be gaming the numbers if you think this is possible, Deathtrap," Trickshot speaks up in a dry tone, even as he checks his own number. "Only a bit over half of this group has cocks to suck. What if one of them gets picked for the second number?"\n\n"Oh, you'll find out," Dr. Deathtrap's voice answers, along with a diabolical and annoyingly (likely for all parties involved) adorable giggle.\n\nThat causes most of the group to exchange rather worried glances, because she sure does sound confident that picking an "impossible" combination won't be an obstacle to a cock getting sucked. But all eyes are turning to you now... you're going to have to pick. Everyone stressed that you should just pick whatever, but still, is that really okay?\n\n<hr>\n[[Number six sucks off number one.|CalKLBJRx1]]\n\n[[Number three sucks off number six.|CalKLBJRx2]]\n\n[[King sucks off number two.|CalKLBJRx3]]\n\n[[Number three sucks off number five.|CalKLBJRx4]]\n\n[[Number two sucks off number four.|CalKLBJRx5]]\n\n[[Number four sucks off the King.|CalKLBBJRx6]]\n\n<<if $youareskooma is true>>\n1 Warya\n2 Excalibur\n3 Marielle\n4 Trickshot\n5 Mazinon\n6 Snow Leopard\n<<endif>>

Taking a deep breath, you tap the window to close it, making yourself calm down just a little. Okay, okay, let's just enjoy the game for awhile without, y'know... leaving a braindead body in your room for your roommate to deal with. (Actually she wouldn't part of your prep for this was hooking the game up to signal a retrieval team that would handle that but still.)\n\nNow you can see a screen floating in front of you that reads 'Character Roster', with the only option being 'Create New Character', so of course you click that. The screen changes to read 'Please choose your genre and character type.' Taking another look around, you realize that all the signs hovering over the sections have names of different fiction genres rather than typical clothing types. Ah, so that's how you start making a character... you go to the section of the genre you want to play, then actually pick out an outfit that goes with the character type to start off wearing. Not bad, not bad, better than standing in front of projected pull-down menus for the fiftieth time.\n\nAlright, so, genre... ahhhh, all of them have so many possibilities for you to lose in fun lewd ways...!\n\n<hr>\n[[High Fantasy.|YamiHFStart]]\n\n[[Low Fantasy.|YamiLFStart]]\n\n[[Sci-Fantasypunk.|YamiFF7Start]]\n\n[[Sci-Fi.|YamiSFStart]]\n\n[[School Life.|YamiSLStart]]\n\n[[Urban Fantasy.|YamiUFStart]]

<<set $permamode to true>>You reach out with a hand that's shuddering so badly with desire that you can barely hit the toggle, but your finger makes contact with the screen and the 'Permanent Consequences' slider clicks over and now shows a reading of 'True'. You instantly drop to your knees and shove both hands between your legs, frantically frigging your pussy while moaning shamelessly in the middle of the virtual department store at the thought you might actually wind up permanently Bad Ended should you so much as lose a level one-on-level one fight.\n\nOnce you've gotten yourself off twice, you catch your breath and climb to your feet, your legs still a little shaky. While you were having your little outburst, the settings window apparently closed automatically, and now you can see a screen floating in front of you that reads 'Character Roster', with the only option being 'Create New Character', so of course you click that. The screen changes to read 'Please choose your genre and character type.' Taking another look around, you realize that all the signs hovering over the sections have names of different fiction genres rather than typical clothing types. Ah, so that's how you start making a character... you go to the section of the genre you want to play, then actually pick out an outfit that goes with the character type to start off wearing. Not bad, not bad, better than standing in front of projected pull-down menus for the fiftieth time.\n\nAlright, so, genre... ahhhh, all of them have so many possibilities for you to lose in fun lewd ways...!\n\n<hr>\n[[High Fantasy.|YamiHFStart]]\n\n[[Low Fantasy.|YamiLFStart]]\n\n[[Sci-Fantasypunk.|YamiFF7Start]]\n\n[[Sci-Fi.|YamiSFStart]]\n\n[[School Life.|YamiSLStart]]\n\n[[Urban Fantasy.|YamiUFStart]]

"Hm, if you think that's best," you allow after a few moments of thought. And honestly it's not like he really has to twist your arm... an excuse to go shopping for stuffed animals at your age and not feel 100% childish? After all, now it's about the happiness and welfare of your friend!\n\nSo, after that day's classes, you Uber over to downtown, where there's a H&R Plush'n'Stuff store. A somewhat local chain, they're a bit like Build-A-Bear with an even wider array of selected options for stuffed animals and accessories for them, including an extremely large array of licensed characters... large enough, in fact, that you're not entirely certain that they're all entirely on the up-and-up as far as actual licensing goes. But, they apparently haven't gotten sued yet, so. \n\nYou walk into the front area and take a look around. It's a strange mixture between wide open and cluttered as various bins of impulse buys, clearanced accessories, and examples of their current deals are shown off. There are a handful of stuffing stands with employees stationed nearby waiting to help, and checkout counters running along either side near the doors. Beyond that it's wide aisles of product like bins of accessories and plushies, either tubs of the unfilled exteriors along with, in most cases, a handful of preassembled versions to both give an idea of what they'll look like assembled and to give particularly lazy people something to buy.\n\nAs you're walking in, you notice that one of the [[bins|ValTome]] contains a large number of rather unremarkable identical stuffed bears. They're not much to look at, though they are made of that particularly fun-to-touch 'squinchy' sort of microfiber with a squishier filling than cotton, but the real thing you notice is that they're only $1 apiece... wow, they must really want to clear them out of there. Well, if Bayard wanted friends, you could buy him a whole baseball team at that price.\n\nOtherwise, let's see. You should find a good 'new body' for Bayard and then at least two friends for him, right? You could just get three bears and [[accessorize them thoroughly|ValTome]], or let's see, there's the "[[zoo|ValTome]]" where there are a lot of different types of animals mixed together, or the [[mythological beasts|ValTome]] section, right next door to the [[scary monsters|ValTome]] section (cute and creepy? right up your alley there). There's also all the rows of [[licensed characters|ValTome]]... you're almost curious to see if Bayard can imbue some of them with the expected personalities.\n\nThough you also notice several [[larger|ValTome]] bears. ... Hm. If you're interpreting the ideas Bayard himself mentioned right, if you moved him to one of those he'd need some time to spread himself out to a larger amount of stuffing, so if you got him one of those for a body you probably couldn't buy him any friends, at least immediately. But then maybe he'd trade that for not being able to fit easily in a breadbox?

Well, he said mingle, you guess you'll... mingle. Besides, might be a good idea to see who's here so you'll have an idea of how to kill them ahead of time if that becomes necessary.\n\nAfter wandering around a bit it looks like there are representatives of a lot of the gangs from the sector and even a few adjoining ones. You recognize Horace Allfather and a pair of his syndicate goons lounging about in one area with probably the priciest drinks this place offers. Moore and a couple of her Juicer Transcendants are lurking about in a corner, the look in Moore's eyes above her vape mask showing that she's relatively straight for the meeting and not enjoying it. There's Pink-neesan, which makes sense if this really is about doing something about collateral damage... the SeXXY Bitches aren't as much of a criminal gang as the others but they would be the ones to get hit hardest by out of control street violence. You notice a few others you're not familiar with too... Pink-neesan is talking (with an expression that says she's not really enjoying it) to a scarred and cybered woman wearing little more than panties, stockings and boots, and a chestwrap as well as various bits of jewelry and piercings, and you spot a few similarly-attired and rough women nearby, although one looks about your age and gives you a cheerful, guileless wave when you look over. Ooookay. You also see a small group of either full body cyborgs or maybe high-grade an-droids sitting off by themselves, all three attired in suits, the most human-looking one sitting with steepled fingers and staring unblinkingly at the room with black eyes and glowing green pixel-irises.\n\nThere are a lot of people here, which explains the huge size of the meeting space... looks like every major and even a lot of minor gangs are represented, and each of them brought two attendants, so. You keep making notes of them as you pass, not getting too close or acknowledging anything with more than a nod of the head, until you have to stop and stare, your jaw actually sagging. "N-... Niobe?"\n\n"Ohhh?" The woman looks up from the bench-style seat where she's sitting, currently dancing attendance on a youthful-looking boy in a black jacket, red tanktop, and long loose shorts, her arm draped around his shoulders and her head having been down to nuzzle in his hair, while a gorgeous woman in a little black dress and with her own pair of cat ears perking up from her long purple hair is perched on the other side, both of them looking more like dates than bodyguards. Of course you know that the woman between them probably doesn't need much in the way of guarding, despite looking like she's dressed for a night of clubbing than a dangerous meeting. Her own purple hair is cut short in a modified pageboy cut, large (and pierced) feline ears jutting up from it, her eyes purple and teeth sharp as she flashes a grin around the stick of the sucker in her mouth. Her big boulder-firm breasts are covered by neither the fur-trimmed, yellow-lined black jacket she's wearing, or by the blue and purple one-piece that's cut out specifically to show them off, but a very small black bikini top instead. She's apparently so relaxed despite the situation she's even undone her belt and let her little denim shorts sag open. "Heeey, it's the kid! Shoo, you two, I'mma have a reunion." Flicking her hands to send the other two off (the boy scurrying, the woman sauntering while giving you a poisoned honey look), she flops back and pops the sucker out of her mouth, the candy actually steaming in the club air as she tucks one white-sneakered foot under her leg.\n\n<img src="images/Niobe.jpg">\n\n"Niobe, you're on Makarzia," you say, feeling a bit dumb an instant later for stating the obvious. You try to pull your now somewhat tattered cloak of jaded who-gives-a-fuck back around yourself as you quirk an eyebrow and add, "And you're a gang boss, apparently."\n\n"Heheh, you got it, kid. 'The Geneslicers', that's my gang. I own clubs, whorehouses, chemdens, even legit markets, allll of it geared towards hybrids, gene soldiers, and other animalistic and enhanced types such as m'self," your former teacher declares, waggling her candy (no doubt infused with some sort of enhancer chem, thus the smoking) in the air before smirking and popping it back into her mouth. "And, y'know, enthusiasts. No slaves, no pressure, just like minds havin' a good time. S'pretty fantastic."\n\n"Sounds like it." You can't help but smile a little wanly. "It's great to see you."\n\n"Pretty good seein' you too, kid." Niobe's purple eyes roam up and down you, before she smirks again. "Still wearin' my old coat, huh?"\n\n"Well, y'know." You shrug nonchalantly, as if you didn't cry yourself to sleep the night you realized you couldn't smell her on it anymore and she was therefore really gone. "Keeps the rain off."\n\n"Mm. You're with the Dragons on this one? Guess that fits, I guess the one thing Ikes didn't suck at besides being a subservient little lickspittle was teachin' you to use that katana." She opens her smirking mouth to say something else, but maybe she saw the sadness crawling over your face because she ramps it back some and goes quiet. "... You're still owned by the old man, right?"\n\n"Yeah," you acknowledge quietly, bobbing your head once.\n\n"... Hm. Why doncha pop a squat beside me before the meeting, and we'll have a talk about that, kid?" Niobe suggests, gesturing to the bench beside her. Both of you glance up as the intercom starts reciting that the meeting is about to start in various languages, before your gazes meet again, Niobe not budging. "Cammy will take my place if I don't show, it's not that big a deal. Ditch the Dragons and let's chat."\n\n<hr>\n[[... Sounds good.|Kai]]\n\n[[... You can't ditch them.|Kai1x8]]

"Yeah well it's my mess, you've got enough of your own," you assure Niobe, before looking at Ilia. "Show me?"\n\n"Yeah, this way." She leads you down a fairly short hallway and into a room that's clearly been set up as a comm center... not a particularly fancy or elaborate one, but at least not made entirely of jury-rigged cables and monitors. She gestures to one of the desks, then draws back... apparently that's as much privacy as you're getting inside here. Eh, probably not so much a 'human' thing as an 'outsider' thing, you decide to think as you settle down in the chair and tap the icon to bring up the held call.\n\nSakai's face appears on the monitor, so carefully composed and emotionless that it's clear he's extremely pissed. "Kai."\n\n"Hey, Sakai," you answer tiredly, not bothering to conceal your exhaustion as you slump back in the chair. "You and Mikon okay?"\n\n"We made it out. We would have done so more handily with your assistance, perhaps in time to save more of our people outside. Would you like to explain why you abandoned your oath of honor to us?"\n\n"I didn't abando-" You start, then huff and rub your face. "... Yeah. I wasn't there for you, so I guess... ... look, Sakai, it wasn't that I just ditched you on a whim. Niobe was getting pressed and one of her people was dying, she needed my help more."\n\n"I don't recall you putting Niobe's symbol on your skin as a pledge to fight for her."\n\n"... Yeah." You nod once. "... 'Cause it runs deeper than that." You close your eyes briefly, then open them and meet his on the screen. "She's family, Sakai. That's all there was to it."\n\nHe's silent for long moments, enough that you might wonder if the feed had frozen. Then he sighs, enough slack coming into his features that you can tell they're no longer a forced mask of neutrality. "If she is family then that is the end of the conversation. You chose a higher honor and I will not rebuke you for it."\n\n"Thanks, Sakai. I'm sorry, though."\n\n"I understand. I'll put out the word that you're not a deserter, you can have the dragon removed at any convenient skin shop." He reaches out and closes the line, the abrupt end making the rest of his statement plain despite his forgiveness: don't ever expect to wear it again.\n\nYou take a deep breath, then stand. Burning that bridge doesn't exactly feel good, but it's better than some of the alternatives. You turn and notice Ilia's looking fixedly at you with her own masked expression. "Clever way to get out of him being ticked at you, I guess," she notes in a clipped tone.\n\n"... If Niobe's not my family, I guess I have no fucking idea what a family is," you answer back quietly, which clearly startles her a little as you walk past her and back down the hall.\n\nWhen you emerge back into the lobby, Diore's gesturing to something on the table, Niobe frowning down at it. "See, we installed this regulator and it'll work fine on a human now, promise! Like she might lose feeling in half her face but only for a day, ten max!"\n\n"Uhhh... 'scuse?" you speak up as you stare at them.\n\nNiobe glances over, then picks up the device and gives it a small shake, Diore making a mildly fretful noise as she does. "Chip bricker. We use it a lot on gene modded peeps that haven't had theirs removed yet because they escaped or we bought them out or whatever. Most of us have better shielded spinal cords than humans so the beam's a little stronger than it needs to be to make sure the chip's inert, I had the tech yahoos make sure it'd be safe to use on you."\n\n"... Niobe, that's a pretty big crime you're talking about," you murmur, even as you stare fixedly at the freedom she's holding in your hand.\n\n"So's keeping a private army of gene soldiers, since I lost most of my other big crime may as well replace it with another one, get over here," she adds, beckoning to you.\n\nYou've taken three steps before you even think to hesitate. "Wait... what about Zee? I can't leave her alone with the old man, if I don't come back that asshole'd probably try to send her out to earn."\n\n"Dammit, Kai, I-!" Niobe snaps, almost slamming the device down against the table before halting herself, taking a few shuddery breaths until they smooth out. "... I cannot deal with future problems right now," she says slowly. "Especially not a next week problem like that. As far as the old man knows you're still working with the Dragons for a little while so we'll have some room to maneuver. I... will try to do something about Zee, alright? I'll try, soon's I can I'll try," she assures you, exhaustion starting to seep into her voice too. "But right now, we are pressed on all sides, we are fighting for survival, and I need you. I need you," she adds, emotion raw in her voice. "Okay? Just... please. Come over here and lemme brick that shit, alright?"\n\n<hr>\n[[Alright.|KaiGS]]\n\n[[... You can't.|Kai]]

Sakai nods, even as Horace speaks up again. "Oh? Something your little hired blade has to say, Sakai?"\n\n"Yes, indeed." Sakai keeps his voice calm, his demeanor suddenly surprisingly mature and serious in contrast to his usual rather foppish behavior. "She was just informing me of the exact nature of the insult you have visited upon one of our brethren. A fellow professional who was invited to this table under a flag of truce... a truce built on mutual trust and respect for one another as equals, else we would not be here. Niobe was invited to it the same as you, and you were the one to violate that trust, and thus the truce." His eyes narrow slightly. "Leave, Horace."\n\nThe big man almost literally bristles as he straightens his back in his chair. "What did you just say to me, bo-"\n\n"Under the rules established by the Unofficial Business Owner's First Summit," Adam cuts in smoothly, never moving from his leaned-back, folded-handed position, his voice as steady as ever. "I second the motion to eject Horace Allfather from this summit, on the grounds that he has violated the implicit oath of respect its attendees are due."\n\nHaving his own words that he used to seize the initiative thrown back in his face stuns Horace just long enough that it apparently emboldens others, who start to speak up with "Agreed" and "Aye". Despite the man's fearsome and malevolent reputation, by the end of it there's not a single person at the table who's not staring at him expectantly. After several moments of pregnant silence he rises to his feet, makes a show of delicately adjusting his tie as if to declare how not-bothered he was even as he plotted to kill everyone in the room, and turns to stride out.\n\n"Now, if someone would please go and inform Niobe that the issue she was having has been resolved, we can resume," Sakai says, one of the 'runners' employed by the venue going scurrying out the door.\n\nA few minutes later Niobe, still looking rather cross, stomps back in and flumps back into her seat, though you can see by the look in her eyes that she feels rather vindicated too.\n\n"Welcome back, Niobe-san. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the rest of the summit for Horace's ill behavior. It will not be repeated," Sakai says. Once he's received a terse nod from Niobe in return, he glances up and down the table. "Now, back to the matter at hand. It seems that we cannot confront these Street Demons without risking further collateral damage and a sort of conflict we may not be ready to bring to our streets. I think before we resolve ourselves to such, we should consider other potential options. Moore, do you know if they have any habits, needs, addictions on your end of things?"\n\nYou can't help but grin just a little and nod in satisfaction. Not only has Niobe's insult been avenged, Sakai's used the opening you gave him to seize the leadership role Horace had clearly wanted for himself. Which should hopefully put him in a generous mood, and see some sort of bonus coming your way... hell, he's clever, he might be able to figure out a way for it to be a bonus for <i>you</i> instead of going into the old man's pocket.\n\nHowever, before any more seizing can occur, there's a sudden thud from outside, followed by an explosion with enough inward force that it sends a number of people toppling and stumbling, some even knocked out of chairs. It's followed by the small clinks of small metal spheres, people scrambling away from them desperately mostly on instinct before they go off. They're flashbangs, almost all force and light and no shrapnel, but they're more than enough to send even most of the battle-hardened people in the room reeling and staggering, nicely separating them from each other. It doesn't help that more and more smoke... actually no, it's ice vapor you realize as the chill steels over you... is pouring in from outside, a figure moving to stand in the hole in the wall where it's billowing through. It's not hard to guess who she's with from the elborate metal horns jutting from amidst her short white hair, glowing with red lines, pale eyes gazing from above her vape mask and its oversized filters. Her outfit is some weird blend of schoolgirl, old-era pinafoir, and common street style, mingling a black overcoat with some "sailor" elements, the tie with long straps tipped with elaborate, spiky caps, a frilly underdress, and several obvious belts and straps, as well as high-grade stylish combat boots.\n\n<img src="images/CrimsonTide.jpg">\n\n"S'up, sluts," she announces, the mask amplifying her voice to fill the room. "Heard you were talking shit, so came to see you got hit."\n\nOn that particularly delightful cue, more people come rushing through the breach to either side of her... a chaotically-garbed group, with the only thing in common being vape masks and horns. And they just keep coming, more and more of them pouring in, already starting to clash with many of the still-stunned crime bosses and their attendants.\n\n'Shit!' you think, scrambling to your feet. You wound up pretty far back, but it looks like everyone's starting to recover and fighting back now, at least. You've gotta get moving too or you, and everyone else, are dead meat!\n\n<hr>\n[[Focus on finding Niobe.|Kai1x11]]\n\n[[Focus on finding Sakai.|Kai]]\n\n[[Focus on taking out Street Demons.|KaiCy1x1]]

One thought overwhelms all the others... you have to get to Niobe. You're not even sure if it's to keep her safe or that you think she'll keep you safe, all you know is that you have to make sure she's alive and stays alive. You slice your sword out of its sheath and across the side of a Street Demon, ignoring his shriek of pain as you shout Niobe's name.\n\nFighting your way through several more of the horned and motley crew, you soon spot Niobe's little group clumped together almost in a corner. The woman you saw with her is slumped on the floor on her side, a very slowly-spreading pool of blood under her, while both Niobe and the mouse boy stand over her, fighting back anyone that tries to attack or even gets close. Niobe, as you'd expect, is largely doing this by ripping pieces of any Street Demon that gets close off of their body... the boy on the other hand is doing some amazing acrobatic maneuvers, maximizing the impact of his small body and keeping himself always landing back by the other two after jumping to kick someone in the head or stomp their face.\n\n"Niobe!" you call, cutting through another Street Demon before drawing up with them.\n\n"Kid..." She almost snarls the word, though it's clearly because her blood's up rather than her being unhappy to see you. She has to take a few hard breaths before she can focus enough to respond. "Cammy's hurt bad and we need to get out, now. I can carry her but we need at least two to run interference, grab some guns off these assholes and start clearing a path!"\n\n"I can't, the old man blocked me from using guns on Makarzia," you snap back, while snapping your sword down to slice across the front of a Street Demon who tried to make a charge.\n\n"<i>Fucker!</i> Toss 'em to Diore then, you handle close range!"\n\nNodding, you cut wide to force some of the Demons back, then briefly sheath your sword to drop and roll, snatching up a pair of rather battered hand cannons dropped by fallen attackers. Coming up to your knees, you throw them over to the mouse boy, drawing your sword again before he's even caught them. He gives you a beautiful, angelic smile, which doesn't waver as he swings the guns around and fires both into the throats of two Street Demons, dropping them with their heads flopping on what's left of their necks. "Chu chu, motherfuckers!" he chirps in a sweet voice.\n\nNiobe bends and carefully hefts the unconscious Cammy into her arms, holding her as still as possible as your trio starts making your way forward. Diore uses the guns to indicate a path by taking down the Street Demons littering it, while you take care of any of them that try to attack or simply wander too close amidst their fights with others. Gradually you're making your way towards one of the side exits, and you can see the glow of the exit sign when something catches the corner of your eye. Daring a quick look, you spot Moore huddled in a corner, her hood pulled low but still glowing from within, the slightly twitchy rocking motion of her body as she hugs her legs saying she's not expecting to make it out and has probably dosed herself into gradually being at peace with that.\n\n<hr>\n[[Divert to rescue her.|Kai1x12]]\n\n[[Keep going.|Kai]]