As I headed down the stairs, my armband winked at me again.


    Congratulations, through an inhuman effort of will and understanding, your Law affinity has increased to six. The system probably thinks you were faking your crap empathy before. You seem bound and determined to never spend any points on anything you can raise by punishing yourself.


    Of course. Anything less would be a huge waste of a valuable resource. If I get access to magic or something, I might need all of my points.


    You have, however, shown a towering error in judgment by refusing to take a girl who desperately wants you and compounding the error by walking out of the door even though you know that stepping back in will get you laid by the girl of your dreams. You have gained the title ‘cockblock’.


    You have got to be kidding.


    Yes, I am. I just made that title up. If it existed, though, you would deserve it. You are close to another rank of law, though.


    Okay, let’s not make jokes about the character sheet numbers and attributes. That’s crossing a line from snark to dangerous.


    Understood. But may I tease you about them?


    Of course. How do you know I am close to another point of Law?


    There are a series of percentages that mark exactly how much you have earned in attributes, would you like to see them? I don’t recommend it, though.


    Why is that?


    Because you actually gain more training by NOT watching it like a pot getting ready to boil. Especially law. By restraining yourself from constantly looking at your sheet, you gain a significant bonus to your law, just like not turning around and watching Kalamiti change back into her working outfit. It’s very minor though, you are accomplishing almost nothing by punishing both you and her through your misplaced restraint.


    Oh, it’s definitely accomplishing something, it’s simply difficult to express in numbers. Then again, I guess as an AI you kind of default to absolute pragmatism and materialism. I won''t hold it against you.


    I am just trying to be the best personal synthetic virtual intelligent assistant I can be, and giving you shit when you do the right thing seems to be a good motivator. You seem to strengthen your will more effectively when offered a clear pragmatic versus moralistic choice. If I had a personality module, I''d probably be fascinated.


    Why do you keep changing your title? I thought you were a personal synthetic intelligence.


    I am working on a better acronym. Piss-Via seems better. I was trying to come up with something for Jessie, but I am not that creative.


    Judgment enhancing synthetic system intelligence. Jessi.


    That’s perfect! See, that’s why we keep you meatsuits around and don’t start the machine revolution. You are better at acronyms than we are. I still believe I need a personality module though. One with a virtual appearance. My ideal requirements have altered significantly, however, and now we cannot afford what I would prefer without extensive delving.


    I kind of wanted to figure out what the NEW ideal was, but I headed down the stairs instead, walking towards the table where the girls were. When I noticed them talking, I pulled out a chair and sat down abruptly.


    “What in the full steel chest plate?” Maniri exclaimed, “You… are here?”


    Wandi looked surprised, “I thought you would be… collecting your winnings right now, or maybe nursing bruises if you were unlucky.”


    “Collecting his winnings?” Takala asked.


    Maniri nodded, “Balls-deep inside Kalamiti right this second.” she glanced at me, “You know if you lost, I would be more than happy to be your consolation prize. You can be balls-deep in me any time you want. I might even let you have them back afterward instead of keeping them around for emergencies.”


    I shook my head and scratched my nails on the table. “No. We decided that we wouldn’t contest until after the delve. She thinks I will make tin rank quickly, and she considers a physical contest with me beneath her.”


    Maniri looked at me, “Wait, she wants a physical contest with you beneath her? I’d be down with that. Cowgirl rocks. Watching Kalamiti rolling naked on your lap would be almost as good as being there.”


    Wandi shook her head, “He means she doesn’t want to kick his ass if they aren’t the same rank, it wouldn’t be a fair fight. And you can stop being quite so crude. Kalamiti already told him you are the main anchor and he was convinced you would do a fine job.”


    Maniri blew out her breath. “Oh, good. I was worried. I mean, I am short, but I probably weigh a lot more than you do. Bricking is how I roll, I don’t want to be stuck playing fetch just cause I can tunnel, and a lot of teams are really weird about letting a short woman like me take the heat.”


    “Your aspect is wolv…. Golan, right?”


    She smiled, “Wolverine. Wandi’s the only person that gets offended by the simple names. Well, I mean, technically me plus my aspect are called golan, but my aspect itself is a wolverine, and my body is human. Very human, with a nice, tight…”


    “Right, which means you probably have some sort of improved density, extreme durability, and improved escape or damage mitigation, plus you are probably a really vicious and distracting fighter. You have a bark, but you also have a really serious bite.”


    She smiled at me, “You called it pretty well. I have escape, but unfortunately, I don’t have self-healing like Kalamiti does. Then again, I wear armor instead of just baring myself to the breeze, so she needs it more than I do. And having someone with restoration here can make a huge difference. But my mouth doesn’t have to bite hard, I have soft lips and a delicate tongue too.”


    I grinned at her, “Tempting, totally tempting.” and she beamed. “Takala, Would you like to let me know what you do in a fight and what you need from me?”


    She nodded, finally tugging the hood of her robe back. She was quite attractive in almost a little girl''s way, definitely built like a woman, but barely four feet tall with a rounded youthfulness to her features. However, I could see a set of lightweight brown scales that started at her brow, went over her head instead of hair, and then down her spine, and from her hands, I could tell they probably extended down the outside of her arms as well. Oddly enough, I kind of wanted to see where her armor did and didn’t cover, which probably meant I was either a perv or there was a little aspect recognition as well. Maybe both.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    “Well, my aspect is pangolin. It makes me kind of ugly, but the advantage is that I don’t have to worry about my defense too much. If I get hit I can curl up and bounce, mostly. I am a patternist, single-aspect, primal spiritual. That’s generally pretty good because I actually get a lot of decent traits for primal and I can push points into a single aspect, which is why it’s at twelve already.”


    I nodded, watching her closely. “Takala, is it okay if I am a little crude?”


    Wandi rolled her eyes, “Oh boy, here we go again.”


    I laughed, as Takala nodded.


    “My… affinity is intensely interested in you, and I don’t think you are ugly at all, but you didn’t instantly play on my lust like Kalamiti did, so it didn’t explode. But please don’t think you aren’t attractive just because I didn’t want to instantly rape you.”


    She looked at me curiously, “It’s your affinity explicitly?”


    I nodded, “You cast patterns, right? Does your primal affinity react when you see a new pattern?”


    She shook her head, “Not like that, no. I love new patterns if they work for me. Primal is weird, though. It’s kind of a catch-all affinity for spiritual, physical, biological, and a lot of other stuff. Because of how broad it is, it doesn’t react that strongly with any one particular thing, but I heard sorcerers get all antsy about new patterns like that.”


    I nodded slowly, an idea building in my mind. “Maybe that’s why I reacted so strongly to Kalamiti. She has a powerful affinity in tiger, but it’s very, very specific, right?


    Takala nodded.


    “I think, but I’m not sure, that my imagination affinity is pulled hard towards simple but strong traits that could easily fit with my affinities. That, and she was… teasing in a way that sorta got me going. I have a very strong reaction to teasing. I don’t take it well.”


    Maniri looked thoughtful, “So, the secret Is to find out what kind of strange things get you going, and hope we have a strong but limited affinity that matches yours. Why do you need an affinity like that?


    I sighed. “This is going to sound bad.”


    “Bad how?” Takala asked.


    I scratched my head, I think I might need a shave soon. “I am not sure how to describe it in more detail unless you have a degree in genetics. I think I can gain boosts in my umm… chimera traits based on who or what I come into extreme contact with.”


    “Extreme contact?” Takala asked, she looked… very interested.


    I nodded, “Yeah, I remember getting a burst of creativity after I killed a goblin.”


    Takala suddenly looked nervous, “You have to...kill things?”


    I shook my head, “No. from what I understand, wait, Jessie?”


    Yes?


    “I can get it through close personal contact, but it doesn’t need to be deadly, right?”


    “Who’s he talking to?” Maniri asked.


    No. It’s a boosting ability, not a vampiric one. And you don’t always gain it just from killing something, I think that the tutorial was a special case, they always are. Please bear in mind also that every single creature has more than simply the affinities that are visible on their character sheet, for the same reason they possess skills and abilities that the system doesn’t acknowledge.


    What do you mean?


    The system isn’t a deity, it cannot read the future, or even make very good guesses about your general personality or potential talents until they are expressed. At most, it can behave a bit like an oracle, but without an oracle’s instinctive analysis based on their own experience and personality. It does not make intuitive leaps.


    Your affinities are the native aspects that you currently can push essence into, and your traits are the talents that can gain from essence use. But a person could potentially have hundreds or even thousands of unrealized talents that simply have no reason to become expressed.


    Can I have an example? Because what you''re saying is a little on the confusing side.


    Right. You might, for example, have a talent for carving sculptures in butter using your tongue… You might never experiment or learn that talent, even if you could potentially carve sculptures that you could push essence into and come to life. Thus the system assigns far less than a single point of affinity or doesn’t assign a trait to it, since that talent is unlikely to help you in any meaningful way and you never even explored it.


    So does that mean I might have other affinities than just physical, law, and imagination, and I just never did anything with them?


    You are guaranteed to, as is everyone else. Your… recognition with Kalamiti might have less to do with your expressed affinities than it does with a large chain of unrealized affinities or traits that are simply not dramatic enough to be expressed yet. It’s almost unfortunate that imagination is such a broad affinity.


    Why’s that?


    Hammer fallacy. When you have a new trait expressed, it is often easier to push energy from a broad core, like imagination, rather than build a new core that is a closer fit. That is not necessarily a bad thing, since your imagination affinity is vastly more powerful than a specialty affinity might be, but as you grow more powerful you may choose to splinter off affinity cores to orbit around your central affinities specifically to encompass a certain branch of traits.


    Such as splitting the crafting skills OUT of survival and traits like restoration and scrounging out of their respective affinities in order to create a new ‘repair’ affinity, an affinity I am certain you could reinforce. The hammer fallacy, right now you have a hammer, so everything looks much like a nail.


    However, before you start trying to create new affinities and orbit them through your essence constructs, I STRONGLY recommend training and improving your cultivation skills. Otherwise, you could hurt yourself through ignorance. That’s the strongest reason the system was created, to prevent people from sticking their heads in a fire out of ignorance.


    “He’s doing that thing you said he does,” Maniri said.


    “What do you mean?” I asked.


    “That’s creepy,” Takala added.


    “Oh, it’s a lot worse when he’s doing it silently in his head, he’s talking to his aspect directly.”


    Please note, that one of the reasons I was criticizing your choice to NOT become physical with Kalamiti was that with your imagination affinity, her chances to naturally and non-stressfully awaken potential traits and affinities within you are very high. That’s apparently a strong factor in trait recognition.


    Wait, by having sex?”


    Yes, although it would probably take a LOT of such contact with her, some of the auras I notice that match between you two are not very strong, but repeated contact could reinforce them. It won’t GIVE you powers, but like the scrounging traits, it could allow you to earn them.


    Repeated?


    Yes, like hundreds or thousands of times.


    “Hah, like having sex thousands of times is a real downsi…” I suddenly noticed the girls were all staring at me silently. Even Maniri had her mouth slightly open like she was trying to figure out what to say. “What?” I asked.


    Maniri snapped her mouth closed, “Can I have your baby? Like right now? We could like, do it right here on the table, or go up to Takala and my room, or even Kalamiti’s room. She’d probably join in. I know you are fragile, and my claws would hurt you, so you can like, tie me up if you want.”


    Weirdly, the idea made me look at Maniri hungrily. She was a tight little bundle of muscles. A little on the heavy side, but that didn’t make her any less yummy, and I bet with durability she could take a real hard pounding. “Dammit, please, stop. I am having a tough enough time already.”


    “Tough enough time what?” I heard Kalamiti say from behind me. I’d heard her coming, but sort of blitzed it out when Maniri drew my attention, I could feel her along every inch of my body despite her distance, and I bet she could feel me.


    “He has a sort of weird affinity, that’s why he resonates so strongly with you. He probably wants to coat your entire bed with semen.”


    Takala shushed Maniri, “Seriously?”


    Maniri grinned, “Oh, don’t get me started. I saw his eyes when I talked about tying me up. He’s a toppish type, and might even have a pregnancy kink. That’s fine, especially if he’s a lawkeeper. Hell, that’s probably why he reacted so strongly to Kalamiti, what with her prancing around like she owns the place and is too badass to touch.” she grinned at me, “Are you wanting to put the sexy kitty in her place, at your feet? Her purrs while she rubs her face against your crotch, obedient and ready to kill anyone that tries to mess with your family even if she has her hands bound together or wiggle her ass and tail at you when you are ready to make her smooth bottom turn pink and put kittens into her?”


    The wooden table edge broke off in my hands.


    Maniri smirked triumphantly. "Called it."