《Play Test: Stuck in Another World as a Reality TV Contestant》 Prologue Prologue It was game night. A cat side-eyed us from the door, upset as it was every week to have its nap time so rudely interrupted. The familiar smell of pizza and dry-erase cleaner filled the room. And for once, everyone was freshly showered and dressed up for the occasion. I tried to keep my voice as level and polite as possible. I didn''t want to come across as ungrateful. "I have some immediate critiques. The system is needlessly complex. It took me four hours to make a character and that was only because I discovered you had sample characters in the second of seven appendices at hour three." The prim and proper businesswoman smiled understandingly and nodded. She was the odd one out around the table, which otherwise consisted of my RPG table, a motley collection of nerds. The others were nervous and watched her reactions to my criticisms carefully. "We completely understand." She had an odd way of speaking, this sort of sing-song cadence that bordered on the uncanny valley. "Eventually the character building process will be AI-assisted, but we thought that your group with its many years of experience would feel comfortable using the text to do so." With the exception of Nasim, who got paid to DM at his restaurant job once a month, for the first time in the rest of our lives, there was money riding on our gaming sessions. The others were nervous, likely feeling out of their depths. They had all waited for me and Nasim to boil down character creation for them. Evidently, it was impossible to get most players to read the rules, even when they were literally being paid to do so. Paid playtesting, and at great rates too ¨C who would have thought it was possible? I was certainly suspicious when I found the application online. And yet here we were, seated at the usual table except with the addition of an overdressed Asian woman wearing a tie and a too-nice skirt and jacket combo. "There''s sixty skills," said Nasim slowly, "twelve attributes ¨C thirteen if you include the optional horny one ¨C thousands of feats, and dozens of romantic archetypes, magical traditions, and martial arts which all confer different bonuses and restrictions. It''s total choice paralysis. It''ll take hours of going through the book every time we want to spend Experience. Not to mention the difficulty of GMing this game. Who is GMing anyway? I''m still unclear about that." The woman from the publishing company waved it off. She had a generic attractiveness to her that made her simultaneously approachable and deeply unremarkable at once. I''d already forgotten her name, although that wasn''t saying much; I was famously bad with remembering them. Luckily, she didn''t seem offended by our criticism, which put the others at ease. We were all counting on this money. She said with the same easy smile, "We want Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoes of Fate, where Legends Converge and Destiny Resonates to be the sort of game that captures the mind for life ¨C a forever game, if you will." "Are you taking notes on the name?" asked Cat sarcastically. "We''ve all been calling it Love Fight in our group chat." Her girlfriend Mars elbowed her lightly. Cici raised her hand like we were back in school. "I have some questions about the setting. It came across as a Supernatural-Horror-Martial Arts-Fighting Game-Romance-Anime World. Is that, is that right?" "Yes. But though I appreciate all of your feedback, I would ask that you reserve it for later. Today we are finishing your character creation, after which you''ll be ready to start testing out the game properly." Spotting my skepticism, she added, "And you will of course be receiving your first, substantial, payment once you''re finished." I looked around the table. We shared an unspoken, mental shrug emoji between us. "Sure, no problem. We''ve done dice pool systems before, so it''ll probably click in place when we start playing." "Excellent!" She clapped her hands. "Well, how about you share a little about your characters with me and then we can get into where in the world you want to start your stories." We went around the table. I was playing James Li, a stunt actor who was raised by a martial artist and a professional thief. Since I''d been the first to make a character, I hadn''t been sure what would be needed so had made him a bit of an all-rounder. Cat and Mars had made twin sisters, but that was where the similarities stopped. Cat was playing a doctor/traditional medicine practitioner, and Mars a shaman in a bike gang. Nasim, ever the combat-minded, had built an ex-military powerhouse. Our resident mega-weeb, Cici, had built a ninja, and her husband Ted a cybernetics specialist. Davis was playing a girl as usual, a ballet artist/model, and Victor had ignored all the martial arts stuff the best he could to make a straight-up wizard, again, as usual. It was a large table, and this was just the people that came every week. There had been some long breaks, but we''d somehow managed to preserve our routine, all the way from back when we were shit-heads in our early twenties to fairly responsible adults in our thirties. According to SD Publishing, it was the primary reason we were selected to be a part of the playtest. "Wow, I''m so excited to watch these characters develop!" She passed out professional-looking brochures to each of us. "These are the locations within our world that we have ready to go for you. Each of you will select a different starting location. You don''t need to stay, but the best way to reconvene for most of you will be to raise your status and reputation high enough to become known globally, so choose wisely. Additionally, each starting location is home to incredible adventures and equally incredible rewards, so don''t feel overpressured either. " Nasim rubbed his forehead. "Wait. We''re going to be playing in different locations? How is that supposed to work? This also returns us to the question of who is GMing for us anyway?" "It''ll all be made clear as soon as you''ve selected your starting locations." I just shook my head, increasingly certain we were never going to be paid more than once, if at all, for whatever the hell was going on. Flipping through the pamphlet, I started choosing for the others. Hopefully the sooner we were through character creation, the sooner we could get to some answers. "Well, Cici is obviously going with the ''Sakura Shogunate''. Ted, you should probably go with ''Neon Harbor'' with your specialization. I''m good with ''The City of Shadows'', it seems like the most suited for my character and I like urban fantasy. Which leaves ''The Crossroads of Destiny'', ''Arcane Britannia'', ''Mystico Maya'', ''The City of Eternal Spirituality'', ''Realm of Shadows'', and ''Zephyr Oasis''. What do you guys think? Realm of Shadows is basically Transylvania, that seems up your alley, Mars." "Okay." She turned to Cat. "You should do The City of Eternal Spirituality, sweetie. I could ride my bike to you." "Sure." "I''m calling Mystico Maya," said Nasir quickly. "I was just listening to a podcast on the Mayan Empire." Davis stared blankly at the pamphlet before looking at me expectantly. Victor, realizing that was an option did the same. I rolled my eyes. "Uh, Davis only knows one accent, so he''ll do Arcane Britannia. And I don''t know, Vic, Crossroads of Destiny? It''s a small town in the middle of America. You lived in Illinois, right?" "That has nothing to do with my character." "You''re free to read through the pamphlet, man." "Nah, I''m good. I''ll do the Crossroads." The businesswoman''s smile grew a bit. "All set? It''s a big decision, remember?" I shrugged. "We''ll figure it out." I came to surrounded by bright lights, a large fist hurtling towards my face. Big block letters hovered in front of the scene blocking most of it from view. My life flashed before me. Then, my other life flashed before my eyes.
Congratulations, you''ve been selected to star in SkinDimensional Media''s pilot season of Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoe¡ª?
? A fist punched through letters, causing my mind to thankfully shunt them into the corner of my vision, and collided with my face. I stumbled back and fell to the ground. "CUT!" "Shit, sorry kid." My attacker stepped forward and offered me his hand. I recognized him instantly as my mentor, veteran stunt actor Kassem Kahn, and let him pull me up. "You alright?" asked a voice to my side. A tired, middle-aged man on a director''s chair looked at me with a bored but polite concern. I blinked at the scene around me, half alleyway outside on a sunny day, half industrial warehouse ¨C ah, right, I remembered now. We were on a sound stage, filming a commercial for chewing gum. The lights were shockingly bright and much hotter than I''d expected. The director turned to look at Kas, now with genuine worry. "Is he alright?" Kas slapped me on the shoulder. "He''s good, just knocked for a loop." I nodded at the director. "Sorry about that, my brain bugged out for a second. We can keep going." The man slumped into his chair, visibly relieved. "Great, you have no idea how much paperwork an injury adds." He checked his watch. "We''re ahead of schedule anyway. You boys have been working hard. Let''s take lunch, everyone!" "Take a seat, James. I''ll go make you a plate." "Thanks, Kas." Once I had a moment to myself I pulled up the rest of the messages from ''SkinDimensional Media''.
Quests! Quests are hooks for adventures, romance, and personal development. Not Satisfied by your starting quests? Don''t worry! There is an infinite number of ''hidden quests'', our way of rewarding you for seeking out entertaining situations on your own. [Grand Quest: Session 0] Reconvene with the other members of your test group. Reward: 1000 XP Bonus Objective: At least 4 members of your group are alive at completion. Reward: +2 to your three lowest Attributes. Bonus Objective: At least 6 members of your group are alive. Reward: Choose between 2 random Special feats. Bonus Objective: All 8 members are alive. Reward: You may return to your home world with your new bodies and abilities.
This was¡­crushing. My thoughts went back to the pamphlet we''d been given to choose starting locations. I had barely skimmed it, and from what I could remember there were no real names in the descriptions. My new home, Black Harbor, New Jersey had only been referred to as ''The City of Shadows''. But at least Black Harbor stuck out as an obvious set piece, there not being a city of 5 million people between New York and Philadelphia in our old world. The rest of the places were things like a small town in the middle US, a mega city in East to South East Asia, a small university town in the suburbs of London, and a haunted Eastern European valley; in other words, borderline impossible to find from just a map. Then there were the mystically hidden places, which I''d presumably have to go on a ''quest'' to even hear about. I opened a notes app on my phone and immediately set to putting down everything I remembered about my friend''s characters and where they''d been sent. After a few minutes, I looked at the dismal list. It consisted of character archetypes with a handful of notes, ''Cici, playing Blackanese Ninja somewhere in Japan'', that sort of thing. Nasim''s character was called Tor, which was the only name I could recall. We''d talked about the system and game a fair bit together and I remembered a good amount about Tor, which was unfortunate since Nasim had chosen a lost city as his starting zone. I groaned. This was a nightmare. I had a great group, really, but I knew them well enough to know that if this was all that I could remember, then they knew absolutely fuck all outside of what they''d gained from their characters'' memories. There were other messages as well.
[Character Quest: Honor Among Thieves, part 1] Determine the truth behind your father''s arrest. Reward: 125 XP, +1 to six different skills of your choice [Character Quest: Fame, part 1] Become a local celebrity in Black Harbor, known by the majority of the population. Reward:100 XP, +1 to all Social Attributes Bonus Objective: Become cherished by a significant percentage of people. Reward: 50 XP, +1 Charisma, Free Major Feat from within your Romantic Archetype Bonus Objective: Become feared by a significant percentage of people. Reward:50 XP, +1 Presence, Free Major Feat from a Predator Romantic Archetype [Quest: Enter The Shadows] Encounter the supernatural underbelly of the City of Shadows. Reward:25 XP, +1 to Aura, Affinity, OR Attunement [Quest: Damsel] [Scintillating] Rescue a young woman from a mugging in your neighborhood. Reward:25 XP, Gain a Contact. Bonus Objective: Successfully leave her wanting more of you. Reward: Upgrade a social feat. +1 to Sensuality Scintillating! Quests marked Scintillating are those more likely to lead to situations that our viewers adore. Here at SkinDimensional, we pride ourselves on producing the multiverse''s finest pornography, and we''ve taken every opportunity to incentivize you to help! You''ll receive greater rewards from engaging in steamy romance and smutty scenes. If you do exceptionally well, you can receive random gifts from the Audience! Prove to be a star, and the Producers will grant you incredible boons!
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. My life was being shown to an audience of perverts from across the multiverse. It was a good thing I happened to make James Li, my character and new half, an actor hoping to become famous, because Alan, the man I''d been before, was currently freaking out about being watched. Alan very much did not want to be the star of a supernatural horror, martial arts rom-com pornography. James didn''t love the horror or the pornography part of the deal but was doing backflips over the thought of becoming a star in multiple universes. I''d have to deal. My friends were counting on me to survive and to somehow find them in this chaotic new world. To do that I''d have to play along with my ''Producers''. At least they proved themselves helpful with the last message.
[Producer Boon: Moving Bonus] Along with your first promised payment, we''ve included a small moving bonus to help you get settled. Black Card: This little metal debit card is a bank in itself. While it works at any ATM and has an account and routing number in ink only you can see on the back, you can deposit money into the card simply by touching the card to cash or other currency. You can withdraw money simply by reaching into a pocket or wallet the card resides in. If lost or destroyed will return to you safely the next day. Money stored in the Card grows at 10% yearly compound interest.
The card fell into my palm as soon as I dismissed the message. I could intuit the contents of my account just by touching it. Five thousand dollars, a good chunk of change, Still, I''d have been more grateful for the money if the people who''d paid me hadn''t also trapped me in a reality TV show against my will. But I couldn''t deny it was a life-changing amount of money for me, James Li. I was currently living frugal in a basement apartment in the second or third roughest neighborhood in Black Harbor. Living off the wages of a non-guild Stunt Actor was not easy. In fact, it was impossible, which is why I''d been supplementing my income with parcel delivery work. We wrapped up my scene fairly quickly after lunch. As a non-member of the Stunt Performers Guild, my screen time was forced to be limited. I also wasn''t allowed to say any lines or be on set for longer than four days, which severely hampered the type of roles I could take. There was also a serious difference in pay. Kas and I would end up being on set for about the same number of days for this commercial, but he''d be walking away with ten or twelve times what I''d be. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Luckily this was my thirtieth supervised day of working with a guild member present, so I was finally qualified to apply for membership to the SPG. Unfortunately, I''d heard it could take up to two or three years to get accepted. I assumed this was to make room for nepotism. "Hey, kid, stick around, would ya? I''ll buy you some protein to celebrate," Kas said with a wink. Kassem "Combo" Kahn was almost everything James Li had wanted to be. Kas lived in a nice brownstone in Riverside, had work all year round, and was respected by his peers. James had been shooting to be the next Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen, but he could respect the old man''s lifestyle. Kas was comfortable. His face might not have been well known, but the man had been in hundreds of productions and had some insane stories to show for it. He even had a niche community of fans from back in his tournament fighting days. I didn''t know how aggressively I''d be pursuing James'' old goal of Hollywood stardom ¨C my old goal. I had to get used to that. Fame in this kitchen sink of a world would probably mean dealing with literal vampires or sex cults with actual magic behind them. But, at the same time, it was my best plan at the moment for getting the others'' attention. Nasim, at least, would be able to recognize my name if not my face should it end up in a headline or movie''s credits. Kas was magnetic to watch, a phenomenal physical actor. He didn''t have any lines in this commercial, but every movement, even the way he stood, signaled emotion and intent to the audience. We had the same job today, ostensibly, but man did it feel like he was on another level entirely. If I had to put a finger on it, it was the difference between the skill I''d taken, Performance (Stunts), and the skill Performance (Physical Acting). Except, of course, the old man could also do any stunt I could. It was a shame he didn''t get the spotlight more often. Kas had the ethnically ambiguous, average height, average frame build that producers lost their minds over when casting stunt doubles. He had a few more scenes with the new girl, Annie Shine. She was a bit older than me, having gone to and graduated college. I didn''t know much about her other than that she used to be a Penn State cheerleader, but she was Kas'' newest prot¨¦g¨¦. After we''d confirmed this booking and were assured that I''d meet the 30 supervised days requirement to join the Guild, Kas hadn''t wasted time in finding someone else to coach through the process. He was waging a one-man crusade against what he called the Guild''s elitist gatekeeping policies. Annie stumbled on a few of her stunts. It was no big deal, but it did make me feel a bit better about getting punched in the face earlier. I could tell she was relying on her cheerleading and gymnastics experience to bridge the skill gap for what was being asked of her. At least she wasn''t getting nervous or in her head about messing up ¨C that was the biggest flag I''d noticed that someone wasn''t going to be able to cut it. I guess that was what performing in stadiums of a hundred thousand people did for your nerves. When we got to the last scene before it was a wrap for the stunt actors on set, I immediately saw why Kas had scouted her. It was a simple stunt. The premise was the actress would pop the gum in her mouth, turn around, and jump straight up to catch a fire escape''s railing. There were cheap and expensive ways it would normally be done, the expensive ones requiring a harness and wire, and the cheap ones involving setting up the shot so you couldn''t see the guy underneath giving the jumper the boost. Instead, Annie just made the jump. My jaw dropped. Scaled to my height, that would''ve been like if I had hit a 7-foot box jump. And she wasn''t a martial artist either, so there wasn''t Qi involved. Then she did it four more times for some extra takes. My feat, Style Maker, went wild trying to figure out how I could mimic what she was doing with my anatomy. I took out a pad and pen that I kept for specifically this sort of inspiration and started furiously sketching out drawings with notes trying to decipher each micromovement involved. "Holy crap, is that my standing high jump?" said a voice behind my shoulder, startling me. "Wha- oh, hah." I looked down at a very rough figure drawing of Annie as she was loading her legs. I''d lost track of time. "Uh, sorry, I got a little carried away." Annie was leaning over the table reading my notes, her face uncomfortably close to mine. Kas stood further back looking amused. "Don''t apologize, this is awesome. Huh¡­I do rock my heels back, don''t I? That''s so weird, I never thought about that before. I always figured it was good genetics." "You mean you''ve always been able to do that?" "It went up a lot when I started deadlifting seriously, but yeah I''ve always had a crazy vertical." I drummed my pencil on the pad in thought. "Hmm, your Agility and Strength are playing a role but there''s definitely a trick to it that I''m pretty sure I can replicate." "Wow, I''d love to see that! None of my teammates came close over four years. Oh, I could help you train! Maybe you could show me how you do that crazy kip-up backflip you do." I quirked my head in confusion. I knew the trick she was referring to, but I hadn''t done it at all today, not even in warmup. Annie caught my look and quickly added. "Oh, I asked Kas to send me some videos of him training, and I binged all of yours and Kas'' this past week. I thought I''d watch some with other women but once I saw yours I couldn''t look away. You''ve been on loop on my laptop for like four days." She paused. "Sorry, was that creepy? That wasn''t creepy, was it?" "Ha! No, I''m sure I''d scour your training videos as well." I stopped myself. "Okay, it does sound creepy when I say it." "Right? That''s how I felt!" Kas slapped a hand on each of our shoulders. "I knew you two would get along. But let''s get a move on. We''re contractually obligated to be off-set within thirty minutes and I''m trying to grab my check. I don''t know what it is about this production company, but if you let them mail you your money it''s always at least two months late." After we grabbed our checks, and I''d discreetly confirmed that I could tap my Black Card to one to deposit the money, our mentor insisted on driving us to a fancy steakhouse to celebrate me finally being able to apply to join the Guild. The fact that he owned a car while living in Black Harbor did mean that he, like all drivers in the city, was an unhinged maniac with no regard for his personal property, but I didn''t judge him too harshly. We took three seats at the small bar in the restaurant, Cappa''s Steakhouse. I was amazed they let us in the door dressed as we were in our sweatsuits, but we had come in between lunch and dinner, and it appeared that Kas was a regular. Annie sat next to me. She nudged me while Kas made flirty small talk with the bartender and ordered us drinks. "Hey, can I look at that notebook?" I hesitated. I had been raised with a pretty secretive outlook on personal techniques, inherited from my family''s traditional kung fu upbringing. Or James had ¨C huh, was I already considering those memories mine? That was¡­good? Yeah, probably for the best. "Please." Annie batted her eyelids at me, leaning in a bit. She was gorgeous, with blue eyes, short red hair, and a light dusting of freckles. She would have been a stunner in my old world, but this universe had gotten a Hollywood make-over which rendered her merely well above average. Maybe it was the existence of Qi here, or maybe SkinDimensional Media had pulled it off somehow. I had no real idea of how powerful they were, but if they were in the porn business, they presumably had an interest in gussying up everyone''s appearance. I laughed. "Of course," I said, passing her the notebook. "Just don''t judge my handwriting." Technically, the notes were just a part of the in-game explanation for how James'' ability to rapidly adapt other techniques into his style worked. I no longer had to engage in the note-taking process at all now. I was a Player Character, as long as I had the Experience points for it, and met the biological, feat, Attribute, and Skill prerequisites, I could learn how to mimic Annie''s high jump in an instant. Hell, if I could get her to use it in a fight against me, I''d get a slight discount on the purchase. That was the power of my feat Style Maker, which had been the driving force behind how I''d designed this character. Sure, I couldn''t mimic Ted''s cybernetic feats, nor a werewolf''s ability to transform, but anything a ''normal'' human could do was fair game. Kas looked over and smirked. "Hey! Is she reading your notebook? You never let me look at those?" "You¡­never asked." "Yeah, but only because I knew you''d say no." "How could you know I''d say no if you never asked?" Annie giggled. "Well, I''m honored either way. Kas called you a prodigy but it''s one thing to hear and another to see. I got to say, I was skeptical when he said you were going to try and qualify for the Tournament with your martial art, but I think I might put some money on you now." I blinked at her and tried to go through my memories. "I''m what? What tournament?"
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Made your first fan. Reward: 10XP, +1 Presence
Annie opened her mouth and paused, her eyes momentarily wide. "This lighting makes your eyes pop." She shook her head. "Sorry, what was I saying? You know, the big one. The Black Harbor Martial Arts Tournament." My head rocked back. That was ludicrous. The Black Harbor Martial Arts Tournament was in the top five biggest in the country. It had a multi-million dollar prize pool, I was at a bare minimum 500XP away from anyone in the top eight, and the thing was only three months away. "I¡­don''t think ¨C I mean, I''m pretty sure you have to qualify for that. And you have to get sponsored by a school or former fighter to¡­" I turned to look at Kas. He looked guilty for a second before his smirk returned. "Hey, Suze, three Manhattans," he said to the bartender. "Well, I was going to wait until you had a few drinks, but congrats, kiddo, you''re fighting in five weeks. There''s one last qualifier, top two go on to fight in the Tournament." "Are you insane? Five weeks! I don''t even have a name for my style yet, Kas. I''ve been calling it Improvised Operatic Kung Fu." He stuck his finger up. "I''ve thought of that too! Call it Black City Style, it''ll get the locals on board right away. Plus, it was made here, right?" I stared silently, mouth agape. "Real quick, can I just say, this lighting is really good for you." "Kas." "Right, sorry. Listen, remember two weeks ago when you asked about how to expedite getting into the Guild once you qualified to apply? We talked about getting your name out there, who to schmooze, how to impress your peers, that sort of thing. I mentioned getting into tournaments?" "Among other things." "Right, right. So anyway, the next day I did a little bit of day drinking, and an eighth of mushrooms, called in a few favors, and ended up registering you for the Northeast Qualifier." "What! Why didn''t you tell me? I could''ve had two more weeks to train!" "I was waiting until you had a few drinks, remember? We haven''t had a chance to go out since then." Suze, the bartender, placed a Manhattan in front of me. "He''s a menace, isn''t he? Here, sugar," she poured me a shot of vodka, "it''s on him." "Thanks." I tossed it back. The James half of me was reticent, worried about embarrassing himself and his fledgling new martial arts style. But pausing to think about this¡­it wasn''t the worst idea. In fact, it was about perfect. Even if I didn''t qualify for the Tournament, I''d make some XP along the way. And the Black Harbor Tournament was a great way to complete my ''Fame'' quest while hitting both the optional objectives. If I won, I''d be both feared and cherished alike. "Okay. I''m in." I gave Kas a serious nod. The old man looked triumphant. Waving at the glasses, he exclaimed, "What did I tell ya! I knew that would work." "When do we start training?" He shrunk in on himself. "Okay, this I really, really do feel bad about. But I got a call about a job in Germany that I couldn''t say no to. It''s a speaking role ¨C comedic too, you know how I''ve always wanted to do one. Huge paycheck, I get to brush off my German, to see my daughter¡­I am sorry though, to both of you." I clapped him on the back. "Don''t be. You deserve this. I''m happy you''re getting a chance to shine." Annie nodded. "Yeah, we''ll be fine. How are you long gone for anyway? I''d probably have been lucky to get more than a day and a half of stunt work anyway." "Not sure. I''m going to try my hardest to get back in time for the Qualifier." "When do you leave? I only really need one good fight from you to learn your combo thing anyway. I''ll be able to figure it out from there." Kas looked offended. Suze the bartender laughed and leaned in. "Oh boy, here we go." "Combo thing? Combo thing? Are you referring to my Six Star Meteor Kick? It took me seven years to invent that. You think you can learn it, without instruction, after one fight?" I took a long drink of my Manhattan. Oof, heavy pour, Suze. The Six Star Meteor Kick, Kas''s signature move, was probably a Master Feat, but I''d only seen it done in grainy VHS footage so I couldn''t say for sure. That meant that it would cost 100 XP and have some serious prerequisites. I probably couldn''t swing that in time for the Qualifier, but maybe if I won that¡­ "Wanna bet? It took you seven years ¨C I''ll do it in seven weeks." "Ha! Alright, I''ll take you up on that. But if you lose, you have to finally move out of that hole you''re living in." He turned to look at Annie, "James here is living in a building with no floorboards or walls." "No, I live in a basement apartment which is perfectly fine and has a stellar backyard. The rest of the building above me, yes, does not have floors per se, however, that makes it perfect for training. I love that place." The women seemed skeptical of my response. Kas just shook his head. "Ah, I see, afraid to put your money where your mouth is." "Alright, old man, I''ll call your bet. But if I win ¨C hang on. Hey, Annie, want to help me train hard?" She grinned. "Sure! I''ve been looking for someone who can keep up. I don''t know much about fighting though." "That''ll be fine. Okay, Kas, if I win, you pay for an all-expenses paid trip to Mexico for me and my corner woman. I want to see some Mayan pyramids." I turned to Annie. "You good with that?" "Are you kidding? Hell yeah!"
[Hidden Quest Complete] Make your first new Ally. Reward: 10 XP, +1 Persuasion Bonus, Make someone your Ally within hours of meeting them: +2 to Random Social Skill (Rolled Seduction) Bonus, Ally is a potential romantic interest: 10XP,+1 Seduction
There was a sharp spike of a headache as I went from knowing nothing about seduction to being a skilled Lothario in a split second. I hid my expression in a long sip of my drink. All of sudden, it became startlingly obvious that Annie had been flirting with me for several hours now. Damn, thinking back on the looks I''d gotten from Kas and Suze it was clear that I was the only person in the room who hadn''t picked up on it too. "Deal," said Kas, sparing me from having to dissect all my past interactions. We shook hands. We called it shortly after the food came out, despite the protests of one of our trio. Kas was driving, and while he insisted he''d be fine, Annie and I didn''t feel like betting on it. Plus, while it didn''t really matter in this world, alcohol was a gains killer, and I had a tournament to qualify for. As we were getting close to my apartment, I had a fun idea. It wasn''t the most sensible way to spend my Experience points, but I couldn''t help but flex on the old man. I bought the Feat that allowed Annie to jump so high.
[Minor Feat Purchased] Coiled Hamstrings ¨C Your jump distance and height are both tripled.
"Hey, pull over here. I want to show you something." The sun was low in the sky over Black Harbor, painting the sky in a smoggy red. The streetlights were just beginning to turn on. I got out of the car and made my way underneath one of the lights ahead of us. With no run-up, I leaped straight up in the air. The feat had converted my 40-inch box jump into a ten-foot vertical. Combined with my six-foot frame it was easy for me to catch the top of the streetlight. I hung there for a moment as a laughing Annie got out of the car with her phone up and filming, before sliding down the pole safely. "I think I''ll walk from here. See you guys! Sunday, Annie?" "Definitely!" Welcome to Black Harbor 1 Years-worn grooves in my muscle memories kicked in the next morning, taking over for my conscious mind. I rolled off the couch I''d fallen asleep on and immediately dropped into clap pushups. I was grateful and eager to let the routine carry me forward through the day. Last night I''d intended to hop online and start researching everything I could on the mythical locations where Cat and Nasim had ended up. Maybe I would have walked around the neighborhood to find a girl to rescue for the quest. Instead, it had been all I could do to crash onto the couch and stare at the ceiling until I fell asleep. Alone in my starkly furnished concrete basement home, the weight of my situation bore down on me. I wondered how the others were doing. How was Davis adapting to actually being a woman instead of just playing one? I suspected she was thrilled. If only I could''ve remembered her character''s name. Davis had made a successful ballet artist and model, presumably, she''d have an Instagram, or this world''s equivalent, that I could reach out to. Mars would be dealing with being a shaman in a bike gang, and Cici a literal ninja in Neo-Feudal Japan. What time was it in the Far East? Ted would probably be just finishing his first day as a man with a robot arm living in a dystopic cyberpunk city. Compared to them, my adjustment was easy. I was just some guy in a city in America; that wasn''t all that different from what I was before. Nasim and Cat were both in cities more magical than not, and Victor was in a secret wizard order. All of them, as long as they managed to survive, would get stronger. Adventure was all around them. Me? I''d have to be proactive. And careful, couldn''t forget that. I''d made someone firmly on the outside of supernatural society. There could have been a shadow war in Black Harbor right now and I''d have no idea it was happening and who was fighting it. What was Jersey known for anyway ¨C tax fraud, the mob, the Jersey Devil? How did one prepare to fight half-Italian, half-devil accountants? Going through my memories of this world, it seemed you had to have at least one Master tier feat to get into the top 5 of any of the big mixed Sports Fighting tournaments, which was the category for the Black Harbor Martial Arts Tournament. Sports Fighting meant that, though there would be no weight or sex divisions, weapons would be outlawed, and the contestants wouldn''t actively be trying to kill each other. For example, I''d be disqualified if I used my Eagle''s Talon to rip my opponent''s bicep off the bone. This was in opposition to mixed No-Limits Fighting tournaments where you could use a katana if you wanted to. Thankfully, No-Limits Fighting had been banned in most countries in the mid-1980s. I''m not even sure how you could do a tournament in No-Limits. Even if you won, you might be missing an arm on the way to your next fight. I thought about what I needed to do to keep myself on pace with the rest of the gang as I slipped into a dynamic stretching routine. There was a mechanic in the game called Hard Training, where you could roll an Endurance + Willpower check every day, the difficulty of which was determined by your highest Attribute. Hitting that threshold gave you 1 XP, and extra successes, a five or a six on a six-sided die, gave you 1 XP more per success. A failed Hard Training check lowered the next training session''s difficulty by 1, cumulative for successive failures. Having a training partner also lowered the difficulty by 1, which was originally why I''d asked Annie to train with me. That was way too slow to rely on. The stronger I was, the faster I could find my friends, and the faster I could find my friends the less chance there''d be for any of them to die. I needed to get into confrontations, stick my nose where it didn''t belong, and really dive into the City of Shadows. But considering the message from the Producers of this show¡­ "I need to get hornier!" I yelled at the ceiling. "To give you perverts what you want! Because I''m stuck in a fucking PORNO!" Wait, why was I mad about that? When I said it out loud that sounded kind of awesome. "Oh right, because it''s AGAINST MY WILL! Send me back, you FUCKS!" I sighed. "But first, breakfast." Walking over to my kitchen, which had been shoved into the corner of my large living room, I started undoing the dog lock on my fridge. I hated the fact that I needed this thing, and I hated it more after I opened the door. Havoc awaited me, havoc and one very fat rat. The little gourmand had gone on a tear, sampling a bit of everything. The egg carton was open and dripping with sticky yellow goo and broken shells. He''d chewed through the plastic of my cheap jam and somehow pried off the lids of most of my condiments. The vegetable drawer was open, and while the contents were largely untouched, I could see a puddle of rat piss and shit at the bottom. Worst of all, he was sitting in the tupperware containing the leftover duck fried rice my mother had given me. "My macros! Not again!" He gave me a startled look, his fur matted and sticky. Then we both burst into movement. It was surreal, I could feel my ''dice'' being rolled in the space between seconds. First came our Initiative rolls, Agility plus Wit. I got three successes; I didn''t know his rolls but I could feel that I had beaten him, moving a hair faster than he did. My Eagle''s Talon lashed out, hardened by years of iron hand training to be a deadly instrument, capable of dealing what the game called Murderous Damage. I hated that fat, football-shaped rat fuck with a terrible passion; there would be no mercy here. Again, I felt our rolls in the back of my mind, an instant of triumph rising as three successes came up. I missed. "What." I''d had him. He had tried to jump past me to the ground. I tracked the trajectory of his leap ¨C my hand was there. "No¡­" At the last moment, he''d violently jerked his body in mid-flight, altering his path to just out of my grasp, as if he had known where my hand was going to be. I played out the scene in my head over and over and weighed it against the information I had gleaned from Style Maker. "He¡ªHe read my Fighting Spirit. The¡­the rat knows kung fu¡­" I stared blankly at my ruined groceries, the dripping mess in my refrigerator. "The rat," I sounded out slowly, "knows. Kung fu." My eyes slowly raised towards the heavens. "The rat knows kung fu!? You monsters! Send me back! Send me back, you absolute fucks!" After calming down and cleaning up I decided to head out and get some basics and a bagel egg and cheese from the corner store. Harbor Hill, my neighborhood, wasn''t great for selection, with no large grocery stores to speak of. The corner stores and delis had stepped up, carrying an impressive selection if you were willing to split your shopping trip up into seven or eight stops, but it was a good forty-five minutes of wandering about ¨C the deli shuffle as the locals called it. Lugging the bags around was great for the forearms though, that''s what the people telling me to move out of here didn''t understand. Sure, Harbor Hill was rough, but it was perfect for training. This world compared to my last, had a shocking amount of crime. There were multiple murders every day in most cities in America, and Black Harbor was particularly bad. We''re talking many thousands of homicide victims a year. Harbor Hill was roughly the second or third worst neighborhood in the city. Living here for most people meant carefully planning your schedules around spending as little time alone out at night as possible. I could literally patrol Harbor Hill like Daredevil did Hell''s Kitchen and run down thugs night after night without running out. I made a mental note to start doing that. I''d have to get a mask and an outfit together unless I wanted to get firebombed in my sleep. I called my mom on the way to the store. With the sun shining, the neighborhood looked no different from most. People walked their dogs, watered their potted plants, and fired up their little patio grills. "Hey, Ma. Got kind of a weird question for you." There was a long pause before I heard, "James, is that you?" My mother had been in America since she was eleven and had only the slightest accent. Had she picked up without looking? "Uh, yep. It''s me." She switched to Mandarin. "Are you okay?" "Yeah, I''m fine," I said in Chinese. "Did something happen?" "No¡ª" "Aiyah, James, you didn''t get some girl pregnant did you?" "What? Ma, what is going on with you? Would you please relax?" Someone walking their dog smirked at me as he passed. "Hmm, but you have decided to abandon your ridiculous movie star dreams?" "Uh." I paused. That was a complicated topic. Becoming a famous actor would bring me a ton of XP, evidenced by my ''Fame'' quest, and I still absolutely wanted to be the next Jackie Chan. "No, of course not!" "James, I''m your mother. You can''t lie to me." "Gah! Ma! I called because there''s a rat in my apartment that reads Fighting Spirit and can salmon skip mid-air." "There''s a rat in your apartment!? What are you doing with your life?" I pinched my nose. "Oh my god," I muttered. She sounded confused. "And the rat inspired you to take your martial arts more seriously? Is the rat your new master? You should have more pride in your family''s style than that." "I¡­I just¡ª" "Listen, come teach the afternoon class tonight. Kathy''s hosting bridge night and I want to go. Mathew is too sick to teach." "Really? So I''m not banned from teaching Eagle Style anymore?" She had barred me from teaching or studying Eagle Style when I''d decided to not go to college and pursue stunt acting instead. I could practically hear her roll her eyes. "Don''t get smart with me. Oh! I see the vegetable granny going down the street with her cart. We''ll talk later!" She hung up. I glared down at my phone. I just wanted to know about rats doing kung fu. "Is the rat my new master," I grumbled. "Unbelievable." Raul''s Deli, one of the many, many stores with some variation of the name ''NJ Best Deli'', was known as the apple spot. Other delis had two variations of apple, red or green. Raul had Honeycrisps, Fujis, pink ladies, and ones I''d never heard about like ''Red Eriks'' and ''tree pearls''. And also, strangely enough, high-end anchovies. I guess I was eating apples, peanut butter, and anchovies for lunch. Let''s go, baby, fuck yeah. If you squinted at it the right way, those were almost my macros. Two thugs loitering by the entrance smoking eyed me up as I walked in, looking grimy and smelling of crack, a man and a woman. They looked like they''d been up all night. I glared at the man. I''d just lost a fight to an obese rat and wasn''t in the mood to take anyone''s shit today. I was surprised to see the cute girl with glasses from across the street in the store this time of day. She was black and thin and wore conservative, somewhat nerdy clothing, her hair natural and down to about her shoulders. Burdened down by several full re-useable tote bags, she was clearly on the last legs of the deli shuffle. It was still pretty early in the morning, that would''ve meant she''d gotten up around six to go grocery shopping for her family. She gave me a nervous smile but we didn''t speak. I''d only been living in my place for three months and we hadn''t had the chance to talk much. Unfortunately, my building was directly between two trap houses, which was probably related. Also, I think there may have been a misconception on the block that I was living in the unfinished part of the building. The floors above mine had been in a pretty bad fire a few years back, and instead of fully fixing it up, the building owners had decided to keep the majority of the insurance payment for themselves. They''d reframed the building and put a new roof on it to make sure it wouldn''t fall over, but there weren''t any actual floors, walls, or wiring. I used it to train my balance and climbing abilities. It had frankly been the main reason I''d moved here in the first place. There were times, though, when I''d caught people watching me from the windows while I did cartwheels along the joists. They tended to look away sharply, as if afraid when I made eye contact with them. I was about fifteen feet out of Raul''s with my groceries and a bagel egg and cheese sandwich when I heard a commotion behind me. The couple of thugs that had been loitering at the door had pushed the neighbor girl down and were yanking the tote bags out of her hands. She looked terrified and didn''t bother to fight them, letting them steal more than a week''s worth of food. I crushed them on their initiative rolls. They were neither Agile nor people of great Wit. The man stood up first, three bags in hand. I did a strange cork-screw of a roundhouse kick, looping my foot through the handles of the stolen bags and then up and into his chin, the full force of my hips and core connecting with his surprised face. For basically everyone else on the planet, this would have made the kick more difficult to perform and less effective. However, with my wacky-ass build, I added a die to my pool from my feat Rule of Cool, and then added another die for my ''Martial Arts Movie Collection'', my starting item which for some contrived reason improved my Martial Arts skill when using my personal style. And finally, the weight and the distraction the groceries added to my kick triggered my Improvised Brawler, giving me one more die. That gave me an extremely respectable twelve dice in my attack pool. Alright, so maybe I hadn''t built just some guy. Four successes, three more than I needed ¨C the kick hit hard. In that bizarre time between seconds, I converted all three extra successes into damage. The male thug stumbled back and hit the sidewalk, visibly dazed. His companion took one look at what had happened and panicked, swinging a bag with a gallon of milk at my head. She whiffed completely, allowing me to go for a counter. I slipped my hand through the straps of the bag coming at my head, grabbed her wrist, and put her into a joint lock, arm twisted behind her back. "Ow! Fuck, hey!" "Stealing groceries? That''s pretty despicable," I said, contemplating breaking the woman''s elbow. Her friend wisely decided to scramble to his feet and sprint away. "There goes your partner." The neighbor girl stood up, wearing a mixed look between relieved and distraught. She was holding her broken glasses and looked to be on the verge of tears. I stuck the leg that had kicked the thug out to her, her grocery bags still looped around my ankle. "Th-thanks," she said, hesitating for a second before retrieving the bags from my leg. "Let me go, asshole!" yelled the woman. I grabbed the stolen groceries from her other hand and pushed her away. "Gladly. You smell like a trash fire, by the way." If this were Chinatown, I''d have broken her wrist just to save her from the wrath of the triads. They''d have had a conniption if they''d heard about someone robbing young girls of their groceries. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. She threw me a finger as she ran away. "Fuck you!"
[Encounter Complete] Defeated two mooks. Reward: 1 XP x2 = 2 XP Bonus, Outnumbered: (1 x 1) = 1 Total = 3XP
"You alright?" I stepped in close to the girl, putting one hand reassuringly on her back. She was as thin as a reed. I doubted she could take much punishment. She nodded but avoided looking at me directly. "I''m¡­okay. Thanks for saving me." Now, I had two paths here. I wanted to establish a rapport here and I could either use my Persuasion or Seduction Skills. Persuasion was much higher, but since I was guaranteed a success with Seduction anyway, I went for the route that I knew would play best to my audience. "No problem. You live across the street from me, right? I''ll walk you home. My name''s James." The girl reached out her hand for the rest of her groceries. Instead of passing her the bags, I stuck out my arm for her to take. She blushed but awkwardly did so. "Thanks, I¡­can''t see great without my glasses. I''m Shania." "That''s a pretty name." I rolled extremely well, a total of four successes. Shania was clearly smitten, but at the same time, I could sense the social anxiety radiating off of her. I distracted her with small talk, asking about her life and giving a few details about mine. She was in high school but managed to tell me twice in one breath that she was eighteen, wincing as she realized how thirsty that had come across. Luckily, I managed to crack through by talking about my apartment. "Hang on," she said, actually stopping in her tracks. "There''s an actual apartment in that building?" "Yeah, the basement is fully functional. I''ve got heat, electricity, hot water ¨C actually, since I get the benefit of a commercial water heater all to myself, I never run out of hot water. It''s honestly pretty great. And I''m paying less than I was for my studio apartment in Chinatown." "Oooh." She breathed out a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed. "Oh my god, I''m so sorry. We all thought you were squatting in that building." "That explains a lot of looks." I laughed, easing her look of guilt. "Wow, and you let me walk you back home. That''s brave of you." She looked down. "Thanks, but I¡­was pretty scared of you up until just now." "Bravery can only exist in the face of fear," I said confidently. "I used to tell that to the kids in my kung fu classes all the time." "Used to?" "Ah, well up until today I was banned from teaching Eagle Style. My mom got upset when I decided to not go to college to pursue stunt acting." "What changed today?" I stuck up my hand and yelled, "I have no idea!" "Sorry," I added with chagrin. "I had an extremely confusing phone call earlier." Shania giggled. I guess if there was one universal among teens it was frustration with your parents. I still wasn''t sure how to feel about flirting with an eighteen-year-old. Technically she was only three years younger than me, but the formerly thirty-something part of me didn''t feel great about it. I walked Shania to her family''s second-floor apartment and was in the process of saying goodbye when she stopped me. "Wait! I want you to meet my mom."
[Quest Complete: Damsel] [Scintillating] Rescue a young woman from a mugging in your neighborhood. Reward:25 XP, Gain Contact (Marianne Greene). Bonus Objective: Successfully leave her wanting more of you. Reward: Upgrade a social feat. +1 to Sensuality [Feat Synergy!] Hero''s Honors Upgrades Reward Contact (Marianne Greene) Improved to Ally (Marianne Greene)
I only had three social feats and didn''t have the prerequisites to upgrade my Major feat into the Master, nor the Leadership skill required to take Can I Trouble You? from a Minor to a Major feat, so the game automatically upgraded my only option, Hero''s Honors. Un-upgraded, it gave me one guaranteed success to persuade or seduce someone I saved. It was already pretty strong, and I was glad to see the leveled-up version didn''t disappoint. The former feat read:
[Minor Feat] [Hero''s Honors] You have the air of a truly decent man. When you step in to help it comes across as selfless and kind. Gain one guaranteed success to any roll to persuade or seduce someone you have personally saved.
The new one dialed it all up.
[Major Feat] [Hero''s Honors (Upgraded)] You have the air of a true Hero about you. When you step in to help it comes across as selfless and just. Gain one guaranteed success and add two dice to any roll to persuade or seduce someone you have personally saved, and their close friends and family.
"Wait here," said Shania as we entered. She took the rest of her groceries from me and rushed into the kitchen, ignoring her younger brothers. I could hear someone getting breakfast together in there. "Yo." I waved at her brothers. They looked to be in their early teens or pre-teens. I received two wide-eyed stares back. "There''s an actual apartment in the basement. Two-bedroom, backyard, it''s pretty nice. I converted the backyard into an outdoor gym." They both ''Oooh''ed and relaxed. The boys were sat at a dining table, the older with some homework out and the younger midway through spreading jam on toast. Their apartment was crowded with things in a way that spoke to being overfull rather than being a mess. Part of their living room had been partitioned with a few bookshelves and a curtain to create a makeshift extra bedroom. Judging from the decorations I could see peaking through some of the shelves, that was Shania''s ''room''. "Mom said you were crazy," said the youngest. His older brother elbowed him. "Bruh." "Ow, what?" "I''m Darius," said his brother, ignoring him, "and this little twerp is Shaun." "James Li." "Are you dating Shania," asked Shaun, rubbing his ribs. Darius disregarded his brother but not before shooting him a scathing look. "So you don''t work for Papes?" Papes was the pimp that ran one of the traps next to me. He was also the closest thing I had to a friend on the block. "Ha! No, I let him and his guys use my squat rack and sometimes he fills up my freezer in exchange for personal training sessions, but I definitely do not ''work'' for Papes. Uh, that wasn''t a euphemism either; his cousin owns the butcher shop on 58th." They frowned and shot each other skeptical looks. Their mother had probably told them to avoid Papes, and neither were at the age to have developed nuanced moralities. Kids tended to have black-and-white perspectives on the world; they couldn''t understand that you could be friendly with the pimp next door without explicitly endorsing his lifestyle. Papes would probably like to hear about people mugging teens for their family groceries. That sort of ratchet shit was bad for everyone. The whole point of trap houses was to contain vice to discrete and controlled environments outside of the public eye. Ah, best not to bother him. We had a good thing going, no reason to muddy the waters by bringing business into it.
[Accept Quest?] [Quest: Cleaning Up Harbor Hill] Make most common thugs think twice before prowling Harbor Hill for victims. For this Quest to count as completed, the average resident of the neighborhood should feel safe going about their business alone at night. Reward: 300 XP; 3 Relationship Tokens, choose between +2 to Leadership and Intimidation, or, +2 to Investigation and Perception
Never mind, I''d probably need the pimp''s help for this one. "So are you dating Shania or not?" "We met like six minutes ago." "That''s not a no," said Shaun. Darius narrowed his eyes at me. "He''s right, that wasn''t a no." Damnit, kid. I thought you were on my side. I looked over to the kitchen for any sign of incoming help. Luckily Shania''s mother appeared at the doorway and ran over to tackle me in a hug. She was in scrubs and a lot younger than I''d been expecting. She must have had Shania when she was still in high school. I assumed this was my new Ally, Marianne Greene. "Thank you, thank you so much!" She pulled back a little but kept her arms wrapped around my back. "Shania told me everything. Thank you for looking out for my baby. Boys, make some room and set a plate for James. He saved your sister from getting mugged. I''m¡ª" "Marianne Greene?" She blinked at me, confused. "It''s embroidered on your scrubs." I pointed to where her chest was pressing into mine. "I''m James Li, by the way." Marianne looked momentarily mortified at how forward she''d been and stepped further back. "Ha¡­right." She cleared her throat. "So what am I making you?" I waved her off. "I''m alright, really. I got a bagel egg and cheese from Raul''s." "Nonsense, it''s the least I can do. If it wasn''t for you ¨C well, I don''t know what we''d do. We''re going to have to replace Shania''s glasses, and those were like 150 dollars worth of groceries. And my landlord is¡ª" She looked at her two boys, catching herself. "Not a nice person." "I can imagine. He owns my building too, right?" I saw her face scrunch up and her mouth open to ask a question. "There''s an apartment in the basement," I quickly added. "Rent is pretty cheap too. Oh! Here," I said, pulling a hundred dollar bill out of my pocket with the Black Card in it, "let me cover Shania''s glasses. I won a scratch-off yesterday." "Oh no, I couldn''t take this. Don''t be ridiculous." I could feel our opposed social dice pools clatter in the back of my mind. With my feat guaranteed success and the additional dice, she didn''t stand a chance. I took her hand and closed her fingers around the bill. Marianne was still conflicted on her face but didn''t fight me. "I''ll be alright, seriously. I work for Runr, the parkour parcel delivery app and Fashion Week is coming up. We all make bank during it. There''s like, as much work as you want to take." ''Thank you'', she mouthed as she slid the bill into her pocket. "Shania said you''re a stuntman?" "I am, but it''s not the most consistent work for right now." "Woah!" interjected Shaun. Both boys wore adoring looks now. I felt my cheeks heat up a bit at the childlike admiration. "Can you teach me how to flip?" "Backflip for sure. Front flips take time to work towards." Marianne put one hand on her hip. "Shaun, why is your brother the only one studying?" "Uhh, ''cause I know all the material?" he tried. His mother raised a single eyebrow. He hung his head and groaned. "Sorry, mom." I gave her an impressed smile. She winked in response. "At least have your sandwich here. I''ll make you some coffee." I rubbed the back of my head. "I¡­sure. I''d like that." "Cream, sugar," she asked as she started to head back into the kitchen. Time froze for a moment as I contemplated if I was really going to do what had come to mind. Ah, fuck it, it would be good TV. I rolled a Charisma + Seduction and gave the slightest of smirks as I answered, "I like it black." Oof, only three successes including the guaranteed one. That could have been bad. From what I remember from what I read in the rules, three was the bottom threshold for most risky maneuvers, which was the only way to describe flirting with a woman fifteen years older than you in front of her kids. She rolled her eyes, but her smile widened. "Noted." Breakfast with the Greenes was relaxing, perfect for taking my mind off of all my quests and problems. Shania joined us after a bit. She had washed her face, but I could tell she''d cried when telling her mother her story. We were all locals to Black Harbor, but I was new to the neighborhood, while Marianne had grown up two blocks over and had met her ex-husband in the same high school that Shania and Darius now went to. She was also a nurse at Dayside, the semi-private hospital in the far north of Harbor Hill that I did a good half of my Runr deliveries for. There were plenty of topics that we could all fill the space with, and for a few minutes in the middle, I was able to forget about the extradimensional eyes on me. "Alright, I think I''m going to get a move on my day," I said, putting down my empty mug. I tore out a page from my notebook and wrote down my number. "This is my cell. Anytime you want someone to walk with you anywhere, just shoot me a text. Seriously. I might not always be available, but I''ll never be mad you asked." "Thank you," said Marianne. "And if you ever bust a rib training in your jungle gym of an apartment, call me right away." I laughed as I got up. "It''s a real apartment!" Marianne whispered something in her daughter''s ear as I made my way out. The girl was too dark to blush, but she seemed incredibly embarrassed by what she was hearing. The door to the Greene''s opened just seconds after I''d closed it behind me, making me pause to see if I''d forgotten anything. Shania closed the door to her family''s apartment, took a deep breath, and shuffled closer. "Everything alright?" I asked. She looked nervous. "I, um, wanted to give you something." "Oh?" She took a step and placed her small hands on my chest. Leaning up she placed a single dainty kiss on my cheek, hesitating for a second before doing so. Then she looked up at me like a scared rabbit, trying to judge my reaction. My hand snaked around to her lower back as I bent down. I grinned and kissed her on the lips. She froze when she felt my lips on hers, but relaxed after a few seconds, putting more of her weight against me.
[Hidden Quest Completed!] You and a partner shared your first kisses together. Reward: +20 XP, Gain a random Minor feat from the Prince Charming archetype.
Neither James nor Alan had been kissless virgins, but I suppose the Producers were feeling generous.
[Minor Feat (Prince Charming)] Heartfelt Serenade: Your beautiful singing voice can enchant hearts. Once per person, you can perform a heartfelt serenade that grants +4 on persuasion or seduction attempts for 1 hour.
I¡­I really didn''t want to use that. Maybe I could get into Karaoke or something, sing Baka Mitai while staring into someone''s eyes. "See you around, right?" I asked, taking a step down the stairs. Shania nodded, slightly dazed. Welcome to Black Harbor 2 Chinatown on a warm, late Summer night smelled like pot stickers, charcoal, and home. It was Friday and the people were out, about, and buzzing with excitement. Plastic tables with chain-smoking uncles playing mahjong were out on every block. Men stood outside karaoke bars hocking their specials, eyeing up their rivals from across the street. Live chickens, rabbits, and frogs were being sold from makeshift markets. You could stand still here and catch over a dozen languages being spoken by residents and visitors alike. Among all this, patrolled very serious men and women in sharp, formal attire, with full sleeves and buttoned collars even in this weather. They were triads, Tigers, Cranes, and Dragons. Crowds parted around them, the many thousands of us following the unspoken rules of the neighborhood without complaint. I could barely make it through a block before someone stopped me to chat, uncles asking me for opinions on upcoming boxing matches, aunties checking if I was still single, friends inviting me out, and all of them chiding me for moving away. It was good to be back. For the record, I hadn''t been avoiding Chinatown, I''d simply been busy. But my justifications fell on deaf ears. I even got it from a few of my friends who had joined the Cranes. Like, come on! How was moving somewhere twenty minutes by subway worse than joining the Triads? The immediate area around my mother''s school was a no-man''s land for the gangs. I don''t know how she managed it, or if my dad had been involved in brokering that deal. Neither had ever felt like elaborating when I''d asked. But it had been that way since I was a kid. The Triads may have imposed order onto the neighborhood, but their absence allowed for a palpable peace. It was calmer here; the air felt lighter when you stepped onto the block. People seemed a bit happier. My mother lived in the apartment above her gym. The narrow door that let people into the stairway that led up to the residential part of the building''s lock was still broken. It hadn''t worked since I was a teen, and no one had bothered to fix it. The fact that Lily Li lived there was security enough apparently. I knocked on her door to be let in. She opened it with an annoyed expression, clearly midway through getting dressed for a night out. "Why did you knock? Just use your key," she said in Chinese. I responded in kind. "Just wanted to be polite, Ma." She tsked and let me in, heading back into her room to finish getting ready. "Eat something!" she called through the open door. "You look skinny." "Want me to make you tea?" I asked. "I''m putting on a pot." "Tea? I said eat something. You''re teaching the beginner and advanced classes tonight. That''s two hours, James." "I remember." "Don''t take that tone with me." "I''ll be fine not eating for," I checked the time, "two and a half hours, Ma." I heard some muttered grumbling from her room. "Okay, make me tea." The place looked the same as I''d left it, except for a few newer family pictures from our relatives, many of my sister at school in California. Evidently, it was acceptable to move if it was to go to college. I took a peek around my old room while the tea was steeping. It had been converted into a crafts room, a sewing machine taking up most of the space on my little childhood desk. Boxes of cloth and various pins and buttons were spread out on my old twin bed. Good, I was happy to see some sign that she was beginning to accept my independence. "We started using a color ranking system," she called out as I sat down at the kitchen table. "Had to happen eventually." "Mm." Kung fu didn''t traditionally have a ranking system, but most schools in the West had adopted one to satisfy market demands. Parents wanted to know if their kids were getting better. How could we know if they were getting better if they weren''t getting tested regularly? What if they went to a new gym, how would they prove they knew their stuff? Ridiculous. It was a very American idea. We''d avoided implementing one for a long time, but it was just leaving money on the table. "What color should I grab?" She laughed. "Ho! Last week I would have said black." "And I''ve since been demoted?" There was a long silence. If this was a week ago, I might have bristled at the perceived insult. But I had more to worry about than my mother''s approval these days. "No," she said, standing in the doorway of her room. She looked beautiful like she hadn''t aged a day past thirty. "You will be wearing this." She threw me a folded cloth still in its plastic. I opened it, unfolding the sash. It was silk, all black except the edges had been embroidered in gold thread. "It''s the same that I wear." She sat down across from me and poured me a cup of tea from the pot I''d prepared. I rubbed the cloth between my thumb and index finger. How much had this cost? "I don''t understand." "You are the master of your own style, are you not?" She took a sip of her tea. "Hm, acceptable." I stared at her in response. I didn''t need to verbalize all the reasons why I was confused right now. We''d fought a lot about my decision to pursue my style, and then even more when she realized how over the top and absurd it was. She''d called it, ''All flash, no silver.'' "You''re wondering what changed?" she asked. "I am wondering the same. So, my son, what has caused you to pursue the path of strength?" Oh, holy shit. She was good. "I am your mother," she said as if reading my mind. God, what was I supposed to say? ''My friends and I are stuck in this hell world because I replied to a job I should have known was too good to be true,'' Or maybe, ''I need to find my friends because I don''t fully trust them to not get themselves killed, and to do that I need to satisfy the lust of interdimensional perverts''? "If one is born as a male, at least once in his life, he''ll dream of becoming the strongest man alive." She threw her head back and laughed. "That may be true. And is that why you''re fighting, to become the strongest man alive?" "Yes," I answered without thinking. "No. I don''t know." If I was going to end up stuck here, then definitely. How else was I supposed to relax in a world of devils and draculas? My mother sipped her tea, waiting patiently for me to put my thoughts together. "You¡­knew? Just from hearing my voice?" I stared at the ceiling fan above us. Its chain jangled a bit with each rotation. "A woman can sense when a man is burning with resolve, and a mother knows her son." I winced. I hadn''t seriously considered the life that James would be leaving behind if Alan decided to go home. My fingers massaged my temples. "There are people counting on me, and I need to get stronger. That''s¡­all I can say for certain." I looked at her, suddenly ten years younger. "Mom, if I need to¡­" leave, I finished in my head. "If I, If I¡­" die. My eyes were stinging. She got up and put her hand on my shoulder. Smiling down at me, she said, "I''ll always be proud of you, my son. You''ve grown into a fine man." I cleared my throat. "Thanks." She patted me on the cheek. "Now go get dressed and get the school ready for class. I will be back late tonight, but you''re always welcome to sleep here if you want to wait." The first hour of class was split between advanced students and beginners, and the last hour was just for beginners. About half of the beginners I didn''t recognize, it having been almost three years since I''d stepped into the school for a class. They were surprised to see me, but not as much as the old timers were, especially with my new sash. "James!" proclaimed Harry Wen, one of the handful of elderly students who had babysat me and my sister when were younger. "You''re back!" I laughed. "Not exactly, Mr. Wen. I''m just sitting in today. Matt is too sick to teach." "Ah, I see," he sounded disappointed. "But you''ll be coming by more often?" I quirked my head. "Certainly more than I have been." "Wait, I''m too sick to teach?" asked a confused Mathew Kingsman as he entered the school. The middle-aged, short black man was the school''s most senior student, and a frequent instructor when my mother needed a break. "That''s news to me. All I told your mom was that I had some allergies." "Matt," I breathed a sigh of relief seeing the man. "It''s good to see you. I was worried I''d be teaching by myself." "Good seeing you too, kid. Wasn''t the same without you." Wen slapped the man on the arm. "Oi, we have to call him shifu, now. See his sash?" I raised my hands in protest. "That''s not nece¡ª" "No, he''s right." Matt bowed, the others doing the same. "It''s good to have you back, shifu. How should we begin." I clasped my hand to my fist and returned their bow. "Line up everyone. Let''s stretch a little while we wait for everyone else to get here." After a short introduction and asking Matt for an update on where everyone was at in their studies, I launched into a fairly typical class. Most started with some dynamic warm-ups, while the elderly did isometric exercises like balancing on one foot to strengthen the muscles around their joints. After that, we all ran through the first form of our family''s Eagle Style Kung Fu. I kept the lesson to the standard curriculum ¨C these students had paid to learn Eagle Style, not my idiosyncratic brand of fighting. Though to put my own spin on it, I did have them do some partner drills with the same wrist lock that I had used on the female mugger this morning. As I''d suspected, people were incensed to hear that you could get robbed of your groceries in Harbor Hill. That and the fact I had a real-world example seemed to spur on the students. My mother taught her kung fu in a very slow, deliberate fashion so I was happy to see the atmosphere was a bit lighter when I led the class. It was about twenty minutes into the class when something went wrong. I was in the back, grabbing the fold-away mats so we could practice some sweeps when I heard shouting from the practice hall. "GRAAAH!" A deep roar and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the hard wooden floor of the gym spurred me into a sprint. There was a mass of the advanced students at the door, while the beginners huddled behind them, craning their heads to see what was happening. A few of the advanced students had slipped into fighting stances. "Hey, hey, hey!" I came out waving my hands. "Everyone, calm down! What''s going on?" "Tiger gang!" "Tiger gang punks attacked Mathew!" "Some crazy kids are challenging us, shifu!" I waved off my students. "Get back in line. Class isn''t over." The crowd dispersed quickly, finally letting me see what was at the center. Matt was getting up back to his feet, rubbing his chest while wincing. He looked angrier than I''d ever seen him. Standing in front of him was a very smug man with the standard ''casual uniform'' of the Tiger Gang, a nice button-up, slacks, and some element of gold to distinguish themselves as members of the triad, which in his case was the buckle on the belt he wore. He looked to be about my age or younger, while his companions couldn''t have been a year out of school if they were at all, and was built like a linebacker. If I had to guess, he was an inch shorter than me, but easily twenty pounds heavier, all of which had to have been muscle. "Huh, who the hell is this? I thought the master of this school was a hot woman, not some skinny pretty boy!" shouted the man. His goons, both girls, laughed along. "Why do people keep calling me skinny?" I muttered to myself. I clasped my hand to my fist and gave a short bow. "James Li. If you''re looking for my mother, she won''t be in tonight." I glanced over to my injured compatriot. "You alright, Matt?" "I''m fine. Punk just caught me off guard. I can handle this one, shifu." "Perhaps later," I said smiling. "This is the beginner class, Matt. No sparring in the beginner class." Our challenger scoffed. "Spar? What are you talking about, idiot? This is a dojo challenge! I''m here to kick your ass!" I tutted. "No, no, I picked up on that. It''s just that I''m not the master of this school, so you naturally won''t be able to challenge tonight." "You think I''m dumb? That guy''s wearing a black belt and calling you shifu, and you got that dumbass black and gold one on your waist. You''re just trying to get out of fighting me!" He began to settle into a fighting stance but paused as I held up a hand. Once more I could hear those dice a clacking in my head as I attempted to Persuade him. I was very persuasive. "There''s no need to get upset. I have a suggestion that should suit you fine." He narrowed his eyes at me but didn''t continue into the stance. "Everyone is allowed a few free classes to see if they want to sign up. Why don''t you three hop into the class today? That way you''ll learn a bit more about the Style you''re challenging before you fight my mother. There''s a reason no other gangs dare step on her territory, you know?" That last line seemed to do the trick. "Tch! Fine, show me your Eagle Style so I can rend it apart with my claws." "Lovely! May I have your names?" He smirked. "My name is Tanaka Kuze, or Kuze Tanaka in American, make sure to remember it. This is Ami and Ro." That was unexpected. "The Tiger Gang is letting Japanese in these days? Doesn''t sound like them." The girl spoke up. "Tiger Gang only cares about strength, fool! They''d be crazy to turn down Aniki!" "Call him shifu, Ami," said her ''older brother'', his words dripping venom. "We''re in his class, you know. Got to respect the master." "Sorry, shifu," said the girl, bowing her head. I''d never seen someone bow sarcastically before. "No problem, Ami! Alright everyone, let''s get back to it! A few more beginner drills before we move on to some conditioning!" Matt gave me a searching look. I just shrugged. Did I have a plan? Not really, but I could feel the start of something forming here, maybe. The rest of the class was capital-T Tense. The jovial attitude from earlier was gone, replaced by an intense need to show off their competence and strength. For most of the people in the building that is. Me and Kuze were both very visibly relaxed and unbothered. It was performative. We were both ready to kill each other at the drop of a hat, but some unwritten ''Dude Law'' was making it important to each of us that we disguise this fact. Kuze went harder at the conditioning part of the class than anyone else, as if trying to prove that it didn''t matter if I was trying to tire him out. He simply wouldn''t get tired, what did I think of that? "Okay, everyone! Get a drink of water and cool down. We''re going to finish the beginner section of class with the first form five times." Ro, the boy that had come with Kuze, asked, "You''re going to teach us your forms?" "It''s a kung fu class, isn''t it?" I was true to my word. While Matt led the class in the first form, I took the opportunity to walk around correcting mistakes. Since it was their first class, the gang members naturally needed the most instruction. Kuze shot me a deadly glare when I lowered his hand to the correct height but didn''t otherwise complain.
[Hidden Quest Complete] Teach your first class. Reward: 5 XP, +1 Leadership [Recurring Quest Discovered] You may formally instruct others to gain up to 1 XP each day.
As the beginner class wrapped up, I turned to Kuze. "Normally beginners aren''t allowed to participate in the second half of the class, and I''m going to have to insist that Ro and Ami sit out, but since you have experience with martial arts and have been so patient, I don''t see anything wrong with letting you stay." "How gracious of you, shifu." He nodded his head at the wall where other beginners were awkwardly moving to sit down. "Wait with the rest of them." I shot an inquiring look at one of the beginners. None of them were filtering out of the building. "Um, shifu, your mother lets us watch the advanced class if we want to. Is that okay?" "Of course! That''s very diligent of all of you." The advanced class started with the second form of Li Family Eagle Style. One look at Kuze informed me that he wasn''t going to make it through the full advanced class without snapping. While he''d had no problem following along to the first form, he struggled to keep up with the second and was starting to grow frustrated. I moved us quickly into practicing some takedown escapes, hoping the brutal physicality of the exercises would let him vent, but if anything it had the opposite effect. I suspected he''d realized why I''d made the change and was angry that he''d carelessly shown me his frustration earlier. We hit boiling point when it was time for Matt and Kuze to roll together. I probably should have found a way around having them go up against each other, but I''d been holding out hope that a little bit of grappling would open the way for some masculine bonding. Kuze failed thrice to escape Matt''s takedown. The older man was gentle about it, which only added insult to injury. The third time Kuze hit the ground he immediately performed one of Tiger Style''s distinctive leg sweeps, knocking an unprepared Matt to the floor. I almost leaped in, but thankfully Kuze stopped himself from going further. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. He slammed his fist into the ground. "Fuck this! You said the advanced class had sparring? Well, I want to spar you!" He pointed at me. I smirked. "Sure, we can spar." I nodded at my students, most of whom were frozen, unsure of what was going on. "Make some room, guys. We have a bonus seminar tonight. Mr. Tanaka is going to show us some Tiger Style. And it looks like I''ll be able to show my old peers what I''ve been up to since I stopped coming to class. Is it alright if I use my Black City Style, Mr. Tanaka?" "Use a fucking knife for all I care." Matt whispered into my ear as he passed, "You sure about this?" "It was going to happen eventually. Make sure none of the students get hurt." I stood in the center of the long practice hall. One wall was covered in mirrors, where Matt had thankfully ushered the students to sit under. It would hopefully keep either of us from being thrown into the glass. Apart from the small section that was covered by the fold-away wrestling mats, the floor was hardwood. Above us was a plaster ceiling, supported by heavy timber beams every thirty feet or so. Along the wall opposite the mirrors were punching bags and wooden dummies, as well as display and practice weapons. Hopefully, this stayed civil enough to justify them staying where they were at. Kuze stood ten feet away from me and settled into the telltale, aggressive stance of Tiger Style Kung Fu. I''d seen the same stance in dozens of Tiger Gang members during the odd street fight I''d witnessed growing up in Chinatown. Interesting, Kuze was definitely a member of the Tiger Gang ¨C I saw nothing of the Karate or Judo the Yakuza preferred. One look at his fingers in his preferred style told me that he''d undergone the Tiger Style''s unique iron hand training, which took years of vicious conditioning. They were spread out in a way that I never saw in other styles; most styles preferred to keep our fingers close together for added strength. "Notice, students, that Tiger Style is a ''hard'' kung fu style, meaning that Mr. Tanaka''s body is coiled tight, his entire body a weapon." I slipped into my modified Eagle Style stance, which I''d designed to pass for someone just standing normally at first glance. "Whereas my stance is based on our ''soft'' kung fu. My goal is going to be to only tense at the instant of impact." "Are we chatting or fighting?!" I smiled at him and took a deep breath. "Whenever you''re ready, Kuze." He shattered my initiative roll, almost appearing to teleport directly in front of me the moment I''d finished saying his name. I''d known it was coming, the Tiger''s Pounce was famous in Chinatown, but that didn''t mean I could react in time. Kuze tried to spear me in the chest with his Tiger''s Claw, equally as deadly as my Eagle''s Talon ¨C a bit spicy for what was supposed to be a spar. Damnit! I could feel that I was a little better than him, but his attack still connected, hitting me for two murderous damage. I didn''t let the moment go to waste though. Kuze had fully extended his elbow and had opened the door to me using the Eagle''s Talon. I snapped my hands out and I could instantly feel the difference in our approaches to combat. I used primarily Agility, with Martial Arts to attack and Acrobatics to dodge. Kuze was using his Strength and Athletics to block and parry. He fired an elbow at my wrist, negating my attack and stepping in close for a follow-up. This time I was ready, circle stepping back and to his side to avoid his punches. Okay, motherfucker, time to show off my Black City Style. I grabbed his arm in a typical move from Chin Na, Chinese standing grappling. He tried to pull me for a counterattack, but instead I used his added help to leap up onto his shoulder and then again into a 360-degree spinning kick. Kuze stumbled back as I landed, shaking off the blow to his cheek. "What the hell was that?" "That was my Black City Style. How did you like it?" He laughed. "You''ve got tricks, huh? Well so do I!" He sucked in a large breath and opened his mouth into a terrifying roar. "GRAAAAH!" For a second my body tensed, wanting to freeze like a deer before a predator. I brushed off the attack to my Willpower, but that momentary pause still gave Kuze an advantage as he once more dashed toward me. This time he hit me for three Murderous damage, raking my chest with his claws, tearing open my uniform and skin alike. Okay, it was time to get serious. Instead of dodging back, I leaped into the air, clinging onto the beam above us. In a move that imitated a diving eagle, I kicked off the beam with the full force of my recently feat-enhanced legs, Talons out in front of me. Kuze panicked for a split second, not having any training for getting attacked by a 175-pound man diving at him like a bird of prey. Kuze screamed in pain. My Talons hit him on his collarbones and my weight sent him crashing down. I focused on twisting and rending the flesh and bone under my hands, even as I jumped off of him. I dealt a horrifying six Murderous damage, leaving a symmetrical red splash on the floor around him like bloody angel wings. This was technically a spar so I did consider for a split second not seizing on his prone form. But Kuze was the one who''d escalated to lethal force, and I suspected the proud man would have taken it as an insult if I didn''t. As he was beginning to roll up to his feet, I again leaped up and into the plaster ceiling. I dove down again, this time with my feet forward in a stomp, hoping to avoid killing him if possible. My feet landed on either side of his spine, knocking him chest-first into the floor and driving the wind out of him. He took another three damage. I didn''t know what sort of Endurance Kuze was looking at, but that sort of damage would have had me looking for exits. I jumped off him to a spot ten feet away and settled into a defensive stance. The Japanese triad pushed himself to his feet, his eyes bloodshot, bleeding from his lips, hair matted in sweat. And yet, I could see the fight in him, burning hot. I decided to make a Read. In game terms, that meant I was preparing for a specific attack or maneuver. If my opponent did what I expected, I would get a massive bonus to my counter; if he didn''t, then he would in turn get the same bonus to his attack. My hand drifted down to my sash. "Kai!" Kuze pounced once more, but this time I''d leaped at the same time, rolling over him mid-air, pulling my sash free of where it was tied around my waist, and lashing out with it. The silk wrapped around his neck, aided by his momentum and my spin. I landed and tugged on the improvised lasso, pulling Kuze off his feet and slamming him back to the ground. The only thing that kept his neck from snapping from the force was a mechanic that I had available as a Player Character, which allowed me to not deal the final point of damage that would incapacitate someone. A flick of my wrist untied the sash from his neck. I tied it around me again while I waited for the savaged man to stand up. I bowed as he turned to face me. "Good spar. I learned a lot." He was wobbling on his feet and could only take short wheezing breaths, but to my surprise, he managed to nod his head in respect. I gestured with my eyes for his two friends to help him walk. They rushed to his side, staring at me with open fear. I watched silently as they guided him out of the school.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Made your first rival. Reward: 15XP, +1 Martial Arts Bonus, Turned a potential Nemesis into a Rival: 25XP, +1 to Physical Attribute of choice (Agility) [Encounter Complete] Defeated Tanaka Kuze in a duel. Reward: 12XP
The school burst into applause the moment the door shut on the three would-be challengers. Matt ran to me, his eyes on the bloody gashes across my chest. "Shifu James!" "That was amazing, shifu!" "You showed them, shifu!" "Enough, enough. It was just a friendly spar." I waved them down, but couldn''t help the smile that came to my lips. Giving Matt a tired smile, I asked "Mind taking over for the rest of the class? I need to bandage up." "Holy hell, kid, you haven''t been slacking. And yeah, of course. Me and the rest of the students''ll get this place cleaned up. You go take care of yourself. Gauze is where it''s always been." "Thanks, Matt." Once I was in the bathroom with the gauze, I let the full force of my exhaustion hit me. Jesus Christ, that had been a lot closer than I''d wanted. Kuze was a monster, his physical Attributes all either the same as mine or higher, and he was already capable of using weaponized Fighting Spirit, which meant his Aura Attribute was at least 3 or higher. If he took the time to bear down on his martial arts, he could easily eclipse me. Kuze was just some human thug trying to make a name for himself in the Tigers. What could I expect from fighting actual monsters? I stared at my battered form in the mirror. I''d come closer to death today than ever before in either of my lives. I had 110 Experience points to show for my insane day. That was enough to buy a Master tier feat if I met the requirements for any of them, which I didn''t. Aura, which represented how much internal mystic might one possessed, was one of the biggest gatekeeping stats for the Master feats that I''d been eyeing up. I also needed to get one of my physical stats to a 6 for most Martial Arts Master feats. My Aura was seriously lacking, I only had a 1 in it, not having intended to make a character with any feet in the supernatural at the start of the game. That had sounded like a fun idea at the time. I cursed out my past self for being an idiot. Aura was also guaranteed to go up as soon as I encountered the supernatural underbelly of Black Harbor from the quest reward. It made sense to bump it up as high as I could before that happened to maximize the gains. I had also used a combination of Willpower + Aura to defend against Kuze''s Tiger''s Roar and had only passed my check out of luck. With that in mind, I spent 90 XP to bump Aura from 1 to 4, each level costing 10 XP times the number of dice I would have in total. I''m not sure what I was expecting when jumping from a mortal''s amount of Qi to a journeyman sorcerer''s, but it didn''t happen. I guess I maybe felt a bit more certain of myself? But that could have easily been psychosomatic. They''d mostly cleaned up the mess when I came back into the practice hall. I had changed into my casual clothes, my blood-soaked uniform in a plastic bag. I''d drop it off at a cleaner''s on the way home. Matt approached me with concern. "I''m not sure you noticed, but a few of the students were recording your fight." "Shit, really? I don''t want to bring any trouble from the Tigers to my mom." He smirked. "James, the Tigers are going to be lucky if that idiot didn''t just bring a ton of trouble from your mom to them. But I can tell them to delete the videos if you want." "They don''t need to delete it. Just tell them not to post it online. It can''t hurt to show the Tigers some face." "Got it. I''ll send it through the group chat. You sure you going to be alright?" He nodded his head down at the bag of bloody clothing. "Yeah, I know someone who can clean silk and she''s patched my uniforms before. They should be good as new." "Fully not what I was talking about." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Heh. I''ll be alright, Matt. Just need a bite to eat and a good night''s sleep." And maybe some stitches, if I was being honest. But he didn''t need to hear that. One of the older women approached me as I started to head towards the door. "Ah, James, my granddaughter is in medical school in Philadelphia. Would you like her phone number?" "Oh, that''s alright, Mrs. Hsu. I''ll just go to an urgent care if it becomes a problem." "No, no. She''s single. You want to see a picture?" "I, uh, that''s okay. I really should get going. I want to drop these off at the cleaners'' before they close." After a few more goodbyes and assurances that I was fine, I was back on the streets of Chinatown. I took a circuitous route to my cleaners, cutting through alleyways and the more residential streets to try and avoid people. Every person who stopped me added a few more minutes to the walk back to the comforts of my home. The air felt stagnant tonight, and I found myself savoring every slight breeze against my sweat-slicked skin. You could almost forget that we were a short walk to the ocean. The late summer heat wave had cooked the city for the past few days, likely heralding a coming thunderstorm. I exited an alleyway onto an empty street. People who didn''t live in cities probably didn''t realize how often you could find yourself completely alone, even in a city of five million like Black Harbor. It was normal even in my last world, especially on streets like this, where most of the buildings were offices or rowhomes. You could walk a few blocks from a crowded Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn into the near-total silence of a residential street in Bedford-Stuyvesant at night. I had always savored the sensation, the simple joy of walking beneath yellow-orange streetlights by myself. But I had to say, it was a lot more ominous when it happened here in the City of Shadows. In my past world, if you couldn''t see or hear anyone around you in the city, you were statistically as safe as a modern human could be. I paused, feeling the hair on my neck start to rise, and looked around me. Nothing behind me. I scanned the rooftops - nothing there as well. The moon was low and thin tonight, not that it mattered with the light pollution. Black Harbor painted its sky in a dull red, the smog blending all the colors into an ugly shade. Four miserable stars were visible through the haze, and one of them may have been a planet. I picked up my pace, taking my hands out of my pockets and changing my body language to one that made it clear I was ready for a fight. The mental clitter-clatter of an Aura + Perception roll stopped me in my tracks. I spun around, lashing out blindly with my Eagle''s Talon. Nothing, there was nothing there. Some vapor rose lazily from a subway vent below. I swallowed nervously. There couldn''t have been a worse time for this. I was a single point of damage away from hitting my Injury Threshold, and all five that I had taken were Murderous. I turned around and started jogging, my bandages shifting painfully against my open wounds, just a few blocks away from the cleaners and a street I knew would have more people on it. A few steps away, I dove down and into a roll. My instincts had screamed at me to dodge, but once again, there was nothing around. "Gigigigigigi¡­" came a soft laugh from behind me, along with a hot, vomit-smelling breath along the back of my head. I spun and saw ¨C headlights. Thank God. A cab had turned the corner onto the street I was on. It slowed to a stop next to me, rolling down the driver-side window. "Is that you, James?" said a balding man in large, square glasses. I recognized him as my old calligraphy teacher. Ma used to have him come and tutor my sister and me after school. "Huo Laoshi?" I asked. He drummed his fingers on the passenger-side headrest. "Hop in." I looked around nervously before taking him up on his offer. Had the air grown less stagnant? He frowned at my chest when I sat down. I was bleeding through my bandages, my shirt growing damp with blood. "Eh? You okay, James?" "Yeah." My brow was furrowed as I scanned the area outside through the windows. "Huo Laoshi, you didn''t see anyone around me when you turned onto the street, did you?" "No, just you. Are you sure you''re okay? You''re bleeding." I patted the back of my neck but felt nothing out of the ordinary. "It''s nothing. Some Tiger Gang guy thought it would be funny to dojo challenge my mom''s school." "What! That asshole! Did you beat him?" "Badly." "Ha! Good!" He started driving slowly, just meandering through Chinatown. "I''m glad to hear you''re teaching again. Your mother talks about you all the time, you know? She told me you were in the chicken outfit in that one ad. That was a funny one, my nephew loves it." "Oh yeah, that was fun." I grinned, but I couldn''t shake the haunting sensation from earlier. "So, where am I taking you? You live in Harbor Hill now, right? Rent''s cheap there, isn''t it." "Yeah, I think I need some rest." Huo drove me back at a relaxed pace. After a few more minutes of small talk, we fell into a comfortable silence. "You know," he said once we were clear of Chinatown, "the girl at the Shinto temple in Little Tokyo asked me to keep an eye out for men walking alone on the street you were on. The one between the ramen place and the Malaysian grocery store, you know it?" "I think so. Did she say why?" "No clue. I have her number though. Or, I teach calligraphy there on Tuesdays, I could take you there with me." "I didn''t know you spoke Japanese, Laoshi." Huo preened. "I read every language that values calligraphy, Arabic, Farsi, Ge''ez, Korean, Armenian ¨C all of them!" "That''s amazing. But yeah, ask her if she doesn''t mind you giving me her number. Is she the Miko, there?" "Yes, and she''s pretty too. And good at calligraphy. And she goes to college for a dual major, accounting and something else." He gave me a sly smile. "Are you still single, James?" I suppressed my groan. "Not a lot of room in my life for dating right now, Laoshi." "There''s always room for love, my boy." Welcome to Black Harbor 3 As much as I wanted to fall face forward onto my bed when I got home, there was the little issue that I was technically bleeding to death. I say technically because by the mechanics of being a Player Character, I would only start to bleed to death when I became incapacitated. Once unconscious, I''d have to start rolling Endurance checks to try and stabilize or continue to fill up my health bar with Murderous damage. Meaning that I could, theoretically, stay awake as I was for a few days, or chance me dying within a few hours of falling asleep. My bandages came off with my shirt. Strange ¨C it was as if someone had untucked the wrap with my shirt still on. Most of my abdomen was some shade of blue or stained a dirty brownish-red from the dried blood. With no Medicine and only average Finesse and Wits, I would have had to roll a crit, three sixes, to even treat the primary wound. Failing a Medicine check, predictably, carried some pretty harsh penalties. And Whiffing, getting no Successes on the pool, could be devastating. Man, I really didn''t want to call Marianne on the first day of getting her number. But the thought of going back outside alone and walking to the nearest urgent care? Oh no, that wasn''t happening. "Sorry, Marianne," I said with a sigh. What time was it, Ten o''clock? She should be home by now. She picked up on the first ring. "James? Miss me already?" "Howdy, neighbor. How''s your night going?" "I''m chilling, neighbor. The boys are at their cousins'' and Shania''s spending the night at her friends talking about you, no doubt. I got the apartment and a bottle of wine to myself if you want to keep me company. It''s good too; was a birthday present." "That does sound nice, but I kinda called for a favor." "Oh, what''s up?" "Let''s just say your night''s going a hell of a lot better than mine. Remember when you offered to patch me up?" She chuckled. "I told Shaun you''d bust your head doing all those flips. How bad is it?" "Uhh, hang on." I took a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror and texted it over. There was a pause as it went through. "Oh my God! What happened?" "Th¡ª" "Never mind, I''m on my way. Make sure your door is unlocked and then sit down somewhere and focus on your breathing. Okay?" "It''s not that¡ª" "James, I swear to God if you were about to say, ''It''s not that bad''!" I could hear her rushing in the background. "Alright, alright. I''ll get the door." "Making small talk ¨C boy, you out your goddamn mind," she grumbled before hanging up. Marianne moved quick, at my door in under two minutes. "James! Where are you?" "In the bathroom." I sat on the edge of the tub, feeling like a kid with a bad report card, waiting for his mom to get home. Marianne was dressed for a night in as well, which made me feel worse, wearing pink pajama shorts and a very faded oversized Grateful Dead t-shirt. She''d brought a messenger bag with her and was already putting on gloves as she got to the bathroom. She sucked in a breath. "Looks worse in person. Have you washed it?" "With some wet paper towels and disinfectant wipes." "So, no, then?" I gave her an embarrassed grin. "Guess not." She glanced at my shower. "Your detachable shower head work, or is it busted like mine?" "It works." "Alright, lie down in the tub. And strip, might as well get you cleaned up as well. You''re a mess." Marianne gave no reaction to seeing me naked. My pride was stung, but she was a nurse and this was far from the sexiest situation. She started running the water once I was in the tub. From her messenger bag, she retrieved snips, forceps, and the rest of what she needed to sew me up. "Tell me if it''s too hot." "I''ll be alright." She shook her head. "How are you not in agony right now?" "It hurts, but this is one step below what I consider to be an injury. A close, very close step below." An Injury Threshold in the game was determined by your Willpower + Endurance. Once you passed that number in damage you began to take penalties. If any of the damage was Murderous, the penalties were intensified. It was a big reason why the game called out in the handbook that most enemies ran after being pushed past their Injury Threshold. Kuze had taken twice his Threshold tonight in mostly Murderous damage, which meant that he''d be in a world of hurt for a good while if he survived at all. Well, that was if the rules governing me applied to NPCs in this world too. The off-duty nurse took out a large sponge from her bag, soaked it in the hot water, and started dabbing away at the flecks of dried blood from my abdomen, kneeling by the bath. "Sorry about this. If it helps, I did try to de-escalate with words." She eyed me skeptically. "What happened? I thought you were a stuntman and a delivery runner. You look like you got mauled by a mountain lion." "Good guess." I told her the story of the night, filling her in on the culture of Chinatown. I was surprised to hear that she knew what a dojo challenge was, but this was a supernatural fighting game world after all. "God," she sighed, "you can be living your life like a decent person and this shit can still kick you in the teeth. Is this going to come back to haunt you?" "I''m not sure. Not really tapped into the current state of affairs in the criminal underworld. I''ll call some friends tomorrow and find out if I need to go kowtow to some boss or something." Once the wound looked clean enough for her standards she sat back on her heels. "Okay, I going to stitch you up. You want something to bite down on? I''d give you Tylenol but I''m not sure you''d even feel it before it started to thin your blood." I smirked in response. "Whatever, tough guy." It did hurt. But out of principle, I attempted a Willpower + Charisma to disguise this fact. One success. I played it cool, but I wasn''t fooling her. After she closed the third gash and it became clear that I would be fine, the alcohol buzz managed to reassert itself over Marianne''s professionalism. Raking her eyes down my chest and to where my penis was now bobbing in the water, she said, "Shania''s going to love this view." "Heh, thanks. And you? How do you rate it?" She laughed and shook her head. "You''re ridiculous." "What, I''m asking seriously." "Boy, quit playing. I know you kissed my daughter; she was practically floating when she came back from the hallway." When Nasim had asked what Romantic Archetype I was taking, I''d told him I''d naturally chosen ''Charming Adventurer''. It fit the bill for the roguish good guy I was building and played well with my whole ''action move character'' vibe. I had lied to Nasim. I''d chosen it entirely for the Major feat, Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was a mixed bag of a feat, with purely narrative effects. It made it so people were more willing to have no-strings-attached physical relationships and less likely to get jealous, but it also made it harder to take relationships to the next level emotionally. I''d told myself at the time, that I''d taken it to avoid getting into the ''drama'' aspect of the game. Water had splashed the front of Marianne''s shirt at some point, making it clear that she hadn''t put on a bra after changing for the night. And now, as I sat naked, with a prime view of her t-shirt molding to her large, pendulous chest, I had to admit that I had lied to myself. If I had to be entirely honest, I think a part of me had been attracted by the debaucherous aspects of the game. I wanted to test the strength of Rolling Stone before pushing further. "Not to bring down the mood, or anything, but¡­you know I can''t be Shania''s ''boyfriend'', in the traditional sense. I mean, she''s still in high school for one." "And you''re living the life where you have to call your neighbor to stitch you up at ten thirty on a Friday night." She sighed. "I know. And maybe I shouldn''t have pushed her to chase you but, I mean¡­" Marianne trailed off into silence for a minute. "She needs to learn how to talk to boys. And I know why she can''t, it''s my fault. I had Shania when I was fourteen, you know. It wasn''t the worst thing to happen or anything. Me and her father, God rest his soul, we made it work. He dropped out and started working. We leaned on our families, got by, did okay." "When she got to middle school, her father started¡­I don''t know. He was having a hard time. There wasn''t a lot of work for a high school dropout. We started fighting more. He blamed me for getting pregnant so young, blamed the kids for all the expenses, blamed himself for dropping out to take care of us. When he started trying to control her, the way she dressed, calling her a slut for wanting a make-up kit. I''d had enough and left his ass." "He came back six months later with a new wardrobe, throwing money around. I told him to fuck off. I said, ''You think I''m stupid?''. Like I didn''t grow up in Harbor Hill. I know the sort of work that pays like that to men with no degrees or connections. Sure enough, I got a call from him from jail. He was nervous, talking nonsense about witchcraft and devils." I perked up. "Witchcraft? You remember any details?" She shook her head. "I think he was just strung out, and worried that he was going to get killed to stop him from talking. He was right to be. I got another call the next day from the coroner." This world was so strange. Qi and what martial artists, monks, and elite athletes could do with it was considered an accepted fact. A scientist who didn''t believe in Qi would be viewed the same as one who didn''t believe in mitochondria. But magic, witchcraft, monsters, and the rest were considered kooky beliefs, not much different than how they were in my old world. For the average person, talking about their Qi was the same as talking about your gut biome, probably irrelevant to what was being discussed but no one was discounting that it existed. "My condolences. I''m sorry to hear that. Do you remember anything about who he might have been working for?" She stopped mid-stitch and gave me the same look she had given her son for not doing his homework. "Uh-uh, absolutely not. You are not going to be a hero about this, James." I put my hands up. "Woah, hey, I''m just curious. I have friends who are dropouts too, got to look out for them." "Mhm." "But I mean, someone''s got to do something, right?" "Tell me why that someone has to be a stuntman? You don''t know, maybe the FBI is looking into it. What are you going to do? Flips? You going to roundhouse a criminal conspiracy, James?" "Hey! I have other skills! I could¡­uh¡­I could¡­Hm." She giggled. "Stop, you''re going to make me miss a stitch. Anyway, it was six years ago, so forget it. I was only telling you that to say, that Shania retreated in on herself, and she could use a good man like yourself to teach her about being a woman." I mentally pulled open my character sheet as I contemplated my next step. For the sake of the audience, getting stronger, and saving my friends ¨C and for no other reasons ¨C I was going to try and seduce Marianne. If we both had our clothes on and I was in a position to schmooze a little, it would be a Charisma + Seduction, but I was afraid that the game would force me to roll Sensuality instead of Charisma at this stage of the play. I had been treating Sensuality as an optional score, so it currently only had 2 dice. I''d have a lot of help from Hero''s Honors, but it was still a risky move. Fuck it, I decided to go to 0 XP and bought my fourth dice in Seduction. Buying skills was only 5 times the number of dice you would have total as opposed to the 10 times the value buying Attributes was. It was a perfectly reasonable decision. I was sure that the game would reward me in excess of what I was spending if I pulled it off. It turned out to be a Presence + Seduction roll. Oh right, I was hot and already naked. I didn''t need to be smooth and sensual when I could be good-looking. At least when it came to getting someone in bed. Sensuality came after that, which had been why I assumed it would be optional for us. Normally we ''faded to black'' for any saucy scenes. Five successes ¨C Christ. That ought to do it. "I don''t have a lot of experience. What if I need to learn about being a man?" Marianne grinned but didn''t look away from her task. "Oh, he think he slick." She glanced up at me, her eyes telling me I''d hooked her. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. The hot water was doing wonders for my sore muscles, the light ''plip''s the small waves made against the sides of the tub and the clicks of Marianne''s needle holders lulling me into a relaxed state. The snap of a glove coming off and a fingernail gently caressing the bottom of my chin was all the warning I got before I found myself being kissed. The first touch of her full, plump lips was brief, exploratory. The second was longer but just as soft, and allowed me to roll a Sensuality + Seduction. A lucky five successes sparked an almost inaudible gasp from my nurse and lured her tongue out. We continued until she had to pause for a breath.
[Hidden Quest Completed!] Kiss both a mother and a daughter. Reward: 20 XP, gain a random Minor feat from the Rake Archetype Bonus, Kissed both on the same day: 10XP, +1 Sensuality Bonus, Achieved without deception: +1 Presence, gain a random feat from the Honest Hedonist Archetype
A part of me hated how much more efficient it was in terms of power growth to engage in the pornography and romance aspects of the game than it was to risk my life in combat. But it was hard to complain when I was raking in the Rewards.
[Minor Feat (Rake)] Love''s Deceiver ¨C You are adept at manipulating people through their sexual desires and needs. Add +2 to any attempts to persuade or deceive someone you''ve been sexually intimate with. [Minor Feat (Honest Hedonist)] Exuberant Expressions - Your joy is infectious and can be intoxicating to behold. When anyone makes you genuinely express your pleasure, they gain a pool of 4 dice. They may add 1 die from this pool to any roll at any time until they run out or a week has passed. So long as a person has any of these dice, the memory of your joy lingers granting you +1 to any attempts to persuade, seduce, or deceive them. Your enemies can benefit from this feat as well as your allies, and you have no control over this trigger.
She held her face close, our noses almost touching. "Not a lot of experience, huh?" "Must be a natural." She kissed me again lightly, capturing my bottom lip between hers. Leaning into my ear, she whispered. "We aren''t having sex. This is a first date and I ain''t like that." "That''s fair," I whispered back. "This is an extremely shit first date." Marianne laughed and sat back on her heels. "Okay, you''re all closed up, Mr. Li. You should still see a doctor to grab some antibiotics." "I''ll swing by my mom''s pharmacist." Hopefully, she would have something to help with my Recovery checks. Her voice became a little sultry. "You''re good to get rinsed off. Think you can handle that on your own?" "No shot, nurse. I''m basically immobile. Think you can give me a hand." "Oh, I can definitely give you a hand." We paused and made eye contact before both bursting into laughter. It was hard and full-bodied, almost buckling the nurse over. With how intimate we''d already been, I hadn''t realized there was any tension between us until I felt whatever was left evaporate. "So corny," said Marianne, wiping a tear from her eye, "I''m sorry. Cut me some slack though, it''s been a long time." "You''re doing great." Marianne opened her mouth to respond but stopped herself. She quirked her head and just sat there staring. Her smile grew a bit more serene, her shoulders a bit more relaxed. As the silence stretched on, she seemed to grow a bit more wistful. "What is it?" I asked. "I swear, the more I see your face the cuter it gets." Her easy smile made her look ten years younger. "I was just trying to think of the last time I had this much fun." "You think this is fun, just wait for the next part." She licked her lips, her gaze growing lustier. I watched as she settled back into the roleplay, adopting a bit of mock confidence. "I better take this off before I get it all wet." The black beauty pulled the faded band shirt up and off of her, revealing two large, perfectly perky chocolate breasts. She put a hand underneath each, lifting them up and lightly fondling herself as I openly gawked. "This is a medical procedure, Mr. Li. I''ll ask you not to stare." "Sorry, nurse. I''ll try, but it''s difficult to look away with the most beautiful pair of tits I''ve ever seen in front of me." She mock sighed to hide her sudden grin. "As long as you''re trying. I know how hard it can be for you fighting men to control yourselves." Marianne reached her arm into the tub and pulled the plug, letting the murky water begin to drain. Her arm stayed down, however, as she placed her hand around my ankle. She shuffled closer to me, running her palm up my calf and leg to my thigh. "I might as well check that you didn''t lose too much blood while we wait." "How do you do that?" Her hand finished tracing up my thigh where it began to slowly palm my balls. "Mmm, I just need to check your blood flow." She sat up on her knees and leaned over the tub towards me, finally putting her boobs in reach as she moved her head in for a kiss. The game let my five successes for kissing her earlier hold but demanded another roll as I fondled her heavy breasts. I couldn''t tell if it was being generous, or if in general these rolls held for the entirety of an ''encounter''. I honestly hadn''t bothered to spend more than a few minutes reading up on the sex scene rules. Another four successes had her moaning into my mouth. My newly acquired sexual skills guided my fingers and tongue. Marianne liked a bit of force for her chest, not enough to hurt, but enough that she could feel me holding back. For the kiss, she wanted a partner, to feel our passion grow together, not too dominating or too pliable. I growled a bit with the base of my throat to let her know how badly I wanted her. She replied with a high-pitched, involuntary whine. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. She grabbed a hold of my cock, now fully erect. Her lips and tongue suddenly stopped moving. Backing up a bit she looked down at the tower that now jutted out of the water, her eyes wide. "Goddamn, James. I thought you were a shower, not a grower." I felt myself blush, suddenly a bit self-conscious. Again, I hadn''t thought that this aspect of the character would be explored when I''d made him, and hadn''t defined in my mind how his dick looked. SkinDimensional Media had seized on that oversight to give me a prize-winning porn star penis. While this may have sounded appealing, I was old enough to know that a lot of women didn''t actually prefer eight inches and thick. "Is it too¡­" I started to ask. Marianne gave me a sweet smile and a quick kiss. "It''s perfect, baby. Just might take a little getting used to." She purred. "I might have to get something to practice with. Maybe I''ll get two so Shania can keep up too." My cock jumped at the thought of that. "Oh! Someone liked that. Mmm, you like that, the thought of fucking my daughter''s tight, teen pussy?" I tossed my head and groaned. "Fuck, Marianne." She let out a throaty sigh. "Oooh, I like hearing you moan my name, baby. Say it again for me." "Jesus Christ, Marianne, you''re killing me." She let go of my dick and giggled. Standing up, she maintained eye contact as she pushed her pajama shorts down her soft, thick thighs to her feet. The nurse kicked off her shoes and socks, leaving her in only a plain pair of white panties. A large wet patch had the thin cloth sticking to every curve and line of her mound. Almost nothing was left to the imagination, the brown of her skin bleeding through the cheap cotton. Marianne slowly dragged her index finger from her bottom lip, through the center of her breasts down her flat, soft tummy. The finger slipped under her panties and parted her labia. I could hear her natural lubricant squick as she rubbed the finger up and down her lips. Pulling it back out, she held the now slick digit before my face. I moved up and kissed the tip before taking it into my mouth and swirling my tongue around it, cleaning it of her juices. She breathed in deep, her chest heaving, obviously enraptured by the view. While she was distracted, I got the opportunity to roll my first Sensuality + Martial Arts check, as I attempted to clean-cut apart her panties with two flicks of my wrist and the Eagle''s Talon. Marianne gasped as her underwear fell off her as though I''d taken a scissor to both sides. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she groomed herself, shaving everything but a small neatly kept patch above her sex. From how close the shave was, I assume she''d taken advantage of her empty apartment to do so earlier tonight. Rather than getting upset, the display of near-superhuman prowess sent a shiver up her. She stepped back and picked up the ruined pair of panties. "How on Earth¡­" The water was all but gone, the last of it causing my pipes to gurgle and rattle. Ah, the sounds of Harbor Hill living. I stood up. "Looks like we''re ready to rinse me off." Marianne let the panties fall from her hands and raked her eyes down me hungrily. "Wonderful. Let me wash all that filth right off of you." She stepped into the tub and turned to face me. "Make sure to keep me between your chest and direct contact with the shower spray, we don''t want to irritate the sutures." I smirked, seeing where she was going with this. "How will I clean off then, Nurse Marianne?" She ran her hand up her sides, "You''re going to use me like your," she lifted up her breasts and made sure to enunciate, "soft, wet, black sponge, Mr. Li." Looking back at the knob, she asked, "Could you get the water, sugar? I don''t know which side is hot or cold?" as though she hadn''t just run the bath for me earlier. "Of course," I stepped up close to her, and pulled her into my chest, "let me just reach past you." I dipped her forward as though going for a kiss, one hand on her lower back, the other reaching to turn the knob on. There was a short, high-pitched whistle before the shower turned on. Marianne yelped as the initial cold spray caught her off guard. She pushed the two of us to the far end of the tub, pinning me to the wall with her body. We shared a laugh. Marianne parted her lips and closed her eyes, nonverbally asking for that electric, five-success kiss. She moaned into my mouth as our tongues danced, and began to writhe ever so lightly against me, massaging my dick against her soft body. Reaching a hand down, she cupped the head with her palm and used her thumb to begin spreading the precum up and down my slit. Once the shower began to steam up. The nurse turned around, letting me get a look at the best, bounciest ass I''d seen outside of porn. Her little waist flared out to a naturally large booty that begged to be grabbed. She cast a smug look back at me as she bent over to start lathering her hands up with soap. I grabbed a hold of one of her cheeks, in not quite a smack, firmly squeezing down on it. Once more, the game made me roll another check to see how well my groping went ¨C yet another five successes. Why couldn''t I have been this insanely lucky when I fought Kuze? I really didn''t understand the mechanics here, but I wasn''t going to complain as long as I kept getting the results I was. I brought my other hand down on her ass. This was definitely a smack. Marianne shot upright and turned to face me with a look of surprise. "I''ve never enjoyed that before. You must have magic hands. Speaking of¡­" She brought her soapy hands to her chest and lathered herself up. "I need to clean you up, but first I need you to do something." "What is it, nurse?" "It''s important we don''t let the soap wash away your natural lubrication. We don''t want you to chafe. So I want you to take that fat fucking cock of yours and hide it between my thighs." I followed her directions, grabbing the base of my dick and sliding myself between her legs. I had to fight against every male instinct in my body to not slam inside her, instead nestling the top of my shaft between her labia. I was taller than her, the height difference adding to the pressure. "Good. Now I''ll just¡­" Marianne squeezed her thighs tightly together and moaned. The heat emanating from her sex made the water feel lukewarm, and I could feel her hard clit against my sensitive skin. She opened her mouth to speak but the sensations stole her breath for a moment. I seized her by her ass and pulled her against me, kissing her. As I rocked my hips back, the game once more asked of me a roll. She threw her head back and yelled, "Oh, fuck!" Eight successes would do that to a lady. "Ah fuck! Oh, my Goddamn ¨C AHH! What the¡ªMmph!" I grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her back into a kiss, leaving a hand below to keep mauling her ass. My hips continued at their slow pace, but I picked up in strength, really slamming forward, making her soft motherly body jiggle from thigh to breast. Her arms clung to my back as she clung on for dear life. After a minute of this, Marianne tried to rock her hips to get me to move faster, but I easily overpowered her, holding her still as I kept up my easy pace. Her pleasure mounted, driving her crazier and crazier as she tried to writhe and wriggle futilely. It didn''t take much longer for her entire body to tense up. Her mouth fell open and she began to shake as she hit a knee-weakening orgasm. "OH FUUUUUUCK!! AGGHH!" I was close but didn''t want the fun to end. I tried to roll an Endurance + Willpower to hold on but only rolled one success. It would have to do. I pulled her head back so that our noses were touching. Staring into her eyes I sped up and started to frot against her wildly, chasing after my own pleasure. Strangely, what my mother had said about a woman always knowing when a man was burning with passion popped into my head. "Can you feel what you''re doing to me, Marianne?" I wanted very badly to let Marianne know how fired up she''d gotten me. Every part of me, physical, mental, and spiritual was aflame for this gorgeous black goddess that had come to my aid tonight. Not sure of what I was doing, or if it was even possible. I tried to call on my Qi for the first time and send it up and through my eyes. The dice clacked, Aura and Sensuality this time ¨C two successes, not enough to hit the difficulty threshold for an Improvised Qi maneuver. Damn.
[Producer Reward] You may have failed, but you''ve succeeded in surprising the Producers! As a reward for using your first Improvised Qi maneuver for sexual purposes, we''ve decided to intervene and help you along. [Minor Feat] Gorgon''s Lust ¨C The eyes are the windows to the soul, and yours is burning with sexual desire. You may attempt to make someone you''re making eye contact with orgasm, up to a number of times per day equal to your total Aura dice. If your target is unwilling they may make a Willpower check to resist. If they resist successfully, they do not orgasm, however, you gain +2 to seduce them until they cum or a day has passed.
I wasted no time in using my newest feat, blasting my Qi through my eyes and into Marianne. For a split second, I could feel every one of her pleasure neurons light up, kicking off another powerful orgasm. That was all I could take myself and ended up soaking her thighs and butt with my cum as I exploded between them. We held each other tightly, breathing hard into one another''s necks. "Thank you," she murmured into my neck once she''d calmed down. "I needed this." "I was going to say the same thing to you." We kissed lightly before Marianne started to actually lather me up. I did the same for her, some unspoken agreement between us keeping the rest of the shower to light petting and the occasional kiss. Marianne wanted to spend the night but said that her sons would be back in the morning and she didn''t want to have to risk having to explain this to them. She said she''d brag about me to Shania though, but I couldn''t tell if that was a joke or not. The Producers waited for her to leave to show me the megaton of notifications I''d racked up during the encounter.
[Hidden Quest Completed] Have your first steamy sex scene! Reward: 50 XP, +2 to random Skill (Electronics), gain Special feat: Porn Physics Bonus, achieved on your first full day: +1 to all Social Attributes [Recurring Quest Discovered] You will receive 5XP and a random Skill for every notable sex scene, including Skills that would normally require instruction. Notability is a subjective measure determined by the Producers. [Hidden Quest Completed] Have 6 dice in Presence. Reward: Gain Special feat: So Fresh and So Clean Special Feats! Special Feats can only be unlocked and upgraded through Rewards and represent incredibly powerful abilities or changes to reality itself. [Special Feat] Porn Physics ¨C Sex works for you as it is portrayed in films. There is never any set-up or clean-up involved in anal sex, members will always be able to fit, and any pain associated with penetrative sex is as pleasurable as it is painful. Lube is helpful but not necessary, and you can''t catch or spread STDs.
Oh, thank god. I was worried they were going to make me work for these sorts of accommodations.
[Special Feat] So Fresh and So Clean ¨C You always look and smell your best. Even if you''re badly bruised and battered or dressed in rags, you somehow make it look good. You no longer produce waste byproducts from eating or drinking, your breath is always fresh, your teeth require no maintenance, and your sweat smells and tastes pleasant. This is a purely inexplicable effect, with no observable changes to your biology having occurred.
It was impressive that SkinDimensional was both capable of and willing to bend reality to make my breath smell better, but honestly alarming with how cavalier they were being about it.
[Hidden Quest Completed] Have non-penetrative sex. Reward: 15 XP, gain +2 Flexibility Bonus, Made your partner orgasm: +1 Sensuality [Hidden Quest Completed] Have 6 Dice in Sensuality. Reward: Gain Special Feat: Sexual Icon [Special Feat] Sexual Icon: You radiate sexuality. The sight of you performing even ordinary tasks is capable of leading to sexual awakenings. You will frequently find your way into the wet dreams and fantasies of anyone who thinks you''re attractive, even if they dislike you for other reasons. This can have strange effects on people in the long term and will bring you fun and chaos in equal measure. Sexual Icon is a purely inexplicable effect, no magic can detect nor is there any defense against it.
Was¡­was this even a boon? This read like a curse a Greek God would have put on someone for being too hot.
[Hidden Quest Completed] Make a partner orgasm. Reward: 20 XP. Gain Item: Relationship Token ¨C Consumable. By throwing this coin into a well or fountain while thinking of someone you know, you may instantly take your relationship one step in any direction. I.e., Nemesis to Enemy, Acquaintance to Contact, Contact to Ally, Ally to Partner, etc. [Hidden Quest Completed] Use one of your Mystical Attributes for sexual purposes. Reward: Gain +1 to a random Mystical Skill (Telekinesis), ignoring the usual instructor and feat requirements. You may now upgrade that skill as you would any other. [Ally Quest Completed (Marianne Greene)] Shared a sex scene with Marianne Greene Reward: 10 XP, +2 Medicine, +1 Finesse Bonus, Didn''t endanger your relationship with her daughter to do so: Gain Major Social feat: Lord Byron''s Luck [Major Social Feat] Lord Byron''s Luck ¨C Rumors of your sexual exploits and debauched behavior will proliferate no matter what you may do to try and mitigate this effect. However, while some may tut or wag their fingers at you, in general, these rumors will only serve to raise your profile and will radically increase your allure. People who would normally be seriously turned off by such rumors will not prejudice themselves against you without giving you a fair shake.
Yet another I wasn''t thrilled about. I really didn''t need to know that every granny in Chinatown would be hearing about my dick game. God help me if I ever had to hear about it from one of them.
[Producer Gift Basket] You''ve done an exceptional job adjusting to your new life. Instead of trying to cheat us and the viewers, you''ve thrown yourself into the game, tested your own boundaries, and tried your hardest to make entertaining content. Where many have failed, you''ve excelled. Receive the following Rewards from us, your grateful Producers: Steel Silk Sash: We''ve upgraded the sash you received from your mother. While appearing and feeling the same as it did, the sash has become nearly indestructible. If it is lost or somehow destroyed, it will return to you the next day. Keeps itself clean as well. Lucky Penny: As long as this coin is on your person, you may treat a single 4 on a die as a success for any roll. If lost or destroyed, it will return to you the next day. Evolved Archetype: Charming Adventurer merges with the Harem King Archetype to become: Harem Protagonist. You may purchase feats from both Archetypes without penalty and will have access to a new exclusive list of powerful options as well. Evolve and Upgrade one of your feats into one better suiting your new Archetype, ignoring any prerequisites. Evolve and Upgrade Feat: Major feat Heroes Honors becomes Master feat: Heroes Harem [Master Feat (Harem Protagonist)] Heroes Harem: In the eyes of the people you step in to help, you are viewed as a Hero from myth and legend. This effect scales with the help rendered. The gratitude you garner in those you rescue cannot be adequately stated in words. You gain between 1 and 3 guaranteed successes and additional dice for Social rolls with the people you''ve helped and their close friends and family. This group will justify almost any of your actions, and should you break their trust you can easily earn it once more. Lovers you''ve saved will find you taking other lovers as fully justifiable, though they may still grow jealous.
I''d forgotten how insane Master feats could be. This definitely hadn''t been in the book they''d given us though. Nor had there been a Harem King Archetype, probably because it would have scared us off from playing. I''d have to be careful with this. The power felt dangerous like I was playing with fire. Thinking of the possibilities the feat provided sparked a dark lust in my heart I wasn''t fully comfortable with.
[Viewer Popularity Poll Winner] You were voted the most popular male cast member and third most popular overall cast member in our first poll! The viewers have voted to give you the following Rewards: Titanium Nunchacku ¨C Base Damage 2. These titanium nunchaku are brutally effective weapons while still allowing for dazzlingly fast attacks. While wielding these, you may attack each target in melee range of you on your turn once. If you gain additional attacks from other sources, these stack additively. Will return to you if lost or destroyed the next day. Talisman of Recall ¨C Consumable. Tear this talisman to instantly teleport yourself and anyone you''re touching to your home. One use.
I slept very well that night. Setting Dates I scrolled through picture after picture of willowy, picturesque women in scandalous attire bent in incredible poses. My eyes stayed locked on the screen, not moving even as I took a bite of my cheesesteak or a sip of my diet root beer. This was what true dedication looked like. Not to brag, but I''d been keeping this up for over an hour now. Impressive, right? I groaned and threw my phone like a frisbee to the far end of my couch. This should have been an ideal lazy Saturday and yet I was feeling more frustrated than ever. I had known it would be basically impossible to find most of my friends, but Davis''s character started already successful and well-known. She, at least, should have been easy to locate and contact. "Tell me," I said to my empty apartment, "why does every, single, ballerina also have to model? Pick a lane, people!" And how did one planet have so many lost cities?! Today was lost to Recovery checks, so I''d been dealing with everything I could that didn''t require me to leave my apartment. Recovery checks were how I healed from Damage I''d taken. Without feats involved, you only got to roll Recovery with a night of rest, or if you chose to spend a day down doing nothing more vigorous than a walk. I''d done well last night, healing 2 points of Murderous damage, but that had still left with me 3. And unlike normal damage, which I was always guaranteed to heal 2 points of with every check, success or fail, Murderous damage lingered. I''d spent the entire morning trying desperately to sift through conspiracy theories about the Maya Empire to find something that stuck out to me as ''Mystico Maya''. Unlike researching most of the others, if I could just get to Nasim''s starting location, I could definitely find him, or rather, his character, Tor Knudson. Well, maybe ''definitely'' was too strong of a word. Nasim had decided to try and power game his character, saddling himself with a load of optional starting complications for more points. Among them was a complication that had made him wanted in connection to war crimes. He had tried to be clever by canceling it out with another called ''Burnt'', which made his government, Norway, erase all paperwork alluding to his existence. Meaning in combination, Tor Knudson was a man without a name, history, or country who was being hunted by at least one country, possibly more. He also gave himself weekly night terrors, an evil stepmother, evil step-sisters, an evil blood sister, a tragic backstory, exceptionally delicious flesh, and had made himself a functioning alcoholic because, and I quote, "They''re basically free points." I was against power gaming out of principle ¨C it made people who didn''t do it feel like they''d built bad characters ¨C and thank god, or else I''d have been stuck in this world with some ludicrously contrived tragic backstory too. Regardless, I was confident that if I made it to Mystico Maya, which was presumably somewhere in Mexico, and started asking after a six-foot, ten-inch blonde alcoholic Norwegian named Tor, I''d probably find him. If I got to him before his evil immediate family or government did, that was. Oh, or the personal Nemesis he''d made for himself, an illiterate Welsh bare-knuckle boxer with no connections or wealth or ability to read maps. Although I was kind of hoping that guy would show up to kick Nasim''s min-maxing ass, preferably while I was there to watch. At least I had located ''Neon Harbor'', where Ted had wound up. The only thing I remembered from his character was the robotic arm that he''d customized himself. All I''d done was search ''cybernetic technology company Asia'' and quickly found several corporations based out of an island city-state in the East China Sea called Ryuukai. I was positive I''d have heard about it if it existed in my old world. Ryuukai had rebelled during the Sengoku period and had never been re-unified, existing as an independent economic powerhouse for centuries, not coming under Japanese control again until the Second World War. It was a modern-day mega-city, with almost 20 million people crammed into an increasingly cyberpunk dystopia that made Singapore look like a quaint fishing village. Unfortunately, that was where my search for Ted ended. Limb replacement was the current craze in Ryuukai, and it wasn''t like I could filter for ''robot arms'' on this world''s equivalent to LinkedIn anyway. "I''ll be honest guys, I was kind of hoping I''d be able to cheese the Grand Quest." I was developing a habit of talking to my ''audience'', the perverts from across the multiverse, while I was alone. Not that I thought they''d seriously be watching me shirtlessly eat cheesesteaks in my home. The whole point of having an ensemble cast, I''m sure, was to always have something interesting going on. I mean we did all have actual lives to keep up as well as our adventurous shenanigans. For example, I''d started my day by responding to emails from my agent, closing out my bank account, and switching everything over to the Black Card ¨C hardly riveting television. I checked the back of an envelope I''d been using as a to-do list. If that was all the boring stuff, then I could finally get to the fun, figuring out how to spend my 125 Experience Points. Oh, right, the nuclear option, I''d been trying to forget about it. This would be humiliating, my friends from this world would never let me live it down. But if there was any chance it would work, I had to do it. Picking up my phone, I took a deep breath and resolved myself to my task. Scrolling back to the top of the page, I started again down the list, this time following all of the accounts. I cringed with each one. This was the definition of ''horny on main'', one step below responding to OnlyFans models on Twitter. Oh god, my sister was going to think I''d lost my mind. My idea was simple, if Davis had any inclination at all that I was James Li, she would look me up online and see that I had followed approximately every British ballerina alive. This would act as confirmation, hopefully, that it was me, and that I''d been looking for her. It was the closest thing I had to communicating with any of my friends. After following four hundred and eighteen models and dooming my feed to nothing but thirst traps, I needed some guilty carbs to assuage my social humiliation. My hand patted a couch cushion, suspiciously free of any fried snacks. "Come on." I groaned. "Two days in a row, seriously?" I had reached for where I''d put the emergency giant bag of chips I''d ordered with the sandwiches ¨C an emergency bag because it had been added in a moment of weakness and was so far outside of my diet that it may as well have been in orbit. It was a big, shiny, bag that would have, of course, crinkled loudly if it had been touched at all. The moment I''d considered how loud the chips would have been, I could instantly hear them being dragged slowly across the kitchen floor. No, wait¡­I''d been hearing the noise the whole time; I had just considered it beneath my notice until now. Someone, or rather, some fat idiot rat had laid an enchantment on my mind. The little bastard hadn''t noticed me yet. He was still inching towards the back of the kitchen cabinets, from where I was pretty sure he was getting into my apartment, seemingly trying to make as little sound as possible. My 2000 empty calories of kettle-cooked jalapeno goodness blocked his view of me. I had to do this very carefully or else I''d trip his ability to read Fighting Spirit. I wasn''t going to kill him, no, I wasn''t even going to hurt him. All I would do is carefully pick him up, put him in a shoe box, take a bus to the subway station, hop onto the train, and drop him off at the last stop in the suburbs. He and I were going for a nice trip, nothing more, nothing less. I raised my hand in his direction and prepared to roll my first real Telekinesis roll. I didn''t have enough dice in the Skill to use it reliably, but I should have been able to hold a rat with it, even a particularly fat one. I unleashed my Qi in the form of pure kinetic energy, grabbing hold of the creature by its tail and lifting it into the air. "Aha! I have you now, you lit¡ªyou¡­little¡­chew toy." I squeezed the old used-up, faux rat, eliciting a long high-pitched wheeze as air rushed back into it. It looked to have been stolen out of the trash. The chips were gone when I looked down, replaced by a small pile of cherry blossom petals. Well, that was nice, at least. Never mind, most of the petals had bite marks. The worst part of all this was that I hadn''t actually seen how he''d used any of his techniques, so I couldn''t mimic them if I wanted to. "When I catch you, I am going to THROW YOU INTO SPACE! Fuck!" I flung the chew toy at the wall with all my telekinetic power. "SQUEE-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," mocked the toy.
[Hidden Quest Complete] Be in a viral video. Reward: 5 XP, +1 Performance (Stunts) [Recurring Quest Discovered] This quest can be repeated, however, you must outdo your last video each time in terms of popularity. Popularity is measured by: the number of views, speed of growth, cultural impact, and critical reception. The Rewards grow commensurately greater as the difficulty increases.
I jumped a little, surprised by the notification. The only video I could think of that I''d been in had been the duel. Had it leaked? I outstretched my hand towards my phone and called it into my hand. CRACK It whipped past my head like a bullet as I Whiffed on the Telekinesis check, shattering on impact with the concrete wall behind me. I held my face in both palms and groaned. Why did I do that? I could have just reached. I wouldn''t have even needed to get up. I could have leaned! "I could have leaned, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggghhhh. Idiot." What was I thinking? I 4 dice in Aura and only 1 in Telekinesis ¨C I was a psychic battering ram. It was a miracle I hadn''t popped the chew toy picking it up. I looked mournfully at the shrapnel of my only way to check the internet. James hadn''t owned a computer. Not for lack of want, I''d been too broke. I picked up my to-do list and made a note. Now the only things not crossed out were, ''Fun Stuff'', and ''Buy new phone''. I squinted at the envelope, then added, ''Kill Rat'' and underlined it. "Fun stuff time!" Yesterday had been insane in terms of growth, but, that didn''t mean I could expect that to continue. My theory was the game was front-loading me with Experience Points from these relatively easy quests. Granted, one of those easy quests had nearly killed me and may have implicated me in gang warfare. I needed to walk a balance between frivolously spending my XP right away versus deliberately crafting my character with a long-term vision. It wasn''t like playing a Monk in D&D for ten levels, waiting for it to get good; I didn''t have a party to fall back on. But alternatively, I couldn''t go chasing every idea that came into mind, or else I''d be multi-classed to uselessness by the time the XP slowed down. My most pressing need was obvious ¨C it was the reason I was stuck inside today. I had no healer. James Li had been built with the expectation I would be in a party, but both of my healers were currently scattered across Eurasia. Luckily, I was already bought into the Eagle Style Kung Fu feat list. Most of the traditional styles contained some Recovery option, albeit trapped behind Major feats and high Attribute and Skill requirements. There was only one that I qualified for, and now that I could no longer dedicate today to recovering inside, there was no reason not to buy it.
[Major Martial Feat] Circular Breathing ¨C Through your dedication to the everyday principles of your martial art, you have mastered one of the simplest forms of Qi Circulation. Add half of your Aura, rounded down to Recovery checks. Additionally, you may instantly perform a Recovery check a number of times per day equal to your total Aura dice.
"Woah." My body surged with vitality. Suddenly I was very aware of how much Qi I''d gained last night, and it was nothing to sneeze at. I let that power flow through me, focusing on the fractures in my ribs and the flesh Kuze had ripped apart with his Tiger''s Claw. With three Breaths, I was whole again, and I could still manage another today if I had to. Incredible, no matter the farcical lows of this new life, the highs of being a Player Character could not be matched. I used my Eagle''s Talon to cut through my sutures and began to pick them out of my chest as I considered my next move. My remaining 80 XP was more of a conundrum. There were a lot of different roles I was totally incapable of performing. To put it in perspective, James Li didn''t even have a driver''s license. Now, obviously, I could drive, the Producers hadn''t ripped it out of my mind, at least I didn''t think so. That was only to say that even when making an all-arounder like I had, I''d still have to leave a lot out of the build. I could sneak, but I couldn''t be a thief. I could talk, but I couldn''t be a politician. Not a good one, at least. An ''all-arounder'' in my mind at the time, was someone who was always useful in a group, not a one-man band. My next greatest blind spots had to be my: defenses ¨C I was a glass cannon ¨C and my near-total inability to deal with ranged enemies. After those would probably be my holes in dealing with anything scientific, technical, or magical, but I figured I could schmooze my way around the first two, and the last required instruction to purchase normally. Maybe I was biased by the bits of plastic embedded into my rug and stuck in my hair, but Telekinesis seemed to be the best option for shoring up both defense and ranged attacks. I spent 25 XP in total to buy my only Mystical skill up to 3, which provided a level of control that I was sorely lacking. Attacks made with it would have 7 dice in combination with my Aura score, not many compared to the heights of my martial arts prowess, but still respectable for dealing with your average thugs. Telekinesis 3 also let me buy:
[Major Mystical Feat] Force Armor ¨C You have learned to subconsciously manifest a thin, imperceptible barrier around your skin at all times. You may reduce all incoming physical damage by 1.
Force Armor wasn''t incredible on its own, although I did immediately relax a little knowing it was there. The real benefit of the feat, though, was the others it was a prerequisite for. The Force Armor tree had some real bangers in it. Specifically, I had my eye on Mirrored Force which would let me reflect an attack a few times per combat, and Tele Firma, which could cancel out most attempts to sweep me. That left me with 5XP for a rainy day. It would be a good idea to keep 5 around at all times, in case I needed to buy a specialized Knowledge. Honestly, it would''ve been better to keep 25 to 30 in the bank in case I needed a Minor feat, or to get to 3, a journeyman''s proficiency, in a new Skill, but I didn''t have that luxury. Once I''d cleaned up my apartment and extracted my SIM card from the shattered carcass of my phone, I headed out to the nearest good electronics store. There were closer ones available, but I didn''t want to buy a pay-per-week burner and last generations budget laptop. I was trying to spend enough money that I could forget that I was now 0-2 against a literal rodent. You know, some good old retail therapy. Rain battered the streets, as it had all day, mostly keeping Harbor Hill clear of the usual hoodlums. Hopefully, the storm would pass by tomorrow. Annie was supposed to come over to Train Hard. And while I was fine with working out in the rain, standing in a steel-framed squat rack in the middle of a thunderstorm was an exceptionally stupid way to die. I''d do a lot for gains, but getting hit by lightning was not one of them. Since when had buying a phone become like buying a car? Even when paying cash, the salesman kept me at the counter for nearly forty-five minutes. Half of it was my fault; my memories kept clashing, the first time it had really happened. I''d been assuming that Millenium Software, MilSoft, was this world''s version of Microsoft, and Maze Inc. was Apple, but it turned out there were something like eight more tech giants in the space than I''d expected, probably as a consequence of the plots and side stories in Neon Harbor. But the other half was definitely because the sales guy had seen dollar signs when I''d expressed my confusion. My two dice in Electronics that I''d rolled for randomly yesterday only hindered the whole process. They gave me just enough knowledge about hardware that I''d be nodding along at what I was hearing in one moment and then completely lost the next as the man started talking about software. He must have thought I was some sort of idiot savant. I could talk to him in specifics about Bluetooth chips, but was shocked to hear there were more than two operating systems for cell phones. Anyway, I''d ended up leaving the store having spent three and a half thousand dollars between a phone, laptop, wireless speakers, and a few tracking tags I''d thought could be useful in adventures. It took my mind off of rats, just not in the relaxing way I''d hoped for. I really needed to figure out my money situation, or else I''d have to go back to doing parcel deliveries most days of the week just to maintain. As much as I enjoyed roof hopping and parkour, the thought of doing an app-based day job as a Player Character was deeply offensive. Gig work for PCs was called adventuring, and adventuring was supposed to drown you in money. My problem was that everyone I could think of who would pay me to ''adventure'' in Black Harbor were either literal criminals or deeply corrupt. Whatever, I had a week at minimum to figure it out before I''d be back to budgeting out cheap protein options and coupon hunting. Maybe I''d hear back from the Stunt Performers Guild by then ¨C a boy could hope. Two things of interest happened on my way home. One, a young pre-teen tried to grab the large plastic bag with the laptop in it while walking past me on the bus back from the subway. I ruptured his eardrum with an open-handed slap, and he ran away crying. Not my proudest moment, but maybe he''d learn something, like, for example, don''t try and rob a jacked and visibly annoyed adult if it looks like he could snap you like a twig. Or maybe he''d stop trying to rob people in general ¨C again, a boy could hope. The game didn''t give me any Experience for striking the child, for which I was grateful. We didn''t need to incentivize that sort of thing, did we? If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The other thing of interest to happen were the notifications that had popped up earlier, while I''d been waiting for the train back. They had played a large role in why I''d been angry enough to hit the kid instead of just twisting his wrist and sending him on the way.
[Recurring Quest Completed] Be in a viral video. Rewards: 10 XP, +1 Martial Arts [Hidden Quest Completed] Become an Enemy of the Tiger Triad (Black Harbor Tong) Rewards: 40 XP, +1 Endurance, +1 Strength, +2 Intimidation [Feat Synergy!] Style Maker adds Reward: Learn one random Major feat from Tiger Style Kung Fu (Crouching Tiger Stance) [Major Feat (Tiger Style Kung Fu)] Crouching Tiger Stance ¨C You''ve learned to use your Qi to become closer to the deadly, enormous beasts your style is named after. Like a Tiger waiting nearly invisible in the tall grass or stalking silently atop broken branches, you can wrap yourself in a dense layer of Qi to blend into your environment and deaden your sounds. When motionless in this Stance, you may add your Aura to any attempt to avoid detection even if you are not aware of the observer, and when moving you may add half your Aura, rounded down.
Buying my Aura up to 5 with the Experience made the news sting a little less. But still, the Tigers¡­ My mind helpfully replayed scenes from my childhood, the last time the cold war between the Triads had turned hot. I''d been six and my sister four. Naturally, our parents had tried to shelter us from most of it, but there was only so much they could do. Car bombs, restaurants burnt down during dinner rush, entire families committing suicide, Chinatown had been turned into hell on Earth. I had no idea what to do about this, nor any idea of what to expect. My dad had been a professional thief, but Ma had frequently threatened to kill him if she caught him trying to influence either of us down the same path. Even after the divorce, he''d done his best to respect her wishes. If only I could talk to him about this. Maybe if I wrote part of the letter in Chinese, the prison staff wouldn''t bother calling in a translator to check over a paragraph or two on an otherwise innocuous page. It was worth a shot. A full four hours after I''d gotten the first notification, I was able to check my phone. There was a brief pause between the phone registering my number and the deluge of messages from what had to be half of my contact list. Checking my texts with Annie confirmed the basics of what I''d suspected happened. She had put out a video of me jumping up to the streetlight that had popped off. Someone who''d seen it had gone internet sleuthing and found the video of me fighting Kuze, which must have leaked. Annie''s first message was a gif of an excited hamster, followed by: ''The video I took of you jumping hit a 100k!!!'' She''d added the link to the video on her JinJin account, this world''s TikTok equivalent in the next message. Followed by: ''Lol, why did you follow 300 ballerina?'' ''Haha, omg someone counted and they said its actually 418 ballerins'' ''you know, gymnastics is a lot like ballet'' ''jk jk lol'' A couple of hours later came a panicked chain: ''Oh my god! James! Are you okay!'' ''I saw the fight'' ''AHHH pick up!'' ''James'' ''!'' ''!!!'' *Angry Hamster GIF* I quickly texted back: ''So sorry, I broke my phone trying to film a stunt.'' ''I''m all good.'' ''Look. It wasn''t that deep.'' I sent her a selfie holding up my shirt and showing off the scars from Kuze''s attack. A bubble popped up showing that she was writing her response and stayed there for a good thirty seconds until I finally got a: ''lol'' ''Ive totally done that before'' ''Not the kung fu fight with a rival. The breaking my phone thing.'' ''Are we still on for tomorrow'' ''?'' I sent her a confirmation. She responded with a gif of a hamster rubbing its hands in front of a slice of watermelon. Out of curiosity, I clicked the video she''d posted. Damn, Annie had 75 thousand followers. The benefits of being a Penn State cheerleader I supposed. The video started with a voice-over of clips of her doing some insane jumps and flips from her cheerleading and gymnastic days. "So you guys know how I''m crazy good at jumping already. Pretty standard stuff," she said, as a clip of her doing a triple front flip from standing played. "Seen it, done it, whatever. I''m a genetic freak, right?" she asked in front of a video from when she was twelve, clearing the long jump pit. The camera then switched to front facing. I recognized her outfit as the sweatsuit she''d been wearing after we''d finished filming. "Oh, hang on, wait a minute. Nope, turns out your girl''s a genius because it was technique the whole time. I met this guy, James Li on set today and, because he''s cracked, he drew this after watching me jump four times." She held up my notebook to the camera. I''d let her keep it after dinner. "Look! Look at it! There''s like, arrows, and a sketch of me, and little dotted lines for movement! And I know what you''re saying, ''That means nothing to me, I can''t read his handwriting.'' Well first of all, rude. And second, it doesn''t matter that neither of us can read it, because James can, and watch!" An old video of me practicing parkour played that she''d pulled off of a dusty MeTV page I''d started in high school. How did she even find that? "This is how he used to jump, okay. No shenanigans here, you can look it up yourself. And now see him from today!" The clip of me jumping up to the streetlight played. It was quite picturesque, bathed in the reds and oranges of pre-sunset Black Harbor. Annie had an eye for this. "He learned it! He learned how I jump in one day! Not even, this was after grabbing dinner after work! He''s goated!" The highest-rated comment was, ''Loooool why he followed 418 ballerinas today! Girl, get your man!'' The next highest was a link to a MeTV video and a wide-eyed emoji. Sure enough, it was of my spar with Kuze, titled ''Shifu James fights Tiger Gang school challenger''. The highest comment under that video was, ''Yeah he can dodge the deadly tigers claw, but can he dodge 418 thirst traps?'' Matt sent me an apology. Not all of the beginner students had been added to their group chat. Kelsey, the beginner in question, had also sent me an effusive apology and asked if she should take the video down. I told her not to bother. It had surely already been re-uploaded, and if not, someone would do so the moment the original disappeared. Plus, if the Tiger Gang were dumb enough to target an Eagle School student, they''d be guaranteeing my mother''s wrath. Me, I was a Master of my own art, lived independently, and was already a part of the ''Martial World'', known interchangeably as the ''Underworld''. I was fair game by the laws of the Triads. Kelsey, on the other hand, was a barista who had taken up martial arts to try and get a flat stomach. Scrolling through the rest of my messages, it was mostly the same timeline of events. Messages of congratulations becoming light-hearted jests, light-hearted jests becoming messages of concern. The few outliers included my mother, who chided me for leaving dents in the plaster ceiling of the schoool from when I''d kicked off of it, and Cory, one of my friends in the Cranes. I had called Cory this morning to get his take on the situation with the Tigers. The Miko that Huo Laoshi mentioned had also texted me, but I put that aside for now. ''Oh shiiiiiiit, you didn''t tell me it was Tanaka,'' read Cory''s text. ''The stank you put on his name gotdam. Kuze. Ice cold.''. A minute later he added: ''YOOOOOO wtf that was NOT a spar!!'' ''Dude this was way worse than you made it sound'' ''Fuck James'' ''Call me asap'' I sighed and hit the call button. Cory and I weren''t that close, but we had known each other our entire lives. He''d grown up idolizing the Triads and had always been a bit of a dipshit, but was fun to be around in bursts. Though he could also find ways to surprise you, like when he mastered the Xiang dialect of Chinese to impress the higher-ups in the Crane Triad. It sounded like he was at a club or party when he picked up. "Jaaaaaames! Yo everybody, it''s James Li! He fucked up Tanaka!" I heard a raucous cheer in the background. "I''m going to go take this! Sorry, bro, I''m at karaoke, one sec." "Take your time." I regretted giving him the permission in short order. Cory ran into three more people on the way out of the karaoke place, making sure to tell them all he was talking to me, that I''d fought Tanaka, and relaying back their greetings and congratulations. After a bit, I heard the sound of a door cut off the background noise and the telltale flick-and-singe of a cigarette being lit. "Aight, I''m good. Don''t say too much on the phone though, we got to keep this on the DL." I gritted my teeth. "Keep what on the DL? You told half of the club you were talking to me." "Haha! True, true. But, like, no specifics and shit, right?" He took a drag of his cig. "But, damn, bro. You kinda fucked, huh?" I took a deep breath. "Cory, this morning you told me I did everything right and it would be fine even if the video leaked." "Bruh, what! Nah, you playin'' right now. You told me you beat him badly, not that you near ripped his fucking arms off. And you didn''t tell me it was Kuze fucking Tanaka. That dude is psycho, bro." "Why does that matter? Wouldn''t the Tigers care less about me mauling one of their Japanese members?" "Bro. I can count the Japanese Tigers on two hands. You think one of them decided to run wild? Nah, no way. Tanaka does what he''s told. I can''t say more than that on the phone." Why would the Tigers be trying to rile up Ma? Or had they been punishing Kuze by sending him to get his ass kicked? I sighed. "Okay. So now what do I do? Can''t I just, I don''t, kowtow to one of their captains in public?" He laughed. "Y''all past that, homie. You could let them beat your ass in public, though. That''d for sure do it." I opened my mouth to respond but stopped myself and considered it for a moment. It was probably the most sensible, least dangerous way to put an end to this conflict before things got out of hand. But¡­ "Fuck that. I''m not letting those mouth-breathing bottom feeders push me around. If they want to beat me in a fight, they can start training harder." "Hell yes! That''s what I knew you''d say. Don''t worry, I got you covered. I already called around for you ¨C can''t say much more than right now. What are you up to tomorrow?" "Training with a friend." "All day? Damn. Aight, Monday then?" "Dueling my mentor and then icing my ribs, probably." "Sheeesh, son, they''ll have to train mad hard to beat you, huh? What about Teu¡ª" This was getting suspicious. "Cory, stop. Tell me what you can tell me on the phone." "I mean, listen, bro. You gonna need some help, right? Right. Or else you wouldn''t be calling. So I went to the people that I go to when I need some help, ya feel me?" Yep, that was where I thought he was going. "No, no, no. I''m not getting your higher-ups involved in this, man." "Chill, it''s not that big of a deal. Look, I''ma be at an opening night party this Thursday for my boy''s new club. Come out. I promise you it''ll be worth it. Plus, it''s been a mad minute since we partied." "Cory, the last time I went to a party with you, you left me to do blow with a stripper for two hours." "Whaaaaat, it was my birthday." "It was my birthday!" "Oh yeah," He laughed. "I was warming her up for you, bro. Loosening the jar lid ¨C hahaha! Anyway, it''ll be fine. I won''t have two hours'' worth of blow this time." I waited silently for him to stop laughing. "But for real, the club''s not even in Chinatown, you''ll be fine. Who knows? Maybe you make a few friends." "Fine. I''ll come out." It wasn''t like I had any better leads. "Sick! Yo, I met this stripper that said she used to be a ballerina by the way¡ª" "I''ll see you Thursday, Cory." I needed a palate cleanser after talking to my most annoying friend. Thankfully, it looked like the Miko hadn''t seen either of the videos with me in them. Or if she had, she''d been polite enough not to mention them. She picked up on the first ring and spoke quietly, apologizing and letting me know she was at a library. We introduced ourselves. Her name was Ishida Maki, or Maki Ishida in American, and she was a junior at BHU. All that Huo had told her about me was that he''d picked me up at the street she''d told him to keep an eye on, and that I''d been shaken at the time. "Mr. Huo told me you had an¡­experience on Bell Street by the old gum factory. I''d like to ask you a few questions, is that okay?" "Sure." "First of all, are you a martial artist?" "I like to think so." "Yes or no, please." "Oh, uh, yes, I''m a martial artist." "Okay, and can you verify if any of the following were true for you? Were you injured? Had you been fighting recently? And did you have any fresh blood on your clothing?" "Yes to all of those." "¡­I see." Her voice had gone from quiet to dull and disaffected. "Can, can you please tell me what you experienced." I gave her the rundown on what had happened, leaving nothing out; the sense of dread, the stagnant air, strange laughter, the smell of bile, the killing intent. "Oh," I added, "and when I got home it was like something had untucked my bandages from under my shirt." I heard shaky breathing from the other end of the line. "Are you okay?" I asked. She whispered as though to herself, "So soon." Clearing her throat, she said. "I''m sorry, Mr. Li¡ª" "James." "James. You''ve been a great help to me. I don''t have any more questions at this time. I would urge you to avoid that area¡ª" "Nope," I said cheerily. I couldn''t believe she was trying to duck me. "Excuse me?" "I said no. I''m not going to avoid that area. Why would I? You''ve given me no reason not to." "I¡­" Emotion was beginning to slip back into her voice, edging out the dull, lifeless tone. Good, that had been creepy. "Surely, you must have intuited the danger you were in." I laughed. "Oh, yeah, I was scared shitless." "Then why would you ¨C argh!" She took a breath. "Mr. Li¡ª" "James." "James. Please listen to your instincts and avoid that area." "No. Why should I?" Maki groaned. "As you''ve no doubt picked up on, I am not at liberty to¡ª" "And that''s fine! I totally respect your boundaries. I''m just saying that I''m going to go that street a lot. Way more often than I would. In fact, I''m going to keep going until something happens. Oh! And now that we''ve had this conversation, I''ll make sure to arrive injured and bloody. The ''recently fought'' will be hard, but there''s enough thugs in Harbor Hill who I''m sure would oblige me. Unless," I paused for emphasis, "I were to hear some specific information about why I shouldn''t do that." There was a long pause. I swear I could hear her grinding her teeth. "Tell me, do you have any experience with the supernatural?" "One time I went camping and thought I heard a ghost, but it turns out that''s just what foxes sound like." She muttered something in Japanese to herself. "Mr. ¨C James, listen to me. The being that toyed with you is an exceptionally powerful Hungry Ghost. You cannot harm it physically. It hungers for male martial artists, and it has killed many dozen over the years. Do not return to its territory. It has already had a taste of your blood. You have no way of fighting it. You will die. Do you understand me?" "Maki ¨C do you mind if I call you Maki?" "I do." "Ms. Ishida, you listen to me. If something is hunting in Chinatown, it''s my responsibility to deal with it, especially because it sounds like I can lure it out better than others. And don''t underestimate my martial arts. I''ll figure out a way to harm it." I chuckled. "Hah. You''ve got me excited. I wonder what''s stronger, my Black City Style, or a legendary warrior hunting ghost?" "The legendary warrior hunting ghost!" she shouted. She added quickly to someone else in the library, "Sorry, sorry." Maki got up and started walking quickly, angrily whispering, "Are you an idiot? You just admitted you have no way to harm it." "Hmm, if only I knew someone with more experience with the supernatural¡­" "ARGH!" her voice echoed as if she was in a stairwell or bathroom. "Don''t you think I would help if I could?!" "Why would I think that? I don''t know you." I hummed in faux thought. "But that is a bummer to hear. I guess I should get my affairs in order before I do this, get a will together. Ha! What am I saying, I''m broke and don''t own anything. I guess that means I can start hunting this ghost right away then. Just curious, why can''t you help?" This time I could hear her teeth grinding. "I''m, not, allowed, to. I was forbidden from trying to exorcise this spirit." "Oh, so you probably shouldn''t have been looking into it at all." "I¡­" "Ms. Ishida, ignoring everything else, do you want to help me exorcise this spirit?" "More than anything." Her voice cracked. "Well, you''re already breaking the rules just by having this conversation, right? And hey, I won''t tell if you don''t." There was a long silence, long enough that I had to check to see if the call hadn''t dropped. "Ms. Ishida?" "Maki¡­please call me Maki. I''ll need something to tell my parents. If they hear I''m hanging around a martial artist from Chinatown ¨C well, they aren''t stupid." I hummed in thought. "Do we strictly need to interact with your parents at all?" "Our temple is a highly secure place of power. There are artifacts I will need to borrow, and certain shrines that I will need to do my preparatory rites in. Rites on you. And while I could sneak into those shrines, bringing you will raise literal alarm bells, so yes." I offered the first plan that came to mind. "Are you single?" "You can''t be serious." "Well?" "Yes, I''m single. Happily, thank you." "What? I''m not actually asking you out, you maniac. I was offering it as a smoke screen. Huo Laoshi already tried to set me up with you. He was going to bring me to his calligraphy class. I could ask you out there." "I don''t know¡­that isn''t like me." I laughed. "Hey, I''ll do the charming, all you have to do is swoon appropriately." "I''m gay, James." "Maki, I really can''t stress enough that I''m not asking you out." She sighed. "My parents know that I''m gay, James." "College is a time to experiment." That got a laugh out of her. "Kami-sama¡­I can''t believe I''m doing this. Fine, ask me out on Tuesday, but please, be smooth about it. Ugh, my mom is going to be thrilled at the chance for grandkids again." "It''s a date! Bye, Maki," I sing-songed. She groaned and hung up. Training Day It was cloudy Sunday, with a chance for light rain, but was otherwise perfect for an outdoor workout. I¡¯d tidied my place up, and had even ran out in the early morning to get a few rugs to make it look a bit more¡­adult. Before I¡¯d embodied the character, James had been a 21-year-old male, and had decorated accordingly, which is to say, not at all. But for a few movie posters, unframed of course, the walls were bare. At least there had been a theme with the movies, 70¡¯s kung fu, and not just ¡®the posters they sell outside college dorms on moving day¡¯. Annie would be here soon. I was making a snack tray of deviled eggs, one of the many prepared options. In total there would be around 1600 calories for each of us available in small bites. There was no sign of the rat so far. With the exception of the past two days, normally the demon only visited once every ten days or so. He must have been offended that I¡¯d soured his binge on Friday. I¡¯d taken down the dog-lock on the fridge. A part of me had wanted to chain the thing closed, but, really, what would that do to a rat with Master feats? No, if he came again today, I was wandering around Harbor Hill until I found the meanest goddamn street cat I could and adopting it. The deviled eggs would be good snacks for between workouts, high in energy, but light enough that we wouldn¡¯t have to break to let our stomachs settle. That was the real reason athletes ate so many meals, for the record, not because it was somehow more ¡®metabolically efficient¡¯. Why would I want a more efficient metabolism? I worked out twelve times a week. I already had to eat 3000 calories a day to keep from wasting away. Maybe. I couldn¡¯t remember what the daily diet rules were. I do remember them being annoyingly thorough, ostensibly to allow for PCs to enjoy roleplaying Martial Arts Cooks and to make monster hunting more rewarding. I was excited to Train Hard. I¡¯d really liked the mechanic when I¡¯d read it. So often RPGs didn¡¯t put into writing how the vast majority of people became stronger, through daily dedication and hard work, but Love Fight (I¡¯d forgotten the game¡¯s actual name) had a way to get XP for both Training and Studying. They were slow, and there was the risk of temporary Attribute damage if you Whiffed, but they were a great downtime filler activity for players who didn¡¯t want to be bothered with coming up with projects. Ordinarily, the Success Threshold to gain XP from Training Hard would be your highest Attribute score, 6 in my case, on an Endurance + Willpower check for 1 XP. If you failed with at least 1 Success, nothing bad would happen, and the Threshold for next time would be lowered by 1. If you failed again, it would lower again, until you eventually hit it. Any successes over the Threshold would gain you additional XP, and there were plenty of feats to modify the process. Having at least one Training Partner always lowered the Threshold by 1. Statistically speaking, it would be remarkable if I earned 2 XP today from Training. However, I was not only making XP from Training this fine Sunday. Oh no, today I¡¯d be raking in that sweet, sweet smut XP. I had an idea, something a little different, but I was hoping the audience would like it. Annie was clearly crushing, and as a confident, young modern woman she probably had a plan herself to put the moves on me. I really wanted to see what she¡¯d come up with. So today I would not be playing the role of the seducer as I had with Marianne. No, today, James Li was playing the role of: Himbo. I would be hot, fuckable, and oblivious. If when we were relaxing post-workout and it still didn¡¯t look like Annie was going to make the push, I would take a more active approach. But ideally, I could get her so horned up over the course of the day that she would act on it. Seeing my phone light up, I put the deviled eggs into the refrigerator. Annie had sent, ¡®Come outside.¡¯ She must have been lost. *Beep* *Beep* An old, faded green mini-van honked its horn at me as I stepped outside. Annie leaned her head out of the window and shouted, ¡°Check it out! She¡¯s a beauty, ain¡¯t she?¡± ¡°Holy shit. You own a car?¡± ¡°As of Friday! One sec.¡± She popped her head back in and manually cranked the window up. I didn¡¯t know you could still find manual windows on the road. She was beaming when she stepped out and held her arms wide, like she was presenting a prize on a gameshow. ¡°Amazing, right? My neighbor sold her for 300 bucks. Couldn¡¯t afford to get her to pass inspection. All she needed was a new oxygen sensor, her fuel injector cleaned, and a new valve for the EGR.¡± I raised my eyebrows. ¡°You know a lot about cars.¡± ¡°I ought to, I have an automotive engineering degree.¡± My eyes boggled. ¡°You¡¯re an engineer?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m a waitress with an engineering degree. Not a lot of firms are okay with you taking a week off every month to go do stunt work.¡± She sighed and patted the hood of the van. ¡°Basically the same reason I did automotive instead of nuclear. Penn State has a really good nuclear energy program, but you can¡¯t take any of the books outside of their secure section in the library, so I wouldn¡¯t have been able to pursue the degree and be a cheerleader at the same time. Still, at least automotive gave me the knowhow to fix up this old girl. She should drive for another 15 thousand miles, no problem.¡± ¡°Nice, and she looks shit enough that no one¡¯s going to steal it for parts.¡± ¡°Exactly!¡± ¡°Still,¡± I said, ¡°might as well make sure.¡± I knocked on the door to Papes¡¯ Trap. His doorman and bouncer answered, Yoke, an enormous man that I had lifted with in the past. He poked his head out, making sure to keep as little of the house behind him visible. ¡°Sup, Jay.¡± ¡°Hey, Yoke.¡± I held out a ten dollar bill. ¡°Mind keeping an eye out for my friend¡¯s car?¡± He turned down the money. ¡°Don¡¯t sweat it. You know we homies. I¡¯ll keep an eye out.¡± ¡°Thanks, man. I appreciate it. We¡¯ll be working out if you want to join us.¡± He looked at Annie and then back to me, smirking. In a lower voice, he said, ¡°Think she want to work you out, brother. I be seein¡¯ you.¡± He winked before ducking back inside. ¡°That was nice of him,¡± said Annie. ¡°They¡¯re good neighbors. Come on, let me show you my apartment.¡± Once we were inside, Annie threw down her duffel bag and took off her Penn State hoodie, revealing that she had come today in blue leggings and a matching gymnast¡¯s show leotard, complete with a window for cleavage. ¡°What?¡± she shrugged at my stunned look. ¡°It¡¯s comfortable.¡± I showed her around. There wasn¡¯t much to see, the extra bedroom was currently empty since I didn¡¯t own enough furniture to equip it, nor enough things to use it as a storage room. ¡°Wow. You own a lot of kung fu movies,¡± she said, looking at my DVD collection. I rubbed the back of my head. ¡°I know, kind of the only genre in there, huh? If it makes it less lame, I really did use those to develop my style.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not lame. I think it¡¯s cool.¡± Annie ran a finger across the spines. ¡°Hey, you¡¯ve got all the May Wong movies!¡± ¡°Of course, she¡¯s a legend. Also the first pair of tits I remember seeing on screen. That slave auction fight? God damn.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, Remember the Green Lotus. God, she¡¯s a stunner in a that. I met her, you know? She came to speak at a gymnastics competition I was at in middle school and presented the awards. When she put the medal on me, she said something like, ¡®You¡¯ve got talent, girl.¡¯ It¡¯s a big reason I pursued stunt acting.¡± She chuckled. ¡°God, that sounds so dumb when I put it that way.¡± She leaned closer to the shelf and picked up a German action flick from the mid-90¡¯s. ¡°Wait, is this a young Kas?! I thought the name sounded familiar.¡± ¡°Ha! Yeah, he was the villain¡¯s silent bodyguard in it. I think half the reason he picked me to mentor was that I recognized him from it the first time we met.¡± ¡°We should totally watch it after we work out! Speaking of,¡± she clapped her hands together and bowed, ¡°What¡¯s the plan, Shifu?¡± ¡°That¡¯s up to you. I was planning on turning this into an all day, total body obliteration, but that still gives us plenty of time for skill work while we recover. I haven¡¯t had a workout partner since my sister went back to college, but we usually did kung fu drills.¡± ¡°You have sister? What¡¯s her name?¡± ¡°Crystal.¡± I held a hand up at her expression. ¡°I know, James and Crystal. Chinese-American names get wacky like that.¡± She laughed. ¡°Hey, my name¡¯s Annie Shine. People ask me if it¡¯s real all the time.¡± ¡°Annie Shine is a great name. Though I did think you picked it for the stage the first time you told me. Up until right this moment, actually. Anyway, I¡¯m cleared to teach Eagle Style again, so I¡¯d be happy to run you through the partner drills.¡± ¡°Wait.¡± She made a time out sign. ¡°If I¡¯m learning from James Li, I¡¯d better be learning his style.¡± I quirked my head. ¡°Huh. I didn¡¯t think of that. I don¡¯t really have any drills. Most people call my style completely insane and a ridiculous waste of time. Never thought I¡¯d take a student¡­¡± ¡°Are you kidding? You¡¯re literally making a stunt acting martial art. Fuck Taekwondo and Karate, if I¡¯m learning how to fight, I might as well be training for my passion at the same time!¡± ¡°That is basically how I justified creating Black City Style in reverse. I was more of, ¡®I¡¯m going to be training how to do stunts, I might as well figure out a way to use it in a fight.¡¯ But, again, I really can¡¯t stress enough that I am a crazy person, doing a crazy thing. It could take you years to where any of my moves would be useful in a fight, and up until that point they will be less than useless, as in, you will get owned if you try this against someone who knows what they¡¯re doing.¡± ¡°Correction,¡± she said confidently, ¡°it would take a normal person years, but I am already a talented stunt performer, about as good as you, if you don¡¯t mind me saying. Well, a lot less now that you can do my jump shtick.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t sell yourself short. I¡¯ve seen your stuff online. We¡¯re definitely on the same level.¡± ¡°Exactly!¡± she exclaimed. ¡°So all I would need is better fundamentals in martial arts to start really learning Black City. And for what it¡¯s worth, I have done weekly taekwondo for a few years now.¡± I stroked my chin. ¡°Teaching is a great way to learn. It would force me to come up with drills, at the very least, forms eventually.¡± ¡°How do you normally train it?¡± ¡°Uh, I usually pick a fight from a movie and then do the moves over and over until I can figure out how to actually use them to deliver force. Also I do training from different kung fu movies, like the tea cup scene from Drunken Master. And then I¡¯ll do things that seem like they¡¯d be in kung fu movies. Like, I tied a bunch of weights to ropes and hung them from the joists upstairs. Then I¡¯ll get them swinging and force myself to dodge while balancing on my hands.¡± I frowned, remembering the last few sessions. ¡°Try to dodge. I¡¯ll force myself to try to dodge.¡± Thinking about it now, I could see why Marianne had told her kids not to talk to me. Annie bounced on her heels, her smile growing wide. ¡°So we could train by choreographing our own fight scenes?¡± ¡°Oh yeah, that¡¯s a great idea for partner drills.¡± ¡°Great! I was going to ask you to do that anyway for my JinJin account! James, you have to teach me. It¡¯s meant to be. Oh, we could do long form stuff for your MeTV page where you break down how to turn a show move into something that could knock a guy¡¯s head off. I can do the editing!¡± ¡°Hang on, hang on. We¡¯re ignoring the biggest reason to not learn from me. What do you know about the Underworld?¡± ¡°Uh¡­there¡¯s a club called that in South Shore?¡± Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Really? That¡¯s a red flag.¡± I made a note to look into that. ¡°The Underworld is one term for what used to be more commonly known as the Martial World, though modern day weaponry has really complicated those lines. Basically, there¡¯s a level of power or criminality that puts you into an invisible class of people who are all assumed to be okay with living and dying by the sword. It¡¯s why I don¡¯t look down on the guys next door. We¡¯re not all that different.¡± Annie frowned. ¡°The guys next door?¡± I indicated the directions with my head. ¡°Papes is a pimp and a counterfeiter. He runs a brothel with most of his trap house and has a lounge in the basement you can rent out. Blue,¡± I nodded towards the other house, ¡°I don¡¯t know much about. But his trap is like a black market mini mall. I¡¯ve been told there¡¯s a barber, a gambling den, and even an internet caf¨¦ with hyper secure rigs. And of course, a ¡®pharmacist¡¯.¡± ¡°Not every martial artist is in the Underworld,¡± I continued. ¡°It really depends on both their ability and their desire to improve. By the numbers, most are not. But what¡¯s important here, is that I am. I already was when I decided to focus on pursuing Strength, but I basically announced it to the world when I got into that fight in my mom¡¯s school.¡± Annie was skeptical. ¡°You defended yourself from some maniac gang member and now you¡¯re in the same category as pimps and drug dealers? That doesn¡¯t sound fair.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right to be upset, but it¡¯s the pimps and drug dealers you should feel bad for getting lumped in with people like me and that Tiger. Most pimps and drug dealers are a lot less willingly to use lethal force than us. I could have called the police on Kuze, or pushed him outside and locked the doors, but the moment he and I made eye contact, those options ceased to exist. Me and Kuze are both the types of guys willing to die in a fight for the sole sake of getting stronger. Do you understand?¡± ¡°I guess? You¡¯re saying I¡¯ll be in the Underworld if I become you¡¯re student.¡± ¡°Definitely. If I had twenty or more students or you were already my student before I became an enemy of the Tigers, it would be one thing. But deciding to become my only student after I have a target on my back? It doesn¡¯t matter how good you are at fighting, it¡¯ll be interpreted like you¡¯ve chosen to walk the Martial Path.¡± ¡°Huh. So it comes down to if I¡¯m willing to make that decision?¡± I nodded. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to convince you either way. You¡¯re an adult and I¡¯ll respect your call. I just want to make it clear what you¡¯re signing up for. This isn¡¯t something you can dip your toes in.¡± Annie brightened. ¡°Aww, that¡¯s so sweet. I stan a man who can respect a woman¡¯s choices. Well, I¡¯m ready for anything, you don¡¯t have to worry about me. I mean, I moved to Black City as a single, young woman to try and break into the movie industry. There are plenty of men already willing to treat me like I¡¯m animal to hunt for sport. At least this way I¡¯ll be able to fight back.¡± ¡°There are lots of people who can teach you self-defense that aren¡¯t enemies of an international crime syndicate.¡± She sauntered up to me with a little smile. ¡°I don¡¯t want to learn from them.¡± She poked me in the chest. ¡°I want to learn from you.¡± I crossed my arms. ¡°You know you¡¯re going to hate me during this, right? Kung fu conditioning is outrageously brutal.¡± ¡°I was an athlete, I can handle it.¡± ¡°You¡¯re committing to being my senior most student, you know. I¡¯m a pretty informal guy, but that¡¯s a major responsibility.¡± She stepped back and bowed deeply, this time completely earnest. ¡°I¡¯m ready to dedicate myself to your art, master.¡± I nodded. ¡°Alright, then.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Yeah, I believed you. Let¡¯s do this together.¡± I put my palm over my fist and gave a short, teacher¡¯s bow. ¡°I look forward to taking Black City Kung Fu to the next level with you.¡± ¡°Eeeeee!¡± Annie launched herself at me, clinging onto my neck. ¡°Yes! You won¡¯t regret this!¡± [Hidden Quest Complete] Take your first student. Reward: 20 XP, Gain Minor feat: Cultivator of Men [Ally Quest Complete (Annie Shine)] Take Annie as your student. Reward: 10 XP, +2 Leadership, +1 Physics [Minor Feat] Cultivator of Men ¨C You have learned to tend to your students the way a gardener tends to a tree, shaping them and guiding their growth for years through your training. In addition to the normal benefits they would gain, when an NPC trains with you in a one-on-one setting, they can gain XP which you may spend on their behalf. At the beginning of a session, roll a Wits + Leadership check, each success will gain your student 1 XP should they complete it. You may do this once per day. The teaching feats, how could I have forgotten about these? I hadn¡¯t been able to tell at the time if they were as busted as they seemed to be. Theoretically, they were way stronger for their tiers than any feat that directly benefited the PCs, but they all took time to build up steam. We hadn¡¯t been sure who would be GM¡¯ing the game, so I didn¡¯t know if I¡¯d be provided the downtime required to take advantage of them. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have the Wits to upgrade Cultivator of Men, which would have let me roll the check a number of times per day equal to my Leadership and use the feat in group settings. Wits was worth upgrading on its own, it governed Initiative, Perception, Investigation, and more checks that could mean life or death in a lot of situations. But did I want to spec into the teaching feat trees? Did I have the room in my build? Annie was light, hanging from my neck, cheek pressed into mine. I could feel the coiled muscles of her arms and her heartbeat through where her soft breasts met my hard pectorals. She was radiating an infectious happiness and excitement. God, I would have killed to meet a girl like this in my old world. I¡¯d make room for Annie. I bought my Wits up to 3, and resolved to reinvest the XP I harvested from her back into our relationship. I was proud of my backyard gym for good reason. I¡¯d spent most of my savings and the vast majority of my excess cash for the last four months, and a lot of my favors with friends on getting it to where it was now. There were: two heavy bags, one for punching and one for kicking; dip bars; a wooden dummy that had showed up in a box outside one day, which I suspected was an anonymous gift from my father; and the aforementioned squat rack. In the center of the yard was my finest work, a stone-and-brick paved square constructed of entirely free building materials sat surrounded by grass on all sides, a perfect training surface. I¡¯d spent a week wandering around construction sites and offering to get rid of any of the excess they had that wasn¡¯t worth keeping around, then lugging it back to Harbor Hill. My sister had helped me layout the disparate sizes and colors of tiles into an actual design ¨C the Chinese character for ¡®Power¡¯, Li, set into a wave-like pattern. We spelled our name differently with the character for ¡®Plum¡¯, but it was still a great touch. Annie was appropriately impressed. We started with a medicine ball workout to loosen up our tendons and get our blood flowing. It was strictly light. That was very important; we were about to go into big body compound lifts, and ego was the gains demolisher. Going too hard before or during lifting heavy was how you ended up out of the gym for three months, recovering from surgery. While I may have been mostly immune to injuring myself during Training, my biology being governed by Player Character rules, Annie was not. I didn¡¯t want to accidently push her into hurting herself by not being mindful of normal human limits. The game was right to lower the Success Threshold to Train Hard with a partner present. Our first two hours flew by, the day feeling more like a date than a grueling work out. Annie was a blast to have around, my very own, personal cheerleader egging me on to push myself farther. I crushed my personal records for compound lifts while she hyped me up. It was entirely because my physical Attributes had gone up dramatically since I¡¯d tried, but I was happy to let her think it was from her help. Once we¡¯d snacked and had a coffee break to recuperate from our deadlifts, I got to roll my first check of the day as I set to giving Annie her first lesson in Black City Kung Fu. The two Successes from my teaching roll were represented by the flood of information I gained as I walked her through where to put her feet and how to transition between the different neutral stances. My original rough plan was to build her footwork fundamentals up and then move slowly into the flashier stuff. I quickly realized, though, that I was failing to give her enough credit. Annie was a skilled gymnast, dancer, and, most importantly, student. After a brief lesson, she was already self-correcting her mistakes before I could step in. Annie already ¡®spoke the language¡¯ of movement, as it were, and was able to comprehend my instructions and commentary on a level that far outstripped her martial arts experience. She lacked the muscle memory but that was a matter of time, and I was confident that she¡¯d dedicate herself to the basics on her own. So instead, I let her film me from multiple angles as I performed the basics of the footwork, talking through the kinesthetics at each step, for later use on her own time. ¡°Should I keep these secret?¡± she asked after she finished recording. ¡°Nah. Black City is for the people,¡± I decided in that moment. Since Annie could mostly teach herself the fundamentals ¨C I¡¯d check in and correct them as needed ¨C we moved to teaching her the first real lesson, hurting people. My contemporaries from traditional schools could dress up martial arts with all the dignity they might have liked, but we were at the end of the day, all fighting. ¡°At the heart of my style is an iron core of shocking brutality,¡± I said seriously, arms behind my back. ¡°No matter how disadvantaged you might seem, no matter the position your enemy forces you into, in order to call yourself a Black City practitioner you must be capable of extraordinary violence.¡± ¡°The first thing we must hone, is your Fighting Spirit. Even if you¡¯re not fighting to the death, every punch has to seek victory. I want to feel that from you today. Really give it to me, as hard as you got!¡± I proclaimed. Fist clenched in front of me as I engaged Operation Himbo. Annie started to chuckle but stopped nervously at my sincerity and nodded quickly. ¡°Right!¡± The rules were simple. I¡¯d set a five minute timer, we would stand at the center of the paved square, and then she¡¯d spend the time trying to avoid me from grabbing her and pulling her onto the grass. Annie would be allowed to do anything she wanted to escape me, punch, bite, knee my balls, scratch out my eyes ¨C literally anything to avoid being pulled away. Once the timer ended, we¡¯d take a rest and I would walk her through some technique she could have used to better resist. ¡°Remember, the grass is death. Imagine I¡¯m pulling you into a van with my five knife wielding friends if it helps.¡± Annie to her credit, didn¡¯t freeze as we began. My phone played the sound of a boxing bell as we started. I darted forward, hand outstretched for her face in a feint. She leaned her body out of the way as she stepped back, but my hand didn¡¯t follow. Instead I went low, grabbing her by the ankle and tugging her off balance. Before she could even hit the ground, I had stepped towards the boundary, twisted my core, and tossed her out onto the grass, converting my extra Successes on my grapple into distance thrown. Blades of grass stuck to her red hair as she sat up, dazed but unharmed. ¡°Still time on the clock, Shine!¡± Annie snapped to and ran back into the center of our ¡®ring¡¯, resetting for another go. Next, I baited out a knee. I went low, telegraphing the move and leading with my head. Annie snapped her knee up as expected, but she held back from driving it through. The short strike did nothing against my Force Armor. I paused, giving her a half second window to seize on the opening, and seeing none, I swept her legs out from under her with a hard low kick. I stood over her with my arms crossed. ¡°Okay, I thought this might happen. You¡¯re being way too nice.¡± Annie rubbed the shoulder she had broken her fall with. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said guiltily, picking herself off the ground, ¡°but shouldn¡¯t you have, like, pads? Or armor?¡± I opened my mouth to respond, but stopped myself. She would have to see in order to believe. ¡°Watch.¡± I walked over to the squat rack and pulled a forty five pound plate off of it. I knelt down. I looked up at her. ¡°Pain is the body¡¯s messenger, but the mind need not listen.¡± I placed my left hand on the ground, and held the plate above it with my right. ¡°Wai¡ªOH my god!¡± I slammed the weight down on my hand, making a bloody mess of the small bones in four of my fingers. Fragments were sticking out through the thin skin and flesh that made up the digits. ¡°Hold my wrist.¡± Annie was pale white, her palm clasped over her mouth in horror, but she still followed the order. Shuffling closer, she held my left wrist, torn between staring in shock and looking away. ¡°Watch carefully. You¡¯ll be able to do this one day.¡± I took a Breath, sending pure vitality flowing through my body, focusing it on my ruined hand. The bones crackled as they reset themselves to their correct positions, the flesh neatly sealing itself together. ¡°Ho-ly shit. Wow.¡± She held my hand between hers, gingerly feeling every inch of it, uncaring of the still wet blood atop the now whole skin. Her breath caught in her chest. ¡°You¡¯ll be able to do this, if you want. Do you? Do you want to learn how to do this? To knit your bones together?¡± Annie swallowed. ¡°Y-yes.¡± ¡°You hesitated.¡± She looked uncharacteristically unsure of herself. ¡°It¡¯s just¡­can I? I¡¯ve trained pretty damn hard for the past nine years of my life and never felt anything like Qi inside me.¡± ¡°I doubt any school in America would let you train in conditions suitable to unlocking your Qi. Did anyone ever die from overtraining at your schools? I knew of a few kids in my school, but never in an actual school controlled sport or class.¡± You could take temporary Endurance damage up to your Willpower score if you rolled extremely poorly Training Hard. It was unlikely, but if you trained enough people, enough times, someone was bound to die. That was just a fact of seriously training for combat, and the primary reason many considered all higher level martial artists as members of the Martial World, whether or not they engaged in fighting regularly or were actually devoted to the Path. ¡°I mean, there were accidents, but no one ever dropped dead from overtraining. Is that¡­really a thing? I¡¯d assumed the stories of martial artists dying in training were from bad injuries in sparring or random heart defects.¡± ¡°Absolutely. Humans have limits for a reason. If you push far enough past them, you will die.¡± I watched Annie¡¯s reaction carefully. She let out a sigh of relief. ¡°So that means that I never really started developing my Qi then?¡± I nodded. ¡°That¡¯s right, and you still can. You¡¯ll be at an advantage compared to most new students too. But that¡¯s only if you¡¯re able to do awful, unreasonable things.¡± Annie put her hands on her hips and gave a cocksure grin. ¡°I already told you, I¡¯m willing to dedicate myself to this.¡± ¡°Awful, unreasonable things like trying your best to cripple me when I tell you to.¡± She winced. ¡°Oh, right, right. Sorry.¡± She looked down at my hand still in hers and pressed her thumb against where a bone had been sticking out. [Hidden Quest Completed] Inspire within someone a life-changing pursuit of the martial arts through your direct actions. Reward: 25 XP, +1 Martial Arts, +1 Charisma Bonus, Inspired your student: 10 XP, +1 Leadership Bonus, Inspired your Ally: 15 XP, 1 Relationship Token [Hidden Quest Completed] Have 6 dice in Charisma. Reward: Gain Special Feat: Words Which Linger [Special Feat] Words Which Linger ¨C The impressions you make are deep and resonate with those you affect. People will more often find themselves thinking back on their interactions with you non-critically. If you inspired positive feelings towards you in someone, then these will grow stronger and more robust even without your added reinforcement. In time, respect may become admiration, and admiration in turn can become reverence. Beware, however, should you set out to inspire fear and hatred, then these too will persist and grow. Annie nodded seriously. Her blue eyes overflowing with determination and respect. ¡°I¡¯m ready. I can do this.¡± I couldn¡¯t look at Annie like this and not immediately spend the Experience I gained on improving my ability to foster her growth as a martial artist. First, I spent 25 XP to take Leadership to 5, the prerequisite for the Major tier of Cultivator of Men, and another 25 to upgrade the feat. [Major Feat] Cultivator of Men ¨C By your hand, seeds may become a forest before your eyes. In addition to the normal benefits they would gain, when a number of NPCs equal to or lesser than your total number of dice in Wits train under you, they can gain XP which you may spend on their behalf. At the beginning of, or during a training session, roll a Wits + Leadership check, each success will gain your students 1 XP. You may do this a number of times per day equal to your total dice in Leadership. The Match Is Lit Annie threw herself into the lesson with everything she had, surprising even me with how vicious she was immediately willing to be. Her first attempt to resist me was a hard knee to my testicles, which I blocked, followed by a headbutt to my nose. Only my Force Armor kept my nose from breaking. Five minutes of standing grappling was solid cardio, but it wasn¡¯t kung fu enough for my tastes. I put on my weighted vest, settling on thirty pounds, and had Annie drape herself in heavy steel chains, about fourteen pounds, I¡¯d found unattended at the docks. After our first break, I rolled the next Teaching roll, my upgraded feat resetting its benefits. The universe howled its approval with 11 Successes! That was a success on every die and a crit. It was my best roll since I¡¯d arrived in Black Harbor, and a welcome sign that I¡¯d chosen correctly when spending my Experience. Following the insights I¡¯d gained from my stellar roll, I decided to become extremely annoying. I hectored Annie, grabbing her and sweeping her to the ground over and over again, only laying off when it seemed that she was about to throw up from the exertion. I kicked her shins to distract her, pinched her sides to force her to twist herself into traps, and bopped her nose with the flat of my palm to force her eyes to water. If she was leaving herself open repeatedly, I would punish her with creative applications of pain or humiliation. When she exposed her chest to me, I would dig my knuckle into her sternum and drag it down hard. Her head and her back I punished with slaps to the relevant cheeks, not enough to ¡®damage¡¯ her by game terms, but enough to hurt. By the end of it, Annie was putting everything she had into her attacks. She really wanted to hit me, with every strike, every elbow, knee, and headbutt meant to put me down. A few of her strikes even managed to break through my Force Armor. I never thought I¡¯d find it beautiful to see a woman so completely embrace the way of violence, but those were the unexpected joys of becoming a shifu. ¡°Sorry about that,¡± I said, pulling off my weight vest. My redheaded student was on her back trying to catch her breath. I had swept her almost thirty times during this last round, barely bothering to try and drag her off the stone pavilion. Frankly, I was surprised she hadn¡¯t vomited from the exertion. She threw me a thumbs up. ¡°All, hah, good. I do, hah, hate you, though.¡± ¡°Not yet, you don¡¯t,¡± I smirked. ¡°But we¡¯re just getting started.¡± One weighted jump rope, one ¡®training staff¡¯ (a headless mop), some snacks and a little rest later, and we were ready to start the next training session. I had been thinking about the rat as of late. Not to fantasize about revenge, though there was some of that mixed in, but specifically to consider how he had dodged my grasp on Friday. While he had used some kind of Energy Reading to react to my attack, that, unfortunately, was something I lacked the required Feats, Attributes, and Skills to learn. However, he¡¯d also changed his trajectory mid-air in order to juke me. It had been a sort of twisting burst of his torso, an explosion of core muscles sharp enough to move him the few inches he had needed. ¡®Salmon Jump¡¯ was what Style Maker had named it. I could, and probably would eventually, purchase outright the feat the rat had used, but I was also fairly certain that if I trained long enough, I could mimic it without spending the Experience. That was after all, the in-game justification for my Style Maker. I handed Annie the staff. We were once more standing across from each other on the pavilion. Non-committal dark clouds moved quickly underneath the lighter grey of the sky, unsure of whether they would or wouldn¡¯t storm. The consistent light breeze dispelled the humidity and wicked away the sweat from my damp grey t-shirt. ¡°I regret to inform you that our school already has a nemesis, a shameless bandit that has pilfered our gym on multiple occasions, twice this weekend alone! He is brazen, seemingly unafraid of me, and taunts me openly with his martial abilities. But!¡± I held up my finger. ¡°What the beast doesn¡¯t know, is that every time he waddles out some new technique, he moves one step closer to death. I will pick apart his style and make it our own.¡± Annie quirked her head and furrowed her brow. ¡°Uh¡­¡± ¡°Oh, right, sorry. I¡¯m talking about a rat. There¡¯s a particularly portly rat that knows ninjutsu and he¡¯s been terrorizing me since I moved in.¡± ¡°Excuse me?¡± ¡°Anyway, two days ago he managed to dodge me by flinging himself in a new direction mid-jump. That sounds like quite a useful move for you and I, doesn¡¯t it? Scaled up it would be multiple feet of distance.¡± ¡°Sorry, a literal rat? Rattus rattus?¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t tell you the specific species.¡± ¡°And it knows¡­¡± ¡°Ninjutsu, it seems. I¡¯d thought it was Rat Style Kung Fu at first, but he left a pile of Japanese cherry blossom petals on my kitchen floor. I think Rat Kung Fu would have gone with peach or plum blossoms, but that¡¯s just a hunch, not everyone is committed to aesthetic consistency. Hmm, yes?¡± Annie made the timeout gesture. ¡°I have to stop you. Rats can learn martial arts?¡± I shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s a crazy world we live in, Annie Shine.¡± It was fun to be on the opposite end of this conversation. I¡¯d brought this same energy to my mother when I¡¯d learned about rats doing kung fu. I could totally see why she¡¯d brushed me off, this was hilarious. Annie was flabbergasted. I wished I had a picture of this moment to show my mom. ¡®Baby¡¯s First Time Learning Rats Can Do Kung Fu¡¯, I could title it. ¡°Wha¡­¡± ¡°I think the basic movement was an oblique crunch and a hip check¡ª¡± She held a hand up. ¡°I, I¡¯m having trouble moving on. You¡¯re telling me our school¡¯s nemesis is a ninja rat. We¡¯re beefing with Master Splinter?¡± ¡°No! Master Splinter was a man of honor! This creature is a common bandit! Also, he¡¯s regular rat sized, just very fat. Imagine an oversized tube of cake frosting.¡± ¡°What did he steal?¡± ¡°What do you mean? He¡¯s a rat. He stole my groceries. It¡¯s not like he could pawn my DVD player. Well, no one could really; it was only, like, twenty bucks. But that¡¯s beside the point.¡± ¡°Have you¡­tried poison? Traps?¡± I shook my head gravely. ¡°Never, that would be against my Yuxia code. If he were a simple beast, that would be one thing, but I¡¯ve recognized him as a worthy opponent. I won¡¯t escalate to poison unless he invites it in some way, and so far all he¡¯s done is run away. It would be dishonorable. It¡¯s of crucial importance to a Qi user to have a code or a philosophy to live by. Chaos invites Corruption. A dark Qi user is no more than a mad beast to be put down. You¡¯ll want to remember that once you tap into your Qi.¡± I wasn¡¯t bullshitting. The game had multiple Corruption mechanics that used your Willpower Attribute as a separate ¡®health¡¯ tract, though much, much harder to recover from. There were dark Qi users, dark telepaths, dark magicians, and so on; all people who had been driven mad by their power. So far, I¡¯d avoided any feats that incurred a risk for Corruption, but they were mighty tempting. There was also the chance to be Corrupted by supernatural entities; vampires had thralls, demons their witches, wizards their slaves, etc. At the time, I had considered these to be ¡®soft bad ends¡¯, things that weren¡¯t guaranteed to be character enders if the table was willing to go through the process of curing/redeeming their party member, and so were more appealing to a Game Master than outright death. Now, they were facts of life, more hazards to be avoided. ¡°I might rig a trap though,¡± I added. ¡°I think that¡¯s reasonable. Although, I¡¯d have to get a lot better at trap making to catch him before it became worth it. Now quit stalling. Let¡¯s train.¡± I made my second Teaching roll as I set us up. The feat had mentally clicked back on when I could roll again, which had been about fifty minutes after the last one. Three Successes, not much compared to the critical, but a respectable number nonetheless. The exercise was a simple one, aimed at developing the musculature required for a Salmon Jump. I would jump my weighted rope at a steady pace, while Annie would use her staff to stab at my sides. Her aim was to deliver a glancing blow fast enough to avoid her staff getting hit by the jump rope. I would be trying to jerk out of the way mid-jump while not throwing off my rhythm. The jump rope would be keeping us both honest. Annie was a natural with the staff, easily following along with my lesson on how to best deliver force with a quick, short jab. Thankfully, she wasn¡¯t trying to really hurt me this time, or else she¡¯d have quickly stretched the limits of my Force Armor. We struggled trying to find our rhythm. Our first five minutes were jerky; either Annie would mistime her strike, or I would overcorrect and miss my jump. But once we got going properly, it was a thing of beauty. We resembled two metronomes perfectly in sync ¨C or the craziest cuckoo clock to have ever been made. It was bizarrely intimate, and not quite sexually. I was intensely aware of all of Annie¡¯s micromovements and expressions, and she no doubt of mine. We had mutually adjusted our personal rhythms to match each other¡¯s. It was enough that the system asked me to make an Empathy + Seduction roll in the middle of the session. The Lucky Penny in my pocket pushed my check to 3 Successes. The result was subtle, but I could sense somehow that our connection had deepened. We rested when our muscles could no longer obey our nervous systems. Once the clumsiness returned I had us break for a bit before trading positions. Annie was a pro rope jumper, to no surprise, far superior to me, but she wasn¡¯t as adept at taking strikes. Over time, though my attacks weren¡¯t causing ¡®damage¡¯ by the game¡¯s definition, the repeated body blows sapped her energy. She slowed down to compensate, but it wasn¡¯t enough. Annie was shaking by the time we hit the five minute mark. She would either be too slow to fire or would overcompensate with her reactions, her smooth flow replaced with twitchy, jerking movements. I didn¡¯t need a teaching feat to tell me that Annie wasn¡¯t prepared for a crash lesson on Iron Body training, and called a break. Afterwards, I had her only practice the staff thrusts as we rounded out the session. Her shoulders were no doubt on fire, but it was better than potentially sending her to the hospital. Once the feat informed me I could roll again, I had us move to a less physically demanding skill session. I needed to come up with forms for Black City Kung Fu and there was no better way to brainstorm than to choreograph some cool looking fight scenes. Annie had given me the idea. Beyond sounding like fun, it would also present an opportunity to take a crack at the hidden quests related to making video content. I assumed there were more than just the ¡®Go viral¡¯ quests from yesterday. The burgeoning influencer had brought two tripods and a very nice camera with her. Along with her phone, they gave us two static angles to work with. It wasn¡¯t ideal for longer form content, but she assured me she would have at least one JinJin video ready to go. Filming and distributing our training like this was extremely non-conventional. Even non-traditional modern styles wouldn¡¯t have done this at the higher levels, no fighter wanting to give up their secrets prior to a match or tournament. But being a content creator was how Annie was angling to get into the Stunt Performers Guild. And since she was helping me with my plan to expedite entry to the SPG, I wanted to do my part to help with hers. Besides, with how my life was going, if I was still alive by the time of the tournaments, I¡¯d be almost unrecognizable. Including the Thursday I got here, I¡¯d averaged almost 100 XP a day. Sure, I¡¯d probably die if I tried to keep that up for five weeks, but even if I dropped that down to a quarter of my average, I¡¯d still be a monster come the Qualifiers. Unsure of how to start with my forms, I decided to cheat a little and used my teaching feat to accelerate my brainstorming. Four Successes didn¡¯t give me any specific ideas, but I did feel reassured that the feat would enhance the effectiveness of any training. I could have her paint my fence and wax her car to learn how to block if I wanted to. In that case, I figured, I might as well have fun with it. I came out of my little garden shed twirling two curved wooden practice sabers with a toothy grin. ¡°Who else starts you with weapons on the first day? Ah, I just can¡¯t help spoiling my senior student.¡± Annie rubbed her obliques and winced. ¡°I don¡¯t feel very spoiled.¡± I stood on the pavilion so that Annie could see my profile as I entered the Li-Family Plum Flower Double Saber stance. ¡°This next exercise is to teach you the beginnings of how to study and visualize movement the way that I do, as well as give you practice dodging. Our style is meant to be mobile and flowing, rarely do you ever want to block. Your defense should focus on parrying, dodging, and, of course, attacking, but we¡¯ll cover that when you¡¯re ready.¡± I spun my swords in intersecting circles, timed so that they failed by a hair to catch each other. ¡°Here¡¯s how this works. I¡¯m going to improvise a twenty-four move sword form, then I¡¯m going to repeat it exactly as before, two more times for you. After that, you¡¯re going to stand in front of me and we¡¯re going to go through it over and over until you can dance through these blades with panache. Fun right? Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t break any bones.¡± ¡°Huh. That actually sounds like a lot of fun.¡± She rocked on her heels. ¡°Yeah. Twenty four moves? I can do that. Can you do me a favor though? Can you take your shirt off? It¡¯ll be better for the cameras, and I think it¡¯ll be easier for me to keep track of you.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± I said. I ignored the look in her eyes as I pulled off my shirt, still committed to pushing her into making the first move. I was left in only a small pair of exercise shorts that reached about halfway down my thighs, and rode up a bit as my quads flexed and moved. Improvising the form was a Wits plus Martial Arts roll, something I easily crushed with my 11 total dice. I took a breath and envisioned Annie before me. This form, I decided, would teach her how to circle step. I pictured the pattern my twin blades would need to weave to push her into a spiral towards the center of the pavilion. My first steps were sublime. I instantly knew I¡¯d made the right decision to take a student. They said that teaching was a great way to breakthrough your own skill plateaus, and I could see why. This was precisely what Black City needed to reach the next level. Without her I don¡¯t think I¡¯d have tried to boil down my style to its core like this. The vision of my student in my head may have had the redhead¡¯s body, but it possessed considerably greater skill. She flowed around my sabers and through their deadly arcs, avoiding my attacks but moving ever towards where I wanted her. This was a good level of proficiency in Black City for a first form. When came the day that Annie could dodge with the same grace and flare as the version of her in my head in a real fight, I would consider her a journeyman in my style. I used wide sweeping attacks, fast but telegraphed. They would look flashy for the cameras but give her plenty of time to react to them. This was our first form after all. I froze with my arm extended in a lunging thrust and turned to look at her. ¡°I¡¯ll pause here. Next time we train though, I¡¯ll teach you how to disarm me, and we¡¯ll use this as the start of a one saber form that will loop back to the start of todays. That¡¯ll give us our first drill.¡± Annie had transformed while she watched, taking the posture and severe appearance of a weathered gymnastics coach. Her arms were crossed, one hand holding her chin between its thumb and index finger. Blue eyes, cold and analytical, followed my every move. She was the picture of confidence stepping into the ring after I finished the form for the third time. Annie bowed before standing in something resembling a taekwondo stance. I returned her bow and then stepped forward to make the first move at about one-third speed, a dual thrust of my sabers, one low the other high. She twisted her body out of the way, bent like a reed in the wind in the narrow line of safety, then ducked the second move, a pull cut from the overhead blade as it whipped back to defend me in a deadly arc. Annie had all the right instincts for my style, she was waiting until the very last moment to dodge, and every movement had dramatic intent. She innately understood that the point of Black City Kung Fu wasn¡¯t to look cool while delivering a beating, the point was to look cool and deliver a beating. They were equal parts important. If we were moving full speed and these were real swords, little strands of her hair would have been twirling down in the ones and twos with each dodge, ripe for some slow-mo shots. Annie timed a stomp to my leg just at the moment I stepped into the next movement, surprising me, and proving herself to be the perfect scene partner. Then, seemingly to her own surprise, she rolled back and under my follow-up low sweep. THWACK ¡°Ow, shit!¡± Annie had stood up, directly into the path of my left saber. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said, rubbing the side of her face. ¡°What were you trying to do?¡± She grinned. ¡°The stomp was as far as I got.¡± ¡°You looked so confident.¡± Annie curtsied, and with an over the top German accent said, ¡°Act-ting, mein guter Freund. I was embodying my childhood coach.¡± ¡°Well that was still insanely impressive for your first time. I had a vision in my head for how you would have to dodge, but I¡¯ll have to step it up now that I can see what you can do. You might be the one person in this city most suited to learn my style.¡± Was Annie a gimme from the Producers? She had to be. We met in my first scene, she was already a fan, and she was an ideal student, it was too perfect. If so, then I was majorly grateful. I¡¯d avoided most of the romantic stuff at character creation, and that was clearly where most of the Experience lay. But, now that I knew Annie was a designated love interest, I was considerably more worried for her safety. ¡°Thanks!¡± said Annie, beaming with excitement, ¡°I knew from the first time I watched you that we would be crazy compatible. You really think we¡¯ll be able to get through all twenty-four moves today?¡± ¡°You did four moves on your own from a side profile? Definitely. We should be running this at full speed within an hour. Like I said, I can envision an opponent dodging me. I¡¯ll guide you when you get stuck. You know your body better than me of course, and you¡¯ve already surprised me today, but with a little collaboration we should be flying.¡± The little redhead gave me a serious look. ¡°We can do this in an hour? James, if we made one of these a day, we could be doing numbers on JinJin.¡± I stroked my chin. ¡°An hour a day? I can probably spare that, but the question is will that hour be one that aligns with your schedule.¡± Annie blinked. ¡°Oh, I was thinking we would stockpile some videos for later. But, actually, if that¡¯s what it takes, I could clear an hour a day. Are you serious about this?¡± ¡°Am I serious about this?¡± I asked myself aloud. ¡°Hmm. You are my only student and I am currently in a simmering feud with the Tiger Triad so I do have responsibility to teach you to the best of my abilities. And if we made content out of it, it would inherently force my training to be as entertaining as possible, a guiding principle in Black City Kung Fu.¡± Training Annie every day would also ensure I hit the daily repeatable quest, and that I¡¯d get the most value out of my investment into teaching feats. ¡°I¡¯ll have to leave all of the video and social media stuff to you, bit too much on my plate for all of that.¡± She saluted. ¡°You can count on me! But I think you may change your mind once the money starts coming in. You¡¯re serious, though? You want to meet to train and film daily?¡± I got back into my starting position, signaling with my practice swords for her to do the same. ¡°I imagine we¡¯ll miss a few days, but I see no good reason not to try.¡± ¡°Sweet. I have a good feeling about this. Me and you, we¡¯re a hot ticket.¡± ¡°Just try to survive training.¡± I took a deep breath. ¡°Alright, this time instead of rolling back and standing up, I want you to roll into a handstand and parry the next two attacks with your feet.¡± The next hour was extremely productive. Of mine and Annie¡¯s Venn diagram of skills, choreography fell firmly in the middle. We were able to do our 24-move partner form at 1.5 times speed by the end, and I even had time to show her a few disarm attacks she could use to start with next time. Our training was going well, but while I always enjoyed the training scenes in movies and shows, I was getting a bit self-conscious about how my viewers would take it. In an effort to ease Annie into my martial arts, I¡¯d deliberately been holding back on the danger and pizazz. Sure, if she described her day to her normal friends, they might find it brutal and alarming, but they probably wouldn¡¯t think the exercises were unbelievable. And a martial artist would find my training eccentric but sensible so far. Honestly, my family and other more traditional fighters would think I¡¯d gone easy on her. I needed to do something that would put both groups on their asses, something that would make me standout from the rest, and ideally something that would help me win the next viewer popularity poll. Hands clasped in front of my face, I stared down at the character for Strength on my pavilion. ¡°That could work,¡± I muttered to myself as I had a thought. I gave Annie a stern, confident look. ¡°I think we should try to awaken your Qi.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± She was audibly skeptical. ¡°I thought that took years.¡± ¡°It does, normally. But I had an idea.¡± First, I had us stand back to back. Our elbows locked together, we lowered ourselves into a partner horse stance. I would use this to teach Annie how to breathe properly. ¡°Imagine a tire around your abdomen; your breaths should push against that tire equally. Feel my back.¡± I took a full kung fu breath. ¡°Can you feel it expand against yours?¡± The muscles in her shoulders indicated to me that she¡¯d nodded. Any fighter worth their salt could read their opponent through touch alone. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Focus on those muscles and try to push them against me with your breaths. With time, this will be your default means of breathing.¡± I waited until I could feel Annie get the hang of it to continue. ¡°Once you no longer have to focus to breathe correctly, I want you to turn your attention to your lower dantian, two fingers breadth below your navel and three breadths within. This is the seat of your Qi and the location of the Gate of Life. Feel the primordial flame, your truest potential, as its energy flows outward and through your body.¡± This is where the shenanigans began. I had a fairly lofty goal in mind, awakening Annie¡¯s Qi, and was planning to use an improvised Aura maneuver to achieve that. Ordinarily, this would be an extremely difficult check, and I didn¡¯t think the Producers would bail me out twice in a row for improvised maneuvers. But, I had a plan. To try and make the goal a bit easier and justify a lower Success threshold, I started with a teaching roll. Hopefully, a high enough result would open the doors to what I wanted to do next. Nice! We were starting strong with a critical for a total of 8 Successes. At the very least, no matter how well the rest of this went, Annie would remember this exercise as strangely impactful. Next, I got to employ a feat that I had previously thought would languish unused. Heartfelt Serenade, which I¡¯d gotten for kissing Shania, allowed me to add 4 dice to a Seduction or Persuasion roll, once per person, so long as I was singing to them when I did so. It was an absurd ability that I¡¯d only been grateful to receive because it gave me a much improved singing voice as a side effect, but it was hopefully about to come in clutch. I began to throat sing, something I hadn¡¯t known I knew how to do but evidently fell under the auspices of the feat. A loud, eerie double-tone came rumbling from the base of my neck and chest. The sound made Annie tense momentarily, before the sonorous massage of vibrations from where our bodies were connected lulled her into a deeper relaxation. After a few minutes, our breathing was perfectly synchronized. I could throat sing through the inhale of breath, and had used that slight change in pitch to coach Annie into following along with my slow constant breaths. Finally, she was ready for me to engage in the last step. I turned my minds eye inward to the river of power flowing through my body, chasing a strand of pure Qi as it exited my own dantian and moved into my spine. I tried to direct that energy into Annie, to reverse the path and try to jumpstart her Qi production. Somehow, I convinced the system to let me roll an Aura + Seduction to do this. I guess, technically, I was trying to seduce Annie¡¯s Qi network with my own? I wasn¡¯t entirely sure of the specifics, but I had 14 dice in the pool with the 4 from Heartfelt Serenade and 1 from Rule of Cool, since this was the sort of thing that would defy belief from a layman, and an expert would find reckless, dangerous, and possibly insane. Annie gasped, her lower dantian exploding into a roaring inferno. My breathing managed to stay steady, but only because of the added focus that my song provided me. Internally, my mind was struggling to control the deluge of information and emotions that were assaulting my body and soul. Ten Successes may have actually been a few too many. I wasn¡¯t sure what I had in mind would happen, but this was beyond my wildest expectations. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Unlock your first Qi Nature (Fire). Reward: 15 EXP, +1 Elemental Control (Fire) Bonus, You and your student simultaneously unlocked same nature: 5 EXP, +1 Aura, +1 Elemental Control (Fire) Bonus, Used Seduction: 25 EXP, +1 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery) [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have 6 dice in Aura. Reward: Gain Special feat Infused [Special Feat] Infused ¨C You have taken the first step on the long journey from man to God. The wellspring of Qi in your core has begun to alter your body, changing and improving it at the cellular level. This grants you a wide variety of benefits, esoteric and not, most notable of which are: your aging is slowed, your natural lifespan has doubled, and your base Health and Willpower tracts are increased by 1. However, it should be known that every element of your biology is of value to mystics and monsters alike, and that unless you take steps to mitigate it, your soul glows like a torch in the night. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Unlock a student¡¯s Qi. Reward: 10 EXP, +1 Wits, +1 Leadership Bonus, Used Seduction: 15 EXP, You and Student Gain Minor feat Dual Cultivation [Minor Feat] Dual Cultivation ¨C You may intermingle your Aura with your partner while engaged in consensual sex. This is a profoundly intimate process that grants 2 dice to all Sensuality and Endurance rolls to both you and your partner during the scene, and cannot be interrupted willingly once began. At the end of the Dual Cultivation, roll a combined dice pool of both of your Aura Attributes; you each gain Experience equal to the number of successes. If your partner has this feat as well, add 2 dice to all relevant pools. A person may only benefit from this feat once per day. [Ally Quest Complete! (Annie Shine)] Unlock Annie¡¯s Qi Reward: 10 EXP, +1 Acrobatics, +1 Dance Bonus, Unlocked her Qi Nature simultaneously: 10 EXP, +1 Elemental Control (Fire), +1 Physics [Ally Quest Complete! (Annie Shine)] Irrevocably alter Annie¡¯s body to become lewder. Reward: 50 EXP, +2 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery), +1 Finesse Bonus, It was an accident: 10 EXP, Gain Item Silver Dollar ¨C As long as this coin is on your person, you may treat a single 5 on a die as a 6 for any roll. If lost or destroyed, it will return to you the next day. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Implement sexuality into a lesson to a positive effect. Reward: 15 EXP, +1 Seduction, Gain Special feat Sex Ed Bonus, It went unnoticed: 15 EXP, +1 Deception Bonus, Magnitude of the effect was Defining: +1 Random Attribute (Attunement), +3 Random Skill (Stealth) [Special Feat] Sex Ed ¨C NPCs that you train gain double the benefits from training when you include a sexual element to the lesson. This applies to both what they would learn naturally and any relevant feats that you may have. If Annie¡¯s dantian was a bonfire, mine was a volcano on the verge of eruption. It was all I could do to leash my power, contain it before it escaped my body in the form of uncontrolled heat and force. Unfortunately, I had tied my metaphysical network to Annie¡¯s, and her total inability to wrangle her Qi, to no fault of her own, was keeping me from managing mine. I began to detangle us as quickly and carefully as I could. Qi was the basic building block of life. It both created, and was created by, the body. As I pulled my Qi out of Annie, I could feel her network undergoing rapid evolution. Her spiritual power had doubled and gained a new Nature, embodying the Chinese element of Fire. The energy of Impulse, Passion, and Explosive Growth rewrote Annie¡¯s metaphysiology, and these changes were reflected in her biology. Guided by my initial 10 Successes on the Aura + Seduction roll, Annie¡¯s newly awakened Qi was impossibly horny. What it was doing to her, I could only guess, but the quest, ¡®Irrevocably alter Annie¡¯s body to become lewder¡¯ said it all, really. Had I not been undergoing my own small metamorphosis myself I might have been able to control and moderate Annie¡¯s changes, but I had to abandon her to her fate. My consciousness was forced inward, lest I lose control and vaporize us and our surroundings. Eventually, after an unknown amount of time in deep contemplation, I returned to what was now my baseline. My Qi settled down, but I could sense the heat ready to lash out at a moment¡¯s notice. Was my Nature really Fire, I wondered, or had I earned that as a result of my improvised Maneuver? I suppose I¡¯d been fairly impulsive lately, but I¡¯d always thought of myself as a fairly level headed man. The James half of me was a bit disappointed, having memorized Bruce Lee¡¯s ¡®Be Water¡¯ speech at the age of nine. Now I was ¡®Being Fire¡¯, which meant that I would have to completely rework my martial philosophy. The Alan half of me was self-conscious, wondering if this was somehow a referendum on the fact that we were only here because he¡¯d responded seriously to a scammy email. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. An unspoken, noiseless signal passed between Annie and I, and we both slowly dropped onto our asses, still leaning against each other. If I didn¡¯t know better, I would have thought the sweat soaked, exhausted woman behind me was feverish. ¡°Holy, ah, shit, ah¡­¡± panted Annie. ¡°That was¡­insane.¡± ¡°Black City, baby. No one does it like us.¡± I checked the time. That whole process had only taken twenty minutes. That made sense, while my legs were burning a bit, now that my body was returning to neutral, I didn¡¯t feel all that tired physically. We still had to do a bit more to successfully finish Training Hard. Not that it was strictly necessary. Today was a wild success for me and Annie, and an extra 1 to 3 Experience was hardly going to make a world of difference. Annie¡¯s breathing was shaky, her voice throaty. ¡°James, I can feel it, my Qi. It¡¯s, it¡¯s so hot.¡± She squeezed her legs together and turned her head to press her cheek into my back. ¡°Yeah. Turns out we both have a Fire Nature. Always thought I was more Water or Wood, but taking a look back on my life decisions, things are definitely lining up.¡± Annie shuddered and repeated, ¡°Fire¡­¡± ¡°What else are you feeling? How¡¯s your¡­body?¡± I couldn¡¯t think of a polite way to reference the lewd changes. Annie broke into a fit of giggles. ¡°Uhhhh, no comment.¡± She coughed a few times before calming down. ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m stronger. No, not¡­exactly. But I¡¯m better. I don¡¯t know how to put it. I just feel more alive.¡± She paused. ¡°And grateful, so, so grateful. Thank you, James. This is surreal.¡± Let¡¯s hope she felt the same after adjusting to her new ¡®upgraded¡¯ body. ¡°Don¡¯t mention it. I¡¯m just glad neither of us exploded.¡± ¡°Was¡­that on the table?¡± ¡°Ha! Oh yeah. I didn¡¯t want to panic you earlier, but that was incredibly dangerous. And I had no idea what I was doing. Maybe don¡¯t tell other martial artists about this. Holy shit, definitely don¡¯t tell my mother about this. Actually, maybe this all stays a secret technique, yeah?¡± Annie laughed. ¡°Sorry, did you say you thought you were Water or Wood earlier?¡± ¡°Hey, I said things were lining up. And I don¡¯t want to hear it from you. You¡¯re also a Fire Nature.¡± ¡°True.¡± She hummed. ¡°We should totally use that as an excuse any time we get caught acting messy.¡± ¡°Oh, we should for sure be as insufferable about this as possible.¡± Annie twisted her body a bit so that she was resting against me in a side hug, legs curled under her and one arm around my sweaty, bare chest. A few droplets of rain fell from the dull grey above, turning to steam where they landed on our skin. ¡°So, good to keep going?¡± ¡°Keep going?¡± she asked, a little tired. ¡°Keep training. Your call. It¡¯s been a good day so far, but I haven¡¯t hit the wall yet.¡± She sighed. ¡°Yeah, I think so. Just give me a sec.¡± The little ginger¡¯s nose dug into my back as she took a deep breath. ¡°Hey, James, why does your sweat smell good? I couldn¡¯t tell if it was deodorant earlier, but now it¡¯s, like, undeniably your sweat.¡± I frowned. ¡°I think you¡¯re smelling my power. That could be a problem. I¡¯ll have to watch out for draculas now, I bet.¡± ¡°Draculas?¡± ¡°You know, blood sucker types? Wear capes, walk on walls, turn into bats?¡± ¡°Vampires?¡± She giggled. ¡°Are those actually real?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t know, but I assume so.¡± Annie laughed. She thought I was joking. ¡°I guess it can¡¯t hurt to be on the lookout.¡± She kept holding me, her arm sliding down a bit to my abs. ¡°Can I request the exercise?¡± she asked after a few more long breaths of my musk. There was a hint of implication in her voice. That lust that had been present in the immediate come down from the Qi ritual had bled back in. I stalwartly continued to ignore any hints she was dropping. ¡°Of course! What were you thinking?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a little silly,¡± she pitched her tone up, putting on a bit of ¡®damsel¡¯ in her voice, ¡°but you hear all these scary stories. I know it isn¡¯t how most rapes happen, but a part of me¡¯s always been worried that someone¡¯s going to sneak up on me in the street and pin me down and fuck me while I struggle.¡± She practically purred the last words. ¡°You want to learn how to escape pins? Sure, we can end on a sensible note.¡± ¡°Great!¡± She leapt to her feet. ¡°Let¡¯s get started! Oh, wait.¡± She hooked her thumbs up her leotard and into where her leggings began. ¡°I¡¯m overheating,¡± she said, keeping eye contact. She pulled the leggings down her prodigious, athletic ass. In order to get past where the leotard¡¯s crotch was holding them in place, she kept her thumb hooked in the legging and lifted her leg up and out of it, revealing more and more of her bare, pale leg until the entirety of it was held perfectly vertical next to her head. It was a strip tease that I chose to interpret as a show of flexibility in my himbo brain. Her leg stayed raised until she had pulled the now empty leg under her leotard unrestricted, allowing her to take off the leggings normally. I blinked placidly at the display, wearing an innocent patient smile. The game forced me to roll a Deception at this. While I couldn¡¯t know the results, I did have to fight back a smirk at the almost feral desperation that flashed over Annie¡¯s eyes. ¡°Should I put my shirt back on?¡± I asked. ¡°Collar control can be very important for beginner wrestling.¡± ¡°No.¡± She lay on the center of the of the pavilion on her back. ¡°This is how I imagine it happening in my nightmares.¡± I pointed to the grass. ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want somewhere softer?¡± Annie briefly grit her teeth but passed it off as a smile. ¡°I want it hard. To¡­replicate what it¡¯s like in my dreams.¡± I shrugged and moved to kneel over her. ¡°What pin should I use first?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. However you would fuck me if you were a bad guy, I guess.¡± ¡°It might be hard for you to tap as we go along. Want a safe word?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be fine.¡± ¡°O-kay¡­Just say, ¡®Pine Tree¡¯ if you want to stop.¡± I grabbed her left arm and lay it across her neck. Then, I folder her legs up until her ankles were above her head. Her legs also trapped her arm, which let me pin three of her limbs with my body weight. To choke her all I needed to do was lean my weight down on her thighs or push down on her ankles. I could also fold her further into a mating press if she somehow got both arms free, which would disable or hamper her shoulders by crushing them into the ground. ¡°So, not a whole lot you can do. You¡¯ve got a hand free, but I can free both of mine if I need to. But you do have a weapon, or at least, what Black City considers to be one. Feel the ground beneath you, try flexing your shoulder blades. That little bit of motion and force they provide you? That¡¯s your playground and your arsenal.¡± She licked her lips. ¡°I want you to go all out. I need to know. Wreck me if you have to.¡± I nodded amicably. ¡°Choking you out here wouldn¡¯t be great for a lesson, but other than that I¡¯ll go all out to keep you down. Ready when you are.¡± Annie immediately started trying to squirm and twist out from under me. Her powerful core flexed under me like a steel coil, but I had total control of her hips and she wasn¡¯t going anywhere. She was strong though, enough that I had to lean forward onto her, shifting my weight towards her thin arm trapping her neck. It wasn¡¯t hard enough to fully block her air on her own, but every time she made a particularly strong effort with her lower abdomen, it would shift her body up a bit and into the arm. Annie was effectively choking herself as she fought me. The Annie of an hour ago would have tested every movement she could to determine which was choking her and then moved onto other strategies. Instead she was doing her best to thrash underneath me, growing more frantic as she did. Rather than getting frustrated or more violent, she seemed to be growing more thrilled. She stopped suddenly, falling back limply to catch her breath. Her eyes and her smile were wild. ¡°Twisting to the sides not working,¡± she said lustily. ¡°What about up and down?¡± Annie picked up her butt and pressed her crotch directly into mine, staring manically at me. She didn¡¯t have much room to move, but she started to gyrate her hips up in a circular motion, effectively massaging my dick. Her sex, now separated only by the leotard, was considerably warmer than the rest of her already burning body, and was wet with something that distinctly wasn¡¯t sweat. The system demanded an Endurance plus Deception to not instantly get rock hard. My one Success was barely enough and I was quickly at half-mast. Her eyes widened a fraction at the feel of me. If she thought that was impressive, she had no idea what was coming. I coughed nervously but didn¡¯t pull back. ¡°Not much you can do with that I don¡¯t think. Don¡¯t forget your free hand.¡± She grabbed a hold of my hair and pulled me into a hard kiss, before falling back somewhat dazed. The sudden motion had crushed her neck into her left arm in what was basically a self-inflicted lariat. Annie didn¡¯t let go of my head though, nor did she break eye contact. I did my best to look surprised and concerned for her health. Once she had recovered her wits, I opened my mouth, ostensibly to voice this concern. But my student quickly cut me off, as I had expected her to do. ¡°Wait.¡± She paused, completely frozen, having clearly panicked. ¡°Listen. I¡­I need you to fuck me. Medically speaking. I¡¯ll literally die if you don¡¯t fuck me.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°No, shut up. Let me think.¡± She closed her eyes. ¡°Okay,¡± she said after a few breaths, ¡°James. I am ridiculously attracted to you. You,¡± she wiggled her hips to emphasize her point, ¡°are clearly attracted to me. So here is what I propose: No strings attached, no future expectations of any kinds, no questions asked, sex. Just two super hot people, getting off together. What do you say?¡± Then, as if doubting the strength of her argument, puffed up her cheeks and made her eyes as wide as possible. ¡°Pleeeease?¡± she added, pouting her lips. [Hidden Quest Complete] Intentionally get someone so aroused and stimulated that they proposition you. Reward: 10 EXP, +1 Seduction, +1 Deception Bonus, Pushed them to openly molesting you: 10 EXP, +1 Presence Project Himbo Complete! That was a fun way to push my Presence to 7. I had reached a level of beauty that could only be described as alien. Someone could go their entire life without seeing a man as attractive as I was now in person. I chuckled. ¡°Are you doing a Chibi hamster face?¡± ¡°Is it working?¡± I kissed her gently, a stark contrast to the vicious hold I was keeping her in. Forgoing tongue, I let my lips massage hers. Annie was eager and instantly receptive, letting me take the lead but subtly urging me on with little twitches of her hips. I had only gotten 4 Successes on the Sensuality plus Seduction roll for my kisses, but I had a feeling that it didn¡¯t matter much. She was truly desperately horny, and likely had been since I¡¯d kickstarted her Qi. After a point however, she started to shy away from my kisses, whining and wriggling in frustration. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Her breath was short and harsh. ¡°Sensitive. Everything is so sensitive. My lips¡ª¡± That was ambrosia to my ears and I immediately captured her mouth in a kiss. Annie bucked her hips up with a surprised start. She semi-fought me, enjoying our kisses but afraid of the precipice she was teetering on. I held her lower lip between my teeth and softly pulled at it. That was the last straw. Annie tensed her entire body as she came. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Make some orgasm from a kiss. Reward: 15 EXP, +1 Finesse Bonus, Made possible by a change you made to their body: 5 EXP, +1 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery), Gain Minor Feat Love Doctor [Minor Feat] Love Doctor ¨C You have, in your own way, learned the meridian pathways in the human body better than most. You may use your Erotic Sorcery skill to make Medicine rolls, and gain 2 extra dice when doing so. There are predictable and unpredictable side effects to practicing medicine in this manner. ¡°Eee¡ªkh!¡± I leaned forward, choking the air out of her throat and stopping the loud pitched whine she began to emanate from disturbing the neighbors. Oxygen deprivation could extend and heighten orgasms, which demanded another Sensuality roll from me. Three Successes, but again, it was largely extraneous. I imagine I was also being helped by my Porn Physics feat, which was keeping this as safe as it could be. Her right hand had spasmed when she¡¯d orgasmed, clawing onto the back of my neck for dear life. As she leveled out, she switched to playing with my hair affectionately. I took that as a signal to let up a bit. ¡°Before we continue,¡± I said, ¡°two questions. Inside or out, and indoors or outdoors.¡± ¡°On the pill,¡± she panted. Annie looked up at me and bit her lips, clearly debating the next answer. ¡°And¡­indoors. Outdoors when I¡­relearn restraint.¡± She¡¯d already reneged on the ¡®no future expectations¡¯ part of our agreement, but I hadn¡¯t been planning to keep to that one either. Since it was guaranteed to eventually be useful, I somewhat frivolously purchased a Minor feat for Telekinesis that would help me with grappling. Did I have purely sexual uses in mind currently? Yes. But it also synchronized well with Black City Kung Fu and would give Annie a safe way to interact with telekinesis. And¡ª Ah, who was I kidding, I did for the sex. [Minor Feat (Telekinesis)] Three Python Force Technique ¨C Your keen martial prowess and grounding in telekinesis combine to enhance your natural grappling ability. Subconscious desires grant you mystical aid equivalent to 1 die in all grapples, and many situational Strength rolls. You may also add 1 automatic Success to a grapple a number of times per scene equal to your total dice in Telekinesis. ¡°Secret Technique time!¡± I said. ¡°You excited? This will be your first taste and lesson on telekinesis. Pay attention.¡± Annie barely managed a ¡°Huh?¡± before letting out a choked yelp, as a thick band of force pressed her closer and tighter to my chest. I slid my free arm underneath her to help, effectively sandwiching her between it and my body, and rose to my feet. She couldn¡¯t speak, still folded up as she was before. Her neck was now pressing into her arm, which in turn now trapped her legs where they were against my hard chest and thighs, the opposite of before. There was a hint of curiosity in her eyes, though it was quickly being pushed out by raw desire. ¡°I figured out how to use telekinesis recently. Just a random epiphany while training one day,¡± I explained as I carried her towards the door. ¡°It¡¯s supposed to be an ace-in-the-hole, so don¡¯t go spreading it around, but I think I¡¯ll be able to teach you how to do it as well.¡± Annie nodded with her chin, as much as she could, to show she was listening. ¡°If we¡¯re going to have a physical relationship, it¡¯s going to be included in our Master-Student one, not tacked on as hedonistic impulse. I think that¡¯s the best way to avoid corrupting our bond. Understood?¡± Annie indicated she agreed, but I had a feeling she¡¯d go along with anything as long as it meant she got to have sex. For my part, I was largely hoping my collection of feats and Social Attributes would manage the intricacies of our relationship for me going forward. I paused at the closed door, briefly stumped by the puzzle in my own horny haze. Shaking my head, I planted my foot on the door, and used the Three Python Force Technique to turn the doorknob with my Aura. Kicking it closed behind me, I dropped her back down to the ground directly onto my cold concrete floor. A dirt-spackled tiny window was the only light in the mudroom between the back door and the rest of my apartment. It was a grimy little place, barely more than a closet, crowded by exercise equipment and yard tools, but Annie had given me the impression that this was exactly what she was in the mood for. Today, at least, she wanted it nasty. She took a deep, shaky breath and coughed. ¡°Can we fuck now?¡± she asked in a raspy voice. ¡°One sec, this is still training.¡± I gave a stern look at her pout. ¡°Firstly, I¡¯m going to wrap you the Three Python Force Technique. You won¡¯t be able to tap or use your safety word unless you also spontaneously learn how to use telekinesis. Are you okay that?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not tapping.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll take that as a yes. Secondly, now that you¡¯ve awakened your Qi, I want to show you Dual Cultivation. I know the basics, and it should come naturally to you, but it will be my first time actually doing this. Just a warning.¡± That managed to cut through her lustful impatience. ¡°Aww, I¡¯m your first?¡± Annie cooed. ¡°I¡¯m honored. Hmm, I almost want to ask for lovey-dovey, love making instead of a hard fuck.¡± I smirked. ¡°Who said I would listen?¡± I leaned forward to kiss Annie again. This time my tongue led the way, meeting her own. Just as martial artists learned more about their opponents from a single clash of fists than they could from hours of conversation, our dueling tongues taught me volumes about Annie. For all her incredible beauty, I could tell she was relatively inexperienced. She was a decent kisser, but she was frantic, utterly awash in these new sensations and unsure of what exactly to do with herself. My right arm let go of her ankles, allowing my telekinesis to take over. Before buying the feat, this would have taken concentration, but now, so long as I didn¡¯t get too fancy with it, I could hold her down without trouble. I rolled the last Teaching roll of the day before I could get too carried away and forget. I only got 3 Successes, but their effects were doubled by the sexual nature, ensuring that Annie would get 6 Experience from this ¡®lesson¡¯. Theoretically, if there was anything to gain from struggling with my telekinesis, that too would be doubled. The cloth of Annie¡¯s gymnast leotard was stretchy. Now that my hands were free, I could do what I¡¯d been dying to do since she¡¯d revealed her outfit. Grabbing hold of the boob window in the leotard, I finally freed her breasts, pulling the cloth down and around them. The leotard snapped back, now under her boobs, pushing them together and framing them in an absolutely divine vision. They were moderately large ¨C big enough that they could swallow my dick, but not so much so that they seriously impeded her acrobatics. Annie¡¯s head snapped back as I grabbed her breasts and squeezed. She actually hit the concrete floor with a loud snap, drawing a wince from me. Her moans continued rising, seemingly unaffected by the pain though. If anything they grew louder. My thumbs brushed tantalizingly against her nipples. I could tell she wanted more, but there was a strange pleasure I got from teasing her in this way. The teaching roll from earlier had also told me to draw out her frustration, but that was almost forgotten as my own lust started to run wild. The fact that I had only gotten 1 Success to molest her breasts and had managed to make her jump from the feeling let me know that her erogenous zones were vastly more sensitive. That was fine by me, and from the sounds of it, fine by her as well. I kissed my way down her chin and neck. Annie strained to push her chest up and into my grip, anticipating what was coming. I paused though, peppering her sternum and collarbones with little kisses. The pressure on her neck let her breath and speak, but not without difficulty. ¡°Please!¡± she gasped out. Annie¡¯s face was flawless and unblemished, but her body had a sparse smattering of freckles. I took the time to peck as many as I could on my way down to her soft, perky boobs. My own fraying patience urged me past many though. Using telekinesis, I angled her head up, so that she was making eye contact as I lowered my lips to her nipple. Annie tried to pull my head down with her free hand, but I decided to grab her wrist and telekinetically pin it to her side instead. The game was kind to me and cruel to her, granting me another Sensuality and Seduction roll once the hard nub was between my lips. My hot breath alone had been visibly affecting her, so I wasn¡¯t surprised when 3 Successes managed to push her right back to the edge of another orgasm. I pulled my head away and eased off of teasing her chest. As much as I may have wanted to continue, and I very much did. We weren¡¯t even Dual Cultivating yet and I didn¡¯t want to her to pass out before we started. My Lucky Penny, which let me turn a single 4 into a Success, and my newly earned Silver Dollar, which let me treat a single 5 as a 6 for criticals, were both in the pockets of my tiny, athletic shorts. While I didn¡¯t need them with Annie¡¯s lewd changes, I would be rolling for Experience during the Dual Cultivation. Instead of kicking them off me, I settled for pulling them down and under my cock and balls. Annie couldn¡¯t see my dick, her view blocked by her own breasts and legs, but she could feel the weight and heat of it on her sex and let out a relieved sigh. I pushed the shaft down, so that it could mold around her camel toe, her soaked and sticky leotard hiding almost nothing. As much as I wanted to continue dragging it out, she was poised to cum from anything more than just this. Before I continued though, I made sure to dig the tip into her abdomen, so that she knew just what she was in store for. She sucked in air through gritted teeth at the feeling. Hooking an index finger into the crotch of her leotard, I pulled it to the side, revealing her bare pussy. Strands of her natural lubricant stuck to the cloth and my finger alike. It had a different shine to it than her sweat, and had visibly dripped down into her ass. As wet as Annie was, my dick was still big enough that it required a little force to make its way in. Her pussy struggled a little to let me in. ¡°Aggh! Yeeeees, finally,¡± she moaned as my head finally entered her with a little pop. A bestial base impulse to bury myself in her had to be pushed aside for a moment as my mind turned to my Qi. For the second time today, I started to mingle our Qi together. This was a much calmer, easier, and more ordered process with the aid of a feat. Annie was able to help me this time as well, her own Dual Cultivation feat teaching her how to manipulate her Qi. The click and clack of mental dice informed me that I would receive 4 Experience at the end of this. Luckily for Annie, this counted as a lesson for the purposes of my Sex Ed feat, meaning she would earn 8 Experience, all while on her back. I really did spoil my student. I flexed my pelvic floor as I thrust in slowly, making my cock jump up and scrape the top of her walls, right along her G-spot. My dick game, with it¡¯s 7 Successes and porn star size, hit Annie like a freight train, triggering a massive orgasm before I even reached the half-way point. The first thrust was powerful but slow. I savored the feeling of her walls spasming and writhing against me. She was hotter than any woman I¡¯d ever been with, both visually and literally, her sex warmer and tighter than anything I¡¯d experienced. At the height of her climax, she actually became tight enough to almost arrest my movement. In another world, and in another person, I would have stopped, worried about hurting her, but I had Porn Physics here. Annie came down from her orgasm just an inch before I hit her back wall. ¡°Oh my God. Fuck! Ruin me, baby, ahhhh!¡± She opened her mouth and lolled her tongue out a bit, begging for a kiss. It was tempting, but I wanted to see her face during this next part. Despite the fact that I had reached the entrance to her cervix, I still had another inch or so of my cock that had yet to bask in the warmth of her pussy. Annie gasped in shock as I continued pushing. The pressure of my dick drove the air out of her lungs, my slow pace continuing unabated. Porn Physics supplemented all pain from penetrative sex with equal amounts pleasure. With teeth gritted in a mix of pain-pleasure enforced by the Special Feat, she clamped her vaginal muscles down to try and keep me from progressing. I buried myself fully inside the athletic redhead, making her mouth fall open in a silent scream as she experienced her third orgasm. An involuntary tear rolled out of her eye. I leaned down and licked it off her face before moving to the crook of her neck. She shuddered in another mini-orgasm as I started to lick and kiss her there. Her cervical gate flexed around the tip of my dick. The steady thrust had prevented me from entrance further, but it was struggling with the size, opening and closing rapidly on my cock slit like it was making out with it. I let out a loud groan, only able to keep myself from cumming with the help from Dual Cultivation¡¯s boost to Endurance. I did have to stop though, letting myself stay sheathed to the hilt inside her. It didn¡¯t help too much, her spasming pussy doing its best to milk me. Her Qi too, swirling within me, tugging at my Dantian with a peculiar playfulness, was trying her best to make me cum. Her feminine Yin-natured Qi network wanting nothing more than to drink deeply of my masculine Yang energy. My hands stayed busy while I remained hilted. I ran them down her sides, her back, her legs. All of Annie was so powerful and enticing. The way her muscles could be felt through her skin, flexing at my touch. I could feel her straining against the telekinesis, hungry for more contact. The only part of her she could still control fully was her pelvic floor. As she rode the waves of pleasure, her sense and reason ebbing in an out, she used her muscles there to make her will known. Her walls squeezed me rhythmically, not as strongly as when she was lost in the throws of her climax, but much more skillfully and deliberately. I couldn¡¯t deny her for long. With a shout I drew my cock back to the entrance of her pussy, and slammed down. I used our Dual Cultivation to distract me from the intense pleasure, splitting my focus on the sensations of her Qi inside me, and my fast, staccato thrusting. Time fled our notice. At some point we rolled for Training Hard, but I shunted the notification to the side for later. It did saddle me with an Exhaustion condition, but I used a Breath to Recover instantly and continued. Annie, who did not possess my recovery ability, was merely along for the ride at that point. Luckily, it didn¡¯t change things too much. Though she couldn¡¯t maintain her intentional massage of my dick through her burning, wet walls, the rapid, wave of her orgasms was a rhythm of its own. I came at some point, my cum spurting out around her tight seal during a thrust, spilling down and into her butt cheeks. Then I came again, and again. Our Dual Cultivation kept us going, making it impossible for us to stop. When I began to flag her Yin Qi would rush into the vacuum of Qi that orgasming caused, picking me right back up again. My Yang Qi was doing the same to her. After I came for the second time, Annie began to pass in and out of consciousness. She didn¡¯t have the Qi required to endlessly spur me forward the way I was doing to her. Eventually she passed out completely. As a gentleman, I normally would have stopped at this point, but the feat didn¡¯t allow me to relent. I kept thrusting. There was no rhythm here beyond ¡®FAST¡¯, my hips practically a blur. My hands had moved to her shoulders, using them like handholds to pull her down onto my cock as hard as possible. A vague awareness that my telekinesis was helping existed in the back of my mind, but all higher order thinking had been lost. The world did not exist beyond Annie, her cunt, and her blazing hot Qi. My last orgasm released a dense marble of my spiritual power that had slowly been building the entire session into Annie¡¯s Dantian. It¡¯s entrance unleashed streamers of her own less refined Qi back into mine, and managed to bring Annie back to conscious thought. I rolled off of her, panting as I did. I¡¯d managed to re-earn the Exhausted condition, and was without any more Breaths to do anything about it. ¡°Wow,¡± I said. ¡°Wow,¡± she agreed, pulling her weary body onto me, nuzzling herself into my neck. I turned my attention to the many, many alerts from the system while we lay there in our own juices, amongst the dirty concrete floor. Holy shit, that was a lot of Quests. [Dual Cultivation Results] Gained 4 Experience. [Hard Training Results] Gained 2 Experience. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Dual Cultivate for the first time. Reward: 10 EXP, +1 Meditation Bonus, Your partner possessed the feat: 10 EXP to you both, One of your partner¡¯s feats is upgraded at random (Wire Walker) [Hidden Quest Complete!] Lose your virginity. Reward: 50 EXP, +1 Random Attribute (Presence) [Ally Quest Complete! (Annie Shine)] Have vaginal sex with Annie. Reward: 25 EXP, +1 Agility, +2 Physics [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have 6 dice in Agility. Reward: Gain Special Feat Power In Grace [Special Feat] Power In Grace ¨C Your kinesthetic sense has reached the pinnacle of natural humanity, and your actions possess a surreal bestial beauty to them. You can run, climb, and leap with incredible proficiency, and will virtually always land on your feet. Watching your even casual movements can be entrancing to observers, which can be seductive, intimidating, or both depending on the person. This grants you 1 Automatic Success to many rolls, but be warned, the system will occasionally roll to seduce or intimidate observers without your knowledge. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have dominant sex. Reward: 20 EXP, Gain random Minor Feat from random domination themed Archetype (Shibari Expert) [Minor Feat] Shibari Expert ¨C You have studied the erotic spiritual art of Shibari and know dozens of ways to bind a person. So deep is your knowledge that you may stimulate both body and mind. When you¡¯ve bound someone, you gain an additional 1 die to any Sensuality or Aura rolls performed on them; full bondage increases the dice to 2. The Success Threshold to escape your bondage is raised by 1. [Ally Quest Complete! (Annie Shine)] Fulfill Annie¡¯s domination fantasy. Reward: 20 EXP, +1 Seduction, +1 Flexibility Bonus, Left her craving more: 20 EXP, +1 Strength [Hidden Quest Complete!] Creampie someone. Reward: 25 EXP, Gain Special Feat Fertility Dial [Special Feat] Fertility Dial ¨C While pregnancy and breeding can be sexy, it¡¯s best with a little intent. You can control your fertility with perfect detail, dialing it from 0% to 100%. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Fuck someone into unconsciousness. Reward: 15 EXP, +1 Endurance, +2 Intimidation [Recurring Quest Complete!] Had a steamy smut scene. Reward: 5 EXP, +1 Random Skill (Occultist (Erotic Sorcery)) Aftercare With Annie ¡°Uh oh,¡± I muttered, squinting at the filet medallion sizzling on my stove. Was that char or a burn? ¡°Uh oh?¡± asked Annie, looking up from where she was editing our JinJin video on her phone. ¡°Hah. You asked for well-done right?¡± ¡°Not unless I was ordering for my granddad.¡± ¡°Oh good. Where¡¯s he at? Because I have a hockey puck ready for him.¡± Annie giggled. I couldn¡¯t resist turning my head a bit to watch what that did to her breasts. She¡¯d thrown on a t-shirt and panties after our post-workout shower. We¡¯d been, and still were, too tired to do much more than play around, but the way she was dressed had me tempted to try anyway. ¡°Akron, Ohio. Think we could mail it to him?¡± I moved the burnt medallion onto my plate, placing it atop a bed of Mediterranean salad. I¡¯d made the salad before I was working with my 3 dice penalty from the Exhaustion status effect, so at least the meal wouldn¡¯t be a total tragedy. ¡°Just to be clear,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ll be the first to admit I¡¯m no chef. But I am significantly less shit at this when I¡¯m not so tired.¡± Annie let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. ¡°Oh thank God, being good at cooking would have sent you soaring out of my league. I was starting to feel self-conscious.¡± ¡°You? Self-conscious!?¡± I looked at her like she was crazy, openly eyeing her hard nipples poking through her navy blue Nittany Lions shirt. ¡°You look in a mirror lately?¡± ¡°Have you?¡± She raised an eye-brow. ¡°Pre-internet, they¡¯d have built statues of you. I mean, James, you¡¯d make Cleopatra feel self-conscious.¡± ¡°Cleopatra wasn¡¯t my beloved senior student. You¡¯ve got nothing to worry about.¡± Annie hid her blush by looking down at her phone. ¡°Am I going to get hotter too? Been meaning to ask.¡± ¡°Probably,¡± I answered. ¡°We should try to find a body thermometer, would be interesting to see what you¡¯re at now.¡± ¡°No, silly, I meant am I going to get better looking? You were always a handsome guy, but now you¡¯re like a painting come to life or something. It¡¯s hard not to ogle, honestly.¡± Ah, so the changes were dramatic enough to be noticeable now. It made sense, I was alarmingly good looking now, an oddity, enough to put people on edge. I was uncomfortably striking. Maybe I¡¯d lean into the himbo thing as a way to make others more comfortable around me. ¡°Ogle away, my dear! I didn¡¯t get into movies to avoid being stared at.¡± ¡°Mm, you say that, but you¡¯d be surprised. It¡¯s one thing to get attention when you¡¯re trying to, and another entirely when all you¡¯re trying to do is get through your day. I loved cheerleading for a crowded stadium ¨C a hundred thousand people screaming at once was practically addicting ¨C but I used to dread buying groceries in State College. You,¡± she pointed for emphasis, ¡°are officially hot enough that you¡¯re going to be dealing with hot girl problems now. Though¡­maybe without the catty fake friends and interpersonal drama.¡± I glanced at Annie. I was lucky that she too had undergone similar changes to me, her hair was glossier than it was earlier this morning, pores were smaller, eyes brighter, etc. She would have believed my explanation regardless, being a total novice to the Martial World, but this way I could neatly wrap up the effects of our improvised Qi ritual on her body into my own dramatic growth. It was going to be a lot harder selling this to my mother. I shrugged. ¡°It is what it is. I¡¯m going through a metamorphosis right now, related to the Qi growth I assume.¡± That wasn¡¯t even a lie; both were a result of the system. ¡°Until I start seeing some outright downsides, I¡¯m just along for the ride. It¡¯ll slow down eventually. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve noticed a few changes of your own.¡± ¡°Understatement of the year. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve noticed a few of my changes too,¡± she added, wagging her eyebrows at me. I finished plating our dinners; steak with salad and green beans for the main dish, with chopped up kiwi fruit and the leftover pomegranate seeds from the salad on the side for dessert. The filet medallions were bartered for training from Papes next door, and the pomegranate had been on sale, but if I kept eating like this I¡¯d definitely be living outside my means. Budgets ¨C ugh, what a pain. In the other world, as Alan, I had finally established a level of financial security that let me feel like a functioning adult as I¡¯d entered my thirties. Now I was back to mentally cataloguing the sales anytime I passed by a deli or grocer. I needed to figure out my money situation; the way I figured, I just had to make it to the North-East Qualifiers. I was sure I could place top four in the regional tournament with the way I¡¯d been improving, if not win outright. The Qualifiers weren¡¯t the massive draw that the Black Harbor Martial Arts Tournament was. Casual viewers didn¡¯t really tune into the Qualifiers in the same way, and among regional tournaments, it lacked the flair and production value of others. The real prize was the invitation to the big tournament, but they still had a decent pot for the top four. And if I could pull out a win, I¡¯d make a clean $500,000, a life changing amount of money for me and hopefully enough to fund my training and adventures for a while. On top of that, just fighting in the Black Harbor Tournament would probably net me another hundred grand, which was the usual prize for last place. They hadn¡¯t announced the total cash pot for this year yet, but last year the returning champ, Alice ¡®Anaconda¡¯ Alencar, had walked away with over eight million. ¡°I can¡¯t tell if I¡¯m too tired or too embarrassed to edit this right now,¡± said Annie, frowning at her phone. She slid the device away as I brought our dinner over. I didn¡¯t have a dining table or stools, normally just eating on my couch, so we were relegated to eating while standing at my kitchen counter. ¡°Embarrassed? I thought we did a good job for our first time.¡± She shook her head. ¡°We did. But it¡¯s¡­¡± she trailed off, trying to put words to her feelings. ¡°I watched this before our shower, and it looked to me like we¡¯d done an incredible job, but watching the footage back now, it¡¯s like I can suddenly tell it was my first time. And it¡¯s painfully obvious that I didn¡¯t actually know what I was doing.¡± I nodded knowingly. I had used Annie¡¯s Experience from today to buy her Martial Arts skill from 1 to 4 while I¡¯d been making the steaks. There had been flashier options, but I wanted her to have a firm grounding in the basics of combat to build on. I wasn¡¯t surprised to hear that she¡¯d noticed. Annie had gone from an athlete to a Martial Artist in an instant. She¡¯d likely been barraged by epiphanies while watching herself. ¡°That¡¯s good. It means you were learning.¡± ¡°Learning a lot. People aren¡¯t going to believe me when I tell them how effective your training is. How can I even put it in words?¡± ¡°When we make our next form video, you can refer them to the difference between the two. But if you really want to show off, just spar them.¡± I held up a fist. ¡°Some things can only be communicated through the fighting. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll notice at your Taekwondo class.¡± She looked surprised. ¡°You think I should keep going?¡± ¡°If you¡¯ve got the time then I don¡¯t see why not. You¡¯re probably paid up for the month, right? Plus, your Taekwondo gym can provide something that I can¡¯t right now ¨C a community of fellow martial artists. Anyone who tells you the Martial Path should be walked alone is probably an unlikeable asshole. Fighting for people you care about is the easiest way to overcome a lack of willpower when training, and your survival instincts in a real life-or-death battle.¡± Annie just smiled serenely and stared at me, fork paused mid-air. ¡°What? Too cheesy?¡± I asked. ¡°No! Nothing like that,¡± she said quickly. ¡°That was wholesome and sweet. You¡¯re just¡­¡± Annie trailed off, taking a big bite of her meal. ¡°I¡¯m totally going to keep going to Taekwondo,¡± she said at last. ¡°To brag about my new master if nothing else. Wait, you don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be awkward about that, do you?¡± ¡°Awkward about you learning a nonsensical stuntman style of fighting from some random guy in his backyard in Harbor Hill? Yeah, I think people might be biting back a comment or two.¡± She slapped my arm and laughed. ¡°Oh come on, I learned more from you in a day than I have in years.¡± ¡°I unlocked your unrealized potential, is all. The groundwork was all there already. It¡¯s not like I could even push most people like I pushed you today. A not insignificant number of them would literally die.¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± she conceded. ¡°As long as I don¡¯t get you embroiled in another dojo battle.¡± I winced. ¡°Definitely good on those for a minute. But it¡¯ll be fine. This isn¡¯t 19th Century China, people move all the time for work and for school. It¡¯s probably rarer in America for someone to only ever train at one gym or under one master than it is to not. My sister is ride-or-die Li-family Eagle Style, and even she has to train under someone else while at college. And Crystal literally walked out of a date because he wouldn¡¯t agree that her future children would be taking the Li name.¡± ¡°Wow, that¡¯s hardcore.¡± ¡°That¡¯s insane. Who brings up kids on a first date?¡± ¡°At least it¡¯s a good reason to break up,¡± she grumbled. I grinned. ¡°I hear a story there. Need to vent?¡± ¡°Believe me, I¡¯ve done plenty of venting. It¡¯s just, so, STUPID!¡± Annie looked chagrinned by the outburst. ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°But you definitely don¡¯t need to vent, right?¡± She rolled her eyes, but was smiling as she did. ¡°It¡¯s whatever.¡± ¡°Go on, spill the tea. I love gossip that doesn¡¯t involve me.¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t going to be weird about me talking about my Ex?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± I paused. ¡°Should I be? He¡¯s not a martial artist, is he?¡± I groaned. ¡°God, don¡¯t tell me I¡¯m going to have to battle a series of insane Ex-boyfriends.¡± ¡°No! And he isn¡¯t going to show up looking for a fight if that¡¯s what you¡¯re asking.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Then why would I care?¡± ¡°I¡ª" Annie opened and closed her mouth. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I guess I¡¯m just realizing that I¡¯ve never been with a guy who¡¯s actually as confident as he first comes across. You really aren¡¯t going to get jealous?¡± ¡°One,¡± I said, ¡°jealousy is ugly. Two, if I can¡¯t win the battle for a girl¡¯s heart then I didn¡¯t deserve to have her. And three, not to be an asshole or anything, but come on,¡± I put a hand on my chest, ¡°look at me. I¡¯m ridiculously attractive.¡± ¡°True.¡± She raked her eyes down me. I was wearing the same combo of t-shirt and underwear as Annie, though with boxers instead of panties. ¡°We should have my roommate take some professional thirst traps of you for your socials. She¡¯s a photographer, and she¡¯d probably do it for free if you agreed to model for her portfolio.¡± ¡°I¡¯m down to do her a solid. But like I¡¯ve said, I have too much on my plate to care about growing my social media presence.¡± She shook her head and patted my shoulder patronizingly. ¡°God, you are such a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately for you, it¡¯s basically a requirement to make it in the film industry. But don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll make it painless for you.¡± Annie picked up her phone and shot off a few texts. ¡°Actually,¡± she said, ¡°before we move on. Pass me your phone.¡± I did so, unlocking it for her. She held it up for a picture. ¡°Pull your shirt up past the scars that guy gave you.¡± I followed her directions. ¡°Can you even see them? They¡¯ve gotten pretty thin.¡± The scars from Kuze¡¯s vicious attack had faded considerably from when they¡¯d first healed, still visible in the right lighting, but significantly reduced. That was a shame, they¡¯d looked cooler before. Annie tapped away on the screen before holding it up to me for approval. It was a draft for a post, a picture of me inspecting the scars with a caption that read, ¡®All healed up!¡¯. ¡°What do you think? A lot of the comments under the fight were people asking if you were alright, so it should do pretty well.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± I shrugged, ¡°looks fine.¡± ¡°Great,¡± she said, posting the image and handing my phone back. ¡°Anyway,¡± she said, returning to her dinner, ¡°I won¡¯t make it a whole story, because I really am over it. Mostly.¡± Annie stabbed her fork through a piece of steak with particular gusto. ¡°To start, I¡¯ve only had two real boyfriends, so there will be no series of Exes. You¡¯re actually the only guy I¡¯ve had casual sex with.¡± I grinned smugly. ¡°Pshh, nothing casual about what we did. That was a pro-level dicking, amirite?¡± I put my hand up for a high five. Annie laughed and returned the high five. ¡°Oh my god. You are such a guy. Anyway? as I was saying, I¡¯ve only had two boyfriends. My first was in high school. We dated for three years and we broke up because he got caught sucking his best friend¡¯s dick at a prom afterparty. Which was, let me tell you, not great for a girl¡¯s self-esteem.¡± ¡°Oof, brutal. Someone else caught him?¡± ¡°And then drunkenly proceeded to tell me loud enough that everyone heard. Which led to a public argument, that led to his best friend yelling that he¡¯d fucked him first, better, and, wait for it, on my birthday.¡± ¡°Jesus.¡± ¡°It was the most humiliating moment of my life.¡± She sighed and inspected the ceiling pattern for a moment. ¡°Cut to college,¡± Annie continued. ¡°I wasn¡¯t in the best headspace for dating, naturally. All I wanted was a decent man who was genuinely interested in me. Damon was the first guy to shoot his shot. He was nice enough, and was a linebacker on the football team, so our crazy college athlete schedules lined up pretty well. We also had enough in common that we could have a conversation; the sports, obviously, but we were also both from small towns and his family reminded me of mine.¡± ¡°He wasn¡¯t an ass, even if he did annoy me in a lot of little ways, so there wasn¡¯t any reason to break up with him. He was also totally supportive about my dream to become the next May Wong. We even talked about the details for what we¡¯d do if he got drafted to a place without a decent film industry. Damon would do a year or two there, and then try to get traded to a coastal team. They film commercials pretty much everywhere, so I could use those to get my name out there and we¡¯d figure it out from there. It wouldn¡¯t have been ideal, but by then I loved him and was happy to try.¡± ¡°So imagine how thrilled I was when he got drafted to the Divers! Perfect, right?¡± I did a double take. I only followed football enough that I could keep up with the small talk, but even I recognized the name of our second pick at the draft. ¡°Hang on. Your ex-boyfriend is the first string rookie linebacker, Damon Jennings? Sheesh, no wonder you thought I¡¯d be jealous.¡± ¡°Trust me, James, you have nothing to be jealous of. But yeah, I dated Damon Jennings for four years. Want to guess why we broke up? I promise, it¡¯s dumber than you¡¯d think.¡± I stroked my chin. ¡°Hmm¡­I don¡¯t know. Ominous tarot card reading?¡± She barked a laugh. ¡°Okay, maybe not as dumb as that. But it is more annoying. Although,¡± she quirked her head as if recalling something she¡¯d forgotten, ¡°he was weirdly superstitious out of nowhere¡­¡± She shook her head. ¡°Basically, it all came down to the fact that Damon did not want me to live in the city. Well, he tried to make it about me, but he was obviously afraid of living here himself.¡± ¡°What do you mean? Where¡¯s his ass living? The Divers train near North Shore. I know he can afford rent with his contract.¡± ¡°Princeton.¡± I almost choked on my food. ¡°What. Why? That¡¯s like an hour with traffic. And there¡¯s nothing out there. Place is a glorified golf club. At least live in the Greenbelt.¡± The Greenbelt was the term for the suburban neighborhoods that ringed the city. It was where old money lived, but Damon Jennings had a 1.8 million dollar a season contract, and it wasn¡¯t that expensive. ¡°Black Harbor is too dangerous for a pretty woman, according to Damon. He said the whole area gave him bad vibes. We tried to go to an open house for a starter home in the Greenbelt but he wouldn¡¯t even go inside.¡± I scoffed. ¡°Oh my god, what a fucking loser. It¡¯s not the Gobi Desert, there¡¯s five million people living here.¡± I stopped myself before I got heated. I was a fairly laidback guy, but I could get defensive about Black Harbor. Half the bad press the city got was from assholes who lived in the suburbs and only ever visited for the odd musical a few times a year. ¡°Sorry, that was mean.¡± ¡°That¡¯s alright,¡± she said with a laugh. ¡°You don¡¯t have to apologize for being a massive townie.¡± ¡°And I never will!¡± I said, pounding my fist. ¡°But I don¡¯t want to rag on him too much, the city is more dangerous than the suburbs. And there¡¯s not much for an outdoorsman here either. Bad vibes though, that¡¯s an interesting way to put it.¡± ¡°Yeah, but¡­¡± ¡°He should have respected your decision?¡± ¡°Exactly! If I want to risk my life chasing a dream, then I damn well will! And frankly, having grown up in the countryside, I love the city. For one, they don¡¯t consider vegetarian ethnic food here.¡± I patted her on the back. ¡°Spoken like a true student of Black City Style.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± Annie started to say something but thought better of it. ¡°If it makes you feel better, my Ex left me so she could become a cop.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Her family¡¯s in the force, and the pensions are pretty good. If you aren¡¯t a total dipshit with money you can retire in your forties.¡± ¡°No, I mean why did she have to break up with you?¡± I tsked. ¡°She realized I wasn¡¯t joking about doing the Youxia thing. Technically, I guess, if you really, really want to be a stickler about it, calling yourself a ¡®Wandering Vigilante¡¯ is the same as describing yourself as a criminal.¡± Maria had also told me that I was ¡®stuck in the past, ignorant about the present, and careless of the future¡¯. I told her to consider becoming a writer instead of a cop, which hadn¡¯t gone over very well. ¡°Oh.¡± She pursed her lips. ¡°I don¡¯t want to rub salt in the wound, but that kind of sounds like a good reason to break up.¡± ¡°To join the notoriously corrupt Black Harbor Police Department?! Who cares?! Half those guys are mobbed up anyway!¡± Annie put her hands up. ¡°Woah, hey, didn¡¯t mean to hit a nerve. I wouldn¡¯t have broken up with you for the record. I also wouldn¡¯t join the police force, but you know what I mean.¡± You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I waved it off with a smile. ¡°It¡¯s all good. Everything worked out in the end. I don¡¯t have the time for dating anyway. Or the emotional availability if I¡¯m being honest. Besides, I¡¯m simultaneously too strong and too weak to walk away from this life. The only reason my mom can get away with her staunch neutrality is because she¡¯s a badass, and even that wouldn¡¯t count for much if she had ambitions outside of running her little school.¡± Annie frowned but didn¡¯t respond, opting to return to her meal. We ate in comfortable silence as I let her collect her thoughts. I had a suspicion of what was going through her head. Annie was clearly a one-man, lock it down, kind of a gal. She wanted more from our relationship than casual sex and a master-student bond, but my Social feats and her own promises earlier were stopping her from pushing for more. I was hoping that between the regular orgasms and the intimacy of our deepening friendship, she would find contentment with the current status quo. ¡°Hey, James?¡± she asked, pushing the few remaining leaves of lettuce around on her plate. ¡°Yeah?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve said it a bunch, but I just want to say it again, thank you. I¡¯ve had supportive people in my life before, but you and Kas are the first people to treat me like I¡¯m the person that I want to be.¡± She looked up at me. ¡°The day I met you was the first day since the breakup that I didn¡¯t have any lingering regrets, or consider getting a real job, even a little bit. And today¡­¡± She shook her head. ¡°I won¡¯t forget today for the rest of my life. I¡¯ve never felt prouder of myself than I did training with you, and I know that without you, it wouldn¡¯t have been possible. You make me feel like, like I¡¯m¡­important. I¡¯ll always be grateful for that, so, thanks.¡± Annie bit her lower lip and leaned in a bit. Even the sterile basement lighting couldn¡¯t diminish her perfect skin or the crisp blue of her eyes. Her hair, still slightly damp, stuck to her forehead in a way deeply reminiscent of our sweaty first time on the mudroom floor. My heart thudded in my chest and every masculine urge in my body screamed out to grab ahold of her and kiss her, to answer her emotional plea in kind. Was this what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a Seduction roll? Sorry, Annie, your shifu has commitment issues. I placed a hand on each of her shoulders. ¡°I¡¯ve never felt as certain in the future of Black City Kung Fu as I have today. I want to build a legacy with you, Annie Shine. I want the world to remember our names. I want today to go down in history as the birth of a new martial tradition. Are you with me?¡± Pride swelled upon her face, watering her eyes and widening her smile. She nodded emphatically. ¡°Yes, Shifu!¡± [Hidden Quest Complete] Resist a Seduction attempt. Reward: 5 EXP, +1 Willpower Bonus, Turned it down with grace: Gain a Social Feat from your Archetype selected by the Producers (Charmingly Thick) [Minor Feat (Harem Protagonist)] Charmingly Thick ¨C Your thick-headed obliviousness towards romance, whether real or believably faked, is seen as charming rather than frustrating. People who flirt with you will never be so dismayed by a failure in this manner that they won¡¯t try again later. I chose to take the feat as a sign from above to lean into himbo mode. Although, this did mean that if I wanted to shut someone down, I would have to clearly spell it out. ¡°Good. But first,¡± I placed my plate onto hers. ¡°I cooked so, you¡¯re cleaning.¡± She pouted good-naturedly. ¡°Yes, Shifu.¡± Kas ate yet another beer bottle to the face, his third in this scene alone and eighth of the film. As many times as I¡¯d watched this, I still couldn¡¯t tell if the director was doing a bit or if production just had a bunch of sugar glass bottles lying around. Even Kas couldn¡¯t tell me, describing many elements of the filming as ¡°fever-dream-esque¡±. Karate Konfrontation: Berliner Drogenkrieg was a good twenty percent just him being battered by increasingly bizarre means, and one of the strangest movies I¡¯d seen. It was a travesty in basically every way, with the twin exceptions being that no one had died on set, and the stunts had been good enough to get noticed by Hollywood. Annie yelled at the screen, ¡°Stop throwing the bottles, man! They obviously aren¡¯t working!¡± ¡°Just wait. They throw so many more goddamn bottles in this movie.¡± ¡°Hey! Spoilers!¡± ¡°I promise you, however many beer bottles you¡¯re thinking, they throw more. It¡¯s genuinely impressive.¡± Two hundred fifteen, for the record. That was more than a bottle every thirty seconds. I¡¯d tried to make it into a drinking game, but I couldn¡¯t figure out a way that didn¡¯t guarantee alcohol poisoning. Me and Annie were snuggled up on the couch, watching Kas¡¯s breakout role from when he was still living primarily in Germany. There was plenty of room, but Annie had used the excuse of feeling cold to press up against me. Considering she was still in her panties I might have believed her if she hadn¡¯t been radiating heat like a furnace. ¡°Wait. What is happening?¡± ¡°Yeah, the subtitles are reversed for this entire scene. They gave all of Hanz¡¯s lines to Gertrude and all of Gertrude¡¯s to Hanz.¡± The movie was truly terrible, but in that way that made it impossible to look away; a 90 minute trainwreck. I must have watched Karate Konfrontation at least a dozen times. Showing it to someone new never got old, and one of my favorites memories was finally getting to watch it with Kas. It had been the only time I¡¯d seen the man shrink in on himself. Annie¡¯s mouth dropped. ¡°Is-is the dog talking?! Since when could the dog talk!?¡± ¡°Gertrude¡¯s actress was bragging about how she¡¯d trained her dog to move its mouth up and down on command. The director went crazy over this according to Kas, and demanded they write in a scene where the dog talked. They were supposed to show Hanz getting a concussion to justify it, but when they tried to shoot that, Hanz¡¯s actor ended up genuinely concussed. For some reason they left the talking dog in the movie anyway.¡± ¡°Incredible.¡± ¡°I know, right? More people need to watch this! And yet Kas said he¡¯d kill me if I posted it online.¡± I yawned, not having felt this tired for a while. Beyond the physical Exhaustion, activating Annie¡¯s Qi, unlocking my Qi Nature, and the Dual Cultivating I had worn out my Qi network and was starting to feel a soul-deep ache. Annie wasn¡¯t fairing much better, I could feel as much through our skin to skin contact, but the movie was shockingly stupid enough to keep her awake and attentive. ¡°What the fuck? He died from that fall? We saw him get hit by a train earlier. That was like twenty-five feet!¡± ¡°That was a different character. The same actor plays three guys in the movie. I¡¯d say that their supposed to be related, but one of them was a waiter and the other two were hitmen.¡± ¡°Ha! Hey, you never know, they could still be triplets. Maybe there¡¯s an intense family drama happening in the background.¡± ¡°The waiter was in yellow face.¡± ¡°He was clearly adopted.¡± ¡°Yeah? Do you think his parents happened to find an Asian baby that looked like their existing kids and had to adopt him, or they went looking for one specifically?¡± ¡°The latter. It¡¯s the weirder option and therefore the only one that can exist in this universe.¡± We were coming up on the climactic ski-karate duel. Since they had been relatively underbudget towards the end of production, the director had scrapped the original planned fight in the villain¡¯s underground base for an elaborate fight scene in the Bavarian Alps, essentially buying himself and the crew a week and a half vacation on an investor¡¯s dime. Berlin was hours by flight from the Alps and it wasn¡¯t explained how any of the characters got there, but that wasn¡¯t important. Also unimportant: the explanation for what a ski-karate duel was, why it was happening, or how winning one would result in a victory for the renegade drug officer Hanz. Finally, we hit the last line of the movie. Officer Hanz ripped off his ski mask to reveal a perfectly coifed head of hair, then scooped up a palmful of snow and buried his face into it. ¡°Cocaine!¡± He exclaimed in German. ¡°He¡¯s hiding his drugs in the snow machines!¡± Then, a black screen. Annie was leaning forward, both arms up in the air. ¡°WHAT! Are you kidding me?! No! That¡¯s how it ends!?¡± ¡°Yep. They radically underestimated how much it costs to send twenty people to the Alps for a week and a half. Couldn¡¯t even afford the credits.¡± She flopped back onto the couch and covered her face. ¡°Oh my god, Kas built a career off of this. It explains so much about him.¡± ¡°Honestly, watching it again I kind of want to build an entire martial art off of it.¡± ¡°Ski-Karate?¡± she asked skeptically. ¡°No. Although, maybe. I meant the vibe. I want Black City Kung Fu to be as equally confusing and unpredictable as Karate Konfrontation, but I don¡¯t know, it can be hard to reach for that level of weird when your life is on the line.¡± ¡°Huh. It¡¯s a pretty high bar, for sure.¡± Annie stretched like a cat, her shirt riding up to reveal a bit of her toned abdomen. ¡°What other movies are you using for inspiration? Outside of the classics, that is?¡± I checked the time. Annie was opening tomorrow, but it wasn¡¯t too late currently. We could do another movie. I gestured to the DVD rack. ¡°Take your pick. They¡¯re all gold. People are sleeping on Cuban action flicks though. I know they¡¯re contraband to import and all but that¡¯s no excuse with internet around.¡± I got up and spun the rack, finding one of my favorites. ¡°This lady, Imelda Cancel, she¡¯s nuts. She¡¯s this Afro-Cubana who says she¡¯s preserved her family¡¯s style of proto-capoeira from pre-colonial Africa. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s legit, but there¡¯s definitely something there to be explored.¡± I awoke to the generic DVD sleep screen, a little logo for the player bouncing off the edges of the television, and Annie curled up against my chest. We had fallen asleep on the couch. It was always quiet in my basement apartment, but the near total absence of sound meant that streets nearby were clear of cars driving. I didn¡¯t need to check my phone to know that it was deep into the night. I had been played, clearly. Annie had insisted on a third movie, likely knowing that this would be the result. She¡¯d even brushed her teeth before we started it using the basic toiletry kit in her gym bag. That had been a red flag at the time, but I¡¯d assumed that the system would keep me from falling asleep unplanned. I hadn¡¯t even noticed an Endurance check, though I suppose I hadn¡¯t been trying all that hard to stay up. Annie was a living space heater and by that point in the night, virtually every muscle hurt. My body was still sore, indicating that I hadn¡¯t slept enough for a Recovery Check. My Qi Network, though, had at least stopped feeling like an overstretched and inelastic rubber band. It was far from baseline, but where my muscles were yelling out for more rest, my Qi was politely asking. I slid my arms around Annie and used my Three Python Force Technique to support the rest of her while I carried her to my bed. I kept her in more or less the same position the whole way using Telekinesis. She didn¡¯t so much as shift restlessly in my grasp. It would be insane to kick her out at this time of night. A part of me had wanted to establish staying overnight as a boundary for our relationship, especially so early on, but it was what it was. She was hot, unbelievably so. If I didn¡¯t know what was going on I would have assumed she was feverish. I pulled the blanket over us as I climbed into bed with her, but it felt like a formality, almost unnoticeably compared to Annie¡¯s warmth. I cradled her in the little spoon position, drawing a faint, unconscious moan from the woman as I did. With my Qi having settled down a bit, I could feel more than her flesh. Annie¡¯s dantian was like an inferno. I¡¯d thought that it would calm down with time, that its increased activity was a cascading side-effect from the way that I¡¯d awoken her Qi, but the opposite seemed to be occurring. Instead the food in her belly and however many hours of sleep she¡¯d gotten had kicked it back on. I extended my conscious perception into her Qi network. My male energy was a welcome guest and I received no resistance. On the contrary, her Yin energy immediately began to tug on my Qi, teasing and tickling it like it was trying to lure it onward. My skills with Erotic Sorcery and Medicine were telling me that Annie¡¯s Qi was continuing to change her body, but the effects were subtle, far beyond my ability to investigate without tools or preparation. All I could know for certain was that something was happening at a sub-cellular level, and it was happening to every cell in her body. Why was Annie¡¯s Qi so much more energetic than mine? We had the same Nature, and I had far more raw power than she did. And yet, I sincerely doubted I could mimic what was happening to her now intentionally. It was unlikely that it was natural talent, or else she¡¯d have noticed her Qi on her own before she¡¯d met me. Was I subconsciously stopping my Qi from acting on my body like that? No, I was sure I would have at least felt it try. It had to be an effect of how I¡¯d activated her Qi, there was no other plausible explanation. Or at the very least, it was a confluence of that and the other factors. These weren¡¯t lewd mutations though; my Erotic Sorcery could easily track those now that I was ¡®inside¡¯ her like this. I could perceive and intuit the changes that had occurred during our training session. Her nervous system had been re-wired to feel pleasure from basically every point on her body, in differing degrees depending on the location, her musculature had been improved to specifically be able to handle sex for longer, and there was a dozen or more smaller changes that all added up to a better experience for her and her partners. Whatever was happening tonight seemed to be changing her at a core genetic level. I didn¡¯t think it was a negative, her subconscious self was clearly guiding the changes, but it was something I¡¯d have to keep an eye on. Unless things started getting really crazy, I was absolutely not asking my mother about it. I¡¯d still be hearing about that improvised Qi ritual on her death bed. With it resolved for now, I let myself relax, but I didn¡¯t withdraw from her Qi network. This would have taken conscious effort to maintain before yesterday, but my Erotic Sorcery skill made a world of difference. Just like I didn¡¯t need to concentrate to idly levitate a coin anymore with my 3 dice in Telekinesis, 5 dice in Erotic Sorcery meant I could casually read Annie¡¯s Qi when touching her. Sleep was bearing down on me, pushing my body deeper into my mattress, but I wanted to explore my Erotic Sorcery some more before I let it take me. Strangely, as I felt my mind approaching the dream state, I gained a similar awareness of Annie¡¯s. It helped, probably, that her own dreams were so clearly of an erotic nature. There was a pink cloud surrounding my student¡¯s consciousness. I could have delved deeper, but I could sense that doing so would be an endeavor, with the potential for catastrophic failure. I wanted something simpler. Without entering her dreaming mind directly, I could still see flashes of silhouettes of what was going on. Which was me, primarily. That¡¯s right, I remembered, I had a Special Feat for this, Sexual Icon. It placed me as a frequent guest in people¡¯s wet dreams. Well, if it was already happening regardless of what I did, consciously messing around with her sleeping mind didn¡¯t seem so bad. I thought about what could be fun or useful. The silhouettes were flashing by quickly, always myself and Annie, but in a variety of backgrounds and clothes. A single dream scenario would likely get washed away by the storm of images if I didn¡¯t stick around to keep it playing, but maybe I could ¡®seed¡¯ her thoughts. What did I want from Annie and our relationship? I hadn¡¯t saved her from anything to trigger Hero¡¯s Harem yet, which meant that she wasn¡¯t inherently okay with sharing me. From what I¡¯d picked up about her insecurities, I suspected Annie¡¯s mind would reject any scenario where she was the ¡®cuck-queen¡¯. She might not even be okay with a threesome, or at least uncomfortable enough to put up some resistance. What if she wasn¡¯t sharing, but rather teasing? With a goal in mind, I began crafting a little spinning ball of mental energy using Erotic Sorcery, my first roll with the skill. This was so low stakes that I doubted even a Whiff would result in any harm, but enough Successes could inspire something in my subject. Both my Lucky Penny and the Silver Dollar were sitting on my end table, so I didn¡¯t want to try anything too risky. I leaned my mouth over Annie¡¯s ear and whispered, ¡°Everyone knows guys like watching girls play around.¡± Nine Successes and my marble of influence slid into her mind without an ounce of pushback. Annie let out a shuddering breath as silhouettes of other women began to flicker into her dreams, and the cloud of her consciousness began to throb, shifting to deeper shade of pink. I ignored the Quest pop-ups, joining my student in sleep. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Shape someone¡¯s dreams. Reward: 10 EXP Bonus, It was a wet dream: 20 EXP [Hidden Quest Complete!] Mentally influence someone mystically towards your own lascivious purposes without their knowing. Reward: 50 EXP, +1 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery) Bonus, Inspired a new fetish: 25, Gain Random Minor Occultism (Erotic Sorcery) feat that you meet the requirements for (Three Treasures Symphonious Soul) [Minor Feat] Three Treasures Symphonious Soul ¨C Your ability to harvest and manipulate the energy gained through sex naturally improves your Dual Cultivation. You may add 2 Dice to the pool when determining the Experience gained through Dual Cultivation. If your partner has this same feat, then these effects stack. Riverside Rendevous The cruel banshee I called a student decided to wake me up by ripping the blanket off my bed. My adrenaline spiked and I barely registered the time it took to go from lying on my side to crouching on my mattress, ready to defend myself. Annie was standing at the foot of my bed, hands on her hips, and smiling like a psychopath. I blinked at her in the dim light of the single lamp she¡¯d flicked on. She was still dressed in the shirt and panties combo from last night, and her hair was stylishly disheveled in a way that let me know she¡¯d woken up only minutes before me. ¡°Morning, shifu!¡± she exclaimed proudly, mischief burning in her eyes. I glanced at the two little basement windows that were my sole source of natural light in this room. The sky outside had yet to turn even fractionally towards the grey of pre-dawn. Only the distant hum of the 18-wheeled freightliners coming in to make their deliveries hinted at the time, which had to be after 3:30 at the earliest. I winged a pillow at her. Annie didn¡¯t bother to dodge or parry, letting it whomp her in the face. Her smile grew wider. There were morning people ¨C hell, I was a morning person ¨C and then there was whatever the fuck this was. ¡°Christ, Annie. The birds aren¡¯t even up yet, you lunatic.¡± I sat down cross-legged with a strangely graceful plop, and rested my chin on my palm. ¡°You¡¯re worse than my mother.¡± She¡¯d made us get up earlier in the Summer. Didn¡¯t want us to build bad habits, like sleeping past sunrise, for example. She stuck her tongue out at me. ¡°Suck it up, champ. As your cornerwoman and the only member of your fight team, it¡¯s my responsibility to make sure you¡¯re fighting fit by the Qualifiers.¡± Annie hopped forward onto my bed, landing on her knees in front of me. ¡°Luckily for you, I¡¯ll be handling the load for this next exercise.¡± To make sure her double entendre couldn¡¯t be misinterpreted, she swiftly pulled her shirt up and over her head, throwing it behind her. Her panties were next as she shimmied closer and worked them past her knees. ¡°Some dual cultivation before work?¡± I asked. I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. The soreness had passed and my Qi had settled down, but while I may have mechanically been fine, that didn¡¯t mean I was feeling my best. My eyelids still had that early morning fuzzy sensation around them; my body¡¯s way of asking for another fifteen minutes. ¡°Yep! And then we can have breakfast and do some filming and training. After that, a quick shower, and I¡¯ll drop you off in Riverside to meet Kas for your duel on the way to work.¡± ¡°Think you can bribe me with boobs and an annoyingly reasonable explanation, do you?¡± I smiled and relaxed. That did sound like the perfect way to start today. ¡°Well you can. Good job. And nice tits.¡± She laughed. ¡°Thanks, James. You really know how to complement a girl.¡± ¡°I call it like I see it.¡± I started to take my shirt off, but Annie leaned forward and caught my hands at the hem. ¡°Nope,¡± she said to my unasked question. ¡°As the leader of this team, you need to learn to delegate tasks. Luckily for you, you have me to teach you the basics.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think taking my shirt off even rises to the level of a ¡®task¡¯.¡± ¡°Oh yeah? Do you think princes undress themselves? No, they have highly trained staff for that.¡± She nodded smugly. ¡°It¡¯s so early to start mixing metaphors, in more ways than one.¡± She pouted. ¡°Shut up, James! Let a girl unwrap her presents.¡± I held my hands up in surrender. ¡°Gladly. Go for it.¡± Annie grinned and did an adorable little shimmy of joy. Leaning forward she kissed me softly, lingering just past a peck. ¡°Thanks!¡± ¡°I do want to point out that was your third metapho¡ªoof." Annie pushed me onto my back mid-sentence. ¡°Metaphoof? You¡¯re not making any sense, James. I¡¯m afraid this calls for a full physical. Just lay back and let me work.¡± ¡°Was that a fourth? I think that was a fourth.¡± Her hands slipped under my shirt, hot fingers pushing it up to reveal my lower abdomen. Grinning like the cat who caught the canary, she took her time to trace out every curve on each boulder-hard ab and let out a satisfied sigh. She bent down and nuzzled into them, digging her nose in, resting her cheek against them, and in general working to make sure every inch of her face came into contact with every inch of my exposed skin. My body was idle, but I was not. Passively, my Erotic Sorcery skill fed me a wealth of information. Annie¡¯s skin was phenomenally sensitive, and the situation was suitably erotically charged enough that every even passing touch was sending signals up and down her body, growing the fires of her arousal. Curiously, she was also releasing tendrils of a strange mystical energy, invisible to everything but my Erotic Sorcery. I let my mind play with the energy. It wasn¡¯t Qi, but I could sense that it could become it with a bit of finessing, and was probably much easier for me to do as a skilled martial artist than it would be for another. I could both draw it into me from her through touch as well as manipulate it in the air around us. The latter rendered it fragile though, and anything more than very intentional wrangling saw it fracture off and slip into the ether, to go where or become what, I didn¡¯t know. After satisfying herself with my lower abs, she kept pushing my shirt up, dragging her lower lip against my muscles as she did. I both saw and ¡®felt¡¯ a shiver run through her. I found her foreplay tantalizing, but I could tell that she was more teasing herself than me at this point. I wondered how long it would take her to snap. Annie¡¯s libido likely rivaled any teen¡¯s after yesterday¡¯s ritual. I lifted myself up to let her pull the shirt up to my neck. Annie sat up and stared down at me longingly, as if enraptured by the sight. I had never seen such raw desire directed at me in either life. I couldn¡¯t help it, my cheeks grew warm and I knew I was blushing. Annie scooched forward, straddling me and sitting on my still boxer-clad waist. She practically purred as she wiggled against my half-hard dick through them. I lifted my arms at her direction and let her pull my shirt off over my head. My hands went to her waist, but she captured them, interlocking our fingers and moving them to next to my head. ¡°Nope,¡± she said, popping the ¡®p¡¯. ¡°It¡¯s my turn today. You¡¯re going to lay there and let me pamper you.¡± Still holding my hands, she leaned down and kissed me. This was much more than a peck, but lacked the urgency and zeal from yesterday. This was pure passion, Annie¡¯s attempt to non-verbally communicate all of her affection. The kiss let me roll my first Sensuality check of this encounter. A total of 12 dice were in the pool with only my Attribute and Skill involved, once we started Dual Cultivating there would be 16, a completely unthinkable number to me only days ago. And Annie had been worried I¡¯d be jealous of her ex-boyfriend. Ha. I¡¯d basically elevated myself to a sexual demi-god. Me being jealous of an ordinary man would be a divine act of insecurity akin to Hera conspiring to destroy Troy over a beauty contest ¨C and if there was one kind of God you didn¡¯t want to be compared to, it was a Greek one. I didn¡¯t dominate the make-out overtly, I could tell that she wanted a softer session than our last. But 10 Successes was an impossible kiss to ignore. Even in the passive role, I was leading her on, capturing her lips and mind at once, leading her towards a finale, her lips an instrument and I a virtuoso. Her hips began to rock against my clothed dick involuntarily, and through my Sorcery I could see her arousal rising to her first climactic peak. Annie ripped her lips away before she could cum. Panting hard, she closed her eyes and forced herself to stay still. I lay back and enjoyed the sight of a drip of sweat rolling down her athletic body through the natural channel between her heaving breasts. They were a truly perfect shape, perky and rounded in such a way that her diamond sharp nipples pointed up ¨C retrousse was the term, I believe. I¡¯d gotten to admire them jiggle as I¡¯d fucked her hard on the floor yesterday, but today they¡¯d were free to bounce about without her leotard keeping them in place. She puffed up her cheeks and pouted down at me. ¡°Jaaames, you¡¯re supposed to be letting me pamper.¡± I smirked. ¡°I¡¯m not sure what you¡¯re talking about. Was I not supposed to kiss back?¡± She rolled her eyes, a mischievous fire sparking in them. ¡°You aren¡¯t the only one who can show off.¡± Annie shifted her weight off my waist and onto her hands. Her muscles, from her arms to her core, tensed as she lifted her lower body into the air, moving into a front lever position. The move was hard enough normally, but Annie was doing it on a soft mattress without the support of a hard surface or the tension of hanging rings, but she wasn¡¯t finished. Next she tucked her legs into her chest and hooked her big toes into the waist of my boxers. I lifted my butt up slightly to allow her to peel my underwear down and off my legs. In a show of incredible athleticism, she dragged them off me with a slow, controlled pace. I could see her muscles flexing under her skin, Annie¡¯s body honed from years of training, without an ounce of unnecessary fat. ¡°Holy shit, Annie. You¡¯re going to ruin sex with normal women for me,¡± I said. It was flattery for the most part, but I was genuinely impressed by the display. ¡°That¡¯s the idea. And I¡¯m not done.¡± Still in the air, she brought her legs back up and used the soles of her feet to hold my now fully erect penis. Angling me up and guiding me into her with her feet alone, she began to lower herself down onto my dick, clenching her teeth and hissing to ignore the intense sensations. Annie had to pause as my head entered her fully. She was more than wet enough to go further, but I could tell she was fighting to control her arousal and urges. This was a first for me, seeing a woman have to fight back an orgasm during sex, and appropriately flattering enough for me to be content laying back and watching. Her Yin energy flowed through her sex into my Qi network, starting our Dual Cultivation. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes, reveling in the unique heat of Annie¡¯s soul. She didn¡¯t have much Aura in total, but it was dense with the warmth of a hot hearth after a cold day¡¯s hard work. Tendrils of it, like cords of flame, wrapped around my bones with deliberate intent, traveling down my spine and into the root of my cock. ¡°Ah!¡± I gasped involuntarily and grew harder than I¡¯d previously thought possible. Annie let out a delighted little laugh at the feeling of me twitching and swelling inside her. I looked up at her in surprise. While I couldn¡¯t read her ¡®character sheet¡¯ I could tell how much it would cost to buy her skills and work in reverse. That had felt a lot like Erotic Sorcery to me, and sure enough, she had gained a die in it. ¡°Nice trick,¡± I gasped out. ¡°Very nice. What was that?¡± She smiled. ¡°I have no idea, it just came to me. But don¡¯t worry, I have plenty of more tricks to show you.¡± She began her descent again, just as slowly as before. Her eyelids fluttered and her bottom lip dropped open. For all her bravado I could tell she was teetering at the edge of climax. ¡°Why fight it?¡± I asked. ¡°I love watching you cum. You¡¯re beautiful.¡± Annie moaned. ¡°Want it all, hah,¡± her concentration slipped causing her to drop down a few inches on me before stopping herself suddenly by clamping her vaginal muscles as hard as she could. ¡°¡­inside me, f-first.¡± she finished. I considered helping her telekinetically, but her self-inflicted torment was impossible to look away from. Even as the enhanced sensations from my dick made me want to throw my head back, I watched. I watched as her breasts jiggled with the little shuddering steps she made further down my shaft, as she gasped and whined with every inch of me, and as her face told volumes by twisting into and through dozens of expressions. Finally, Annie touched down, our thighs coming together, and exploded on top of me. She moved her hands to my chest in order to prop herself upright, besieged by trembling waves of pleasure. I grunted and likewise came, filling her with the first shot of seed for this session. The feelings from inside her were just too much to deny. I crushed the check to remain hard, but the first was the easiest and her Sorcery was helping. The thought of putting a pause to this for even a few moments was intolerable to me. Luckily, I had over 500 Experience points and hundreds of potential solutions to the problem. After thinking about it for less than a second, I spontaneously made the least irresponsible purchase I could make, which was to bump Endurance to 6 dice. I was fairly confident that the system would reward me with an answer to the problem. [Hidden Quest Completed!] Have 6 Dice in Endurance. Reward: Gain Special Feat Unrelenting [Special Feat] Unrelenting ¨C Your ability to shrug off pain and discomfort is legendary. You may go much longer without food, drink or sleep than even humans who have trained for such feats of endurance. Pleasure is easier to ignore than pain naturally, and as a result your ability to prolong an orgasm is similarly improved. [Hidden Quest Completed!] Buy an Attribute die mid-coitus out of uncontrolled passion. Reward: 10 EXP Bonus, Bought Endurance: Gain Minor Feat Multi-Orgasmic [Minor Feat] Multi-Orgasmic ¨C You have the refractory time of the most naturally blessed woman and are capable of multiple orgasms in quick succession. This only slightly enhances your fluid production, and you may still grow tired from physical exertion during sex. The sudden shot of wakefulness that followed, and a little post-nut clarity, made me realize that I had been the victim of a Successful Seduction roll from Annie. Not that I was upset, turnabout is fair play, but it was worrying to confirm that I could fail Social rolls like that without noticing. At least I¡¯d gained a virtual 10 Experience discount on the Endurance die along with two feats this time. Still, I took a moment to remind myself that I was ghost busting later and had literally no idea what that would entail ¨C Probably not the best time to be making impulse purchases. Our Qi continued to dance within us, and soon Annie was twisting and rocking her hips to the same rhythm. I let my hands drift up her to her thighs, but continued to follow her unspoken instructions, reading her desire to control the pace herself. Instead of bucking my hips, I willed my body to relax into my mattress. My hands likewise ignored the impulse to seize her by the waist and start pumping her up and down, and settled for massaging her quads. ¡°God,¡± she said staring down at me, ¡°you¡¯re so fucking hot.¡± Annie¡¯s soaking wet walls started to pulse in waves, her powerful pelvic floor trying to wring the cum out of me as though she was jerking me off. All the while she kept up her gyrating, sinful belly-dance, grinding her powerful ass onto me. Her hot sex was dripping out from around the tight seal around my cock, soaking my balls and inner thighs. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°Touch me,¡± she breathily demanded, before leaning down to capture my lips. I ran my hands from her hips to her ass and squeezed down appreciatively, drawing a moan from Annie. My finger tips drew lines up and down her back and sides. I could feel the neurons firing under her skin, and could sense her arousal climbing to new heights. The erotic energy was dense around us now, like a thick cloud of steam rising from our bodies. Were I not so distracted I might have been able to do more than simply overcharge our Dual Cultivation with it. Annie mewled into my mouth as she climaxed again, continuing her slow pulsing gyrations through it without missing a beat. I thought about joining her in orgasming, but decided to let the pleasure build out of curiosity about how far I could push it and masculine pride. I was of the opinion that a woman should cum before and more than me if possible, and my recent feats hadn¡¯t changed that. I flexed my cock, showing off my own pelvic floor, so that it was angled up against the top wall of her pussy and pressing harder into her g-spot. It was enough to make Annie pause her movements for a few seconds. Her pace began to quicken as she recovered from the sudden sensation. Yesterday, we had fucked. Today, we made love. Even as her movements became more frantic and jerkier, her kisses remained soft and sweet, much like her little moans and gasps. Her hands, growing tired of molesting my chest and shoulders, moved to the top of my head where they began to massage my scalp lovingly. Instinctually and impulsively, I wrapped my telekinetic tendrils around her and pulled her tight against my chest. My hot Qi flowed into the force ¡®Pythons¡¯ to where they were like hot compresses twisting and massaging her core and back. I lost track of Annie¡¯s orgasms. We held one another in that position for the remainder of our Cultivation. I saved my own for the end, joining her for one last mutual climax. By that point I was seeing stars from my self-inflicted edging, and my vision went white when I finally came. My cum was dense with lifeforce at that point and it took what felt like eternity to finish unloading inside of her. Annie¡¯s meridians lit up like fireworks as her body worked overtime to process it all. She screamed an orgasm before going limp at the flood of pleasure and power. [Dual Cultivation Results] 10 EXP [Recurring Quest Complete!] Have a sex scene. Reward: 5 EXP, +1 Random Skill (Tracking) [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have romantic sex. Reward: 20 EXP, Gain a random Minor Feat you qualify for from your Romantic Archetype (If It¡¯s You, It¡¯s Okay) [Minor Feat (Harem Protagonist)] If It¡¯s You, It¡¯s Okay ¨C You are not only supremely attractive, but your charisma is also enough to wile its way through any passive resistance. So long as someone is capable of romantic or sexual attraction, they will make an exception for you regardless of their normal sex, gender, race, or body-type preferences. You can still fail for other reasons, but you no longer suffer the usual penalties to seducing these characters. [Ally Quest Complete!] Make love to Annie. Reward: 20 EXP to both of you, +1 Acrobatics Annie rolled off me onto her back. I mentally added, ¡®wash sheets¡¯ to my day. They were completely filthy, and the smell was sure to raise a few brows at the laundromat later. I clapped my hands. The sky had lightened to a dark grey. ¡°Okay! Good warm-up! Ready to start the day, my student?¡± ¡°Yes, Shifu!¡± Annie¡¯s van had a lingering scent of old cigarettes that undercut the smell of the air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, but I had to admit, it was still nicer than riding the bus. I could get used to being chauffeured, especially if all I had to trade for the service was sex and training. She certainly didn¡¯t mind, if her smug satisfaction was any indicator. My student had been buzzing since we¡¯d finished cultivating together, cheerful and relaxed as usual, but more confident than ever. As she ought to be. Annie was leaving our first day and a half of training with 5 dice in Martial Arts and the Artful Dodger feat, with some Experience to spare. I¡¯d contemplated increasing her Aura to 3 dice, but the first thing that had happened to me after doing the same was gaining the attention of a Hungry Ghost. I didn¡¯t actually know those were related events, but it couldn¡¯t hurt to be cautious. This way she¡¯d be able to defend herself from most mundane attackers, and would hopefully fly under the radar of supernatural threats. ¡°Here¡¯s fine,¡± I said to Annie as we neared Kas¡¯s place. ¡°It¡¯s an even fifty-fifty if the old man didn¡¯t fall back asleep after texting me. I think I¡¯ll grab a couple of coffees to kill some time.¡± Her eyes nervously flicked to the time displayed on her dashboard. ¡°Sounds good.¡± ¡°When¡¯s your shift start?¡± ¡°Oh, you know.¡± She looked chagrined. ¡°About ten minutes ago. It¡¯ll be fine though, I¡¯m never late, and there¡¯s a million waitress jobs in the city anyway.¡± ¡°Ha! Nice.¡± I shook my head. ¡°We¡¯re going to need to find an actually responsible student or master if we want this school to survive.¡± ¡°Hey! I¡¯m responsible most¡ªmuch of the time.¡± I gave her an amused look and stayed silent. She pursed her lips. ¡°Yeah, yeah. I¡¯ll keep an eye out. Maybe I¡¯ll win someone over at my Taekwondo class. What time do you want to meet tomorrow to train and film, by the way?¡± God, how I wished I could attend that first Taekwondo class with her. The look on her instructors¡¯ faces would be priceless as they realized how far she¡¯d gone in so short a time. That would be a real ego-crusher. ¡°Right, forgot to mention. It¡¯ll have to be in the morning, I¡¯m helping the Shinto temple in Little Tokyo hunt a ghost tomorrow.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± I scratched my chin. ¡°And I might need Wednesday to recover, being realistic. According to the Miko at the temple, this thing¡¯s been eating martial artists for decades.¡± Annie sputtered. ¡°Bwa¡ªwhat? Ghosts? What? Ghosts are¡­real?¡± I ignored Annie and her short-circuiting brain, opening the door and hopping out of her minivan. ¡°Anyway, we can figure it out later. See you tomorrow, Annie!¡± ¡°They¡ªthey eat people?¡± Noticing me get out of the car she called out, ¡°Wait, hey! James, are ghosts real? Are you being serious?¡± I smiled. Ah, the joys of having a student. This would never get old. ¡°You¡¯re late for work, Shine. Bye!¡± I said cheerily, closing the door and walking into one of the many hipster coffee shops in Riverside. Riverside, the neighborhood, was about thirty or so blocks on the southern shore of the Beagle River. A hundred years ago, when the Beagle had practically run black with pollutants and the docks to its east had been a busy hub of longshoreman and sailors, Riverside had been known for its unique mix of struggling artists, the new middle-class bourgeoisie, and the growing population of small artisans, printmakers, butchers, bakers, etc., that had set up shop in the then cheap properties. The artists remained, but they were no longer struggling, well, not financially at least. Now they were almost exclusively trust fund kids attending the handful of private arts universities in the neighborhood. You could still find some of the best family artisan shops in the city here, but many had opted in recent years to sell their real estate for the massively inflated values and retire or move to more affordable locations. I passed Renauld Park on the way to Kas¡¯s. Six black nannies had gathered on the benches to watch over their young, mostly white, wards together. The kids played on the newly renovated playground while the women spoke loudly in Patois with one another, crocheting or knitting to pass the time. Their eyes flickered between the kids and their surroundings constantly, occasionally scowling at anyone who dared walk their dog too close to the playground. This was an ubiquitous sight north of the Beagle, where Black Harbor¡¯s old money had historically resided, but was becoming more common in Riverside and other freshly gentrified neighborhoods to the south. One of the little girls asked her nanny for a piece of her jerk chicken as I walked by. I always got a kick out of thinking about all the rich kids who would inevitably grow up with Jamaican Patois as a second language, though I¡¯d yet to meet one. As many people as I knew in town, those just weren¡¯t my circles. I knew wealthy Chinese people of course, but they weren¡¯t the types to hire nannies, and when they did, they typically went for fellow Mandarin speakers. Sometimes, if the family did a lot of business in Hong Kong or in New York¡¯s Chinatown, they¡¯d hire a Cantonese speaking nanny, but even that was rare. It was the same story as always ¨C new world, old politics. Kas lived in a gorgeous brownstone with all of its original stained glass transoms above the doors and windows. The man was down-to-earth and could be, as a high functioning drunk, fairly chaotic in his personal life, but he definitely had style, if not, perhaps, class. Though what did I know? I lived in a hobbit hole underneath a half-built hovel. Maybe playing the minimum bets at blackjack until three-thirty in the morning for the free drinks was considered the height of class these days. I rang the front door to his place, holding my coffees up to the little camera. It buzzed back almost immediately, unlocking the door. ¡°Good timing,¡± came a voice from scratchy intercom, ¡°I was just about to run a pot. Come in, the foyer¡¯s unlocked.¡± I kicked my shoes off in the foyer. Kas had been a true Karateka in his youth, having spent most of his Summers as a teen training in Okinawa. As a result, unlike a lot of Westerners, he was pretty strict about not wearing shoes inside, even hanging up some complementary slippers and flip-flops for visitors in the entrance. The interior was well furnished and decorated, but without the sterility or thematic sensibilities that would have implied he¡¯d hired a designer. There were old weapons hanging from the walls, along with a mix of different handmade art that the veteran stuntman had collected in his travels. Amid them were photos, both of family and of Kas with various famous actors and directors. I eyed the photos of his daughter and his ex-wife a little differently this time around. Bet you¡¯d get some decent rewards for seducing them, whispered a churlish voice in my head. There are lots of ways to get Experience, I responded. Kas was in his kitchen, mixing up some batter when I entered. He was shirtless and freshly showered, wearing an apron that read ¡®Wok and Roll¡¯ and had an image of an 80¡¯s hair metal guitarist wailing on a wok. Without his shirt on he looked considerably less like the ethnically ambiguous everyman that he had made his fortune portraying, and much more like the dangerous martial artist that he was. ¡°Yo!¡± he called out without looking. ¡°I¡¯m making pancakes. Blueberries okay? Figure we should carbo load before our fight.¡± ¡°No such thing as a bad pancake. And carbo load? We¡¯re sparring not running a marathon.¡± ¡°Ah, thought you might want to stick around after to traiiiii,¡± Kas trailed off, having finally turned to look at me. ¡°What the fuck happened to you?¡± I checked myself for injuries. ¡°What do you mean?¡± His jaw dropped. ¡°What do you mean, ¡®What do you mean?¡¯?¡± He waved his egg beater at me. ¡°Look at you! You look like you walked out of one of those weird French cologne commercials.¡± ¡°In a good way?¡± ¡°In an insane way! What happened?!¡± ¡°Uhh, I unlocked my Qi?¡± I shrugged and let out a little pulse of force in an omni-directional wave from my body, ruffling the pages of a nearby newspaper. ¡°That can make people look better, right?¡± ¡°It can fix fucked up skin and teeth, but you didn¡¯t have those to begin with. And that takes months to years to take effect. What did you do, James? You didn¡¯t make a pact for fame with something, did you?¡± Huh, that was the first time I¡¯d ever heard Kas make a reference to the supernatural. I don¡¯t know why I hadn¡¯t thought to ask him about that sort of thing. He did have a supreme talent for coming across as a normal guy, I supposed. ¡°Like with a¡­Crossroads Demon? Is that an option?¡± ¡°No!¡± he said emphatically. ¡°Then why did you ask?¡± ¡°Er, well it¡¯s a thing that you could do. But it¡¯s not an option! Not a good one, at least.¡± I sucked my teeth. ¡°Hmm, so¡­you¡¯d say it¡¯s a rare occurrence to undergo drastic physical changes after awakening your Qi?¡± He pinched the bridge of his nose. ¡°Holy shit, kid, where are you going with this?¡± ¡°Well, you know, it¡¯s just that¡­¡± I looked around his kitchen as I stalled for time. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure of how much I wanted to say. ¡°Hey, is that a newspaper? You still get a physical newspaper delivered?¡± ¡°The Harbor Moon is print only. And don¡¯t try to distract me.¡± ¡°Print only?¡± I picked up the paper off his kitchen counter and did a double take at the top headline. ¡°New Jersey To Repeal All Obscenity Laws With Bipartisan Support,¡± I read aloud. ¡°Is this real? I haven¡¯t heard anything about this.¡± Kas snatched the paper away, rolled it up, and whacked me on the head. ¡°I will happily explain Dark Media to you, after you explain what¡¯s going on.¡± ¡°Right, right.¡± I took a deep breath and made a split-second decision to trust Kas. He¡¯d honestly been a great mentor as a stunt man, and had never given me a reason to lie to him. I¡¯d leave the stuff about the reality show and the system out, of course; I wasn¡¯t looking to test how the Producers felt about me breaking the Fourth Wall, but I could trust Kas with the rest. I took a seat on a stool and sighed. ¡°The reason I asked is that Annie is also undergoing some physical changes after awakening her Qi. They¡¯ve been positive so far, but I¡¯ve been ¨C well worried is the wrong word ¨C concerned, I guess. It is my responsibility after all. Oh yeah, I took on Annie as my first student by the way.¡± ¡°How did Annie¡ª" He paused, slapping his forehead and shaking his head. ¡°James, it¡¯s been four days since I saw you. How ¨C what ¨C Argh! Goddamnit, I just remembered you were already getting hotter when I took you out for steaks. Okay, kid, start from the beginning. Walk me through your batshit weekend, from me dropping you off at home, to you buzzing my door.¡± ¡°Sure, no problem. So, I basically just crashed Thursday night. But the next morning I get up and there¡¯s this piece of shit, dickhead rat in my refrigerator¡­¡± Coach Combo Kahn 1 Kas shook his head and ran his hand down his face, looking very much his age in the moment. My stomach tumbled a bit at the sight. I had just finished giving him the rundown on the past few days, and didn¡¯t feel great about dropping all this on him. It couldn¡¯t have been what he thought he¡¯d signed up for when he¡¯d offered to mentor me in stunt acting. Grumbling to himself, he fetched a bottle of creme liqueur and another of high end vodka and sat back down. A shot of the first and two of the latter were quick to be stirred into his coffee. He pushed the bottles towards me. I raised an eyebrow. ¡°It is not even ten o¡¯clock.¡± ¡°So?¡± he said exasperated. ¡°We don¡¯t have real jobs.¡± ¡°It¡¯s more the principle of the thing.¡± ¡°Exactly. We¡¯re actors, we¡¯re supposed to live large. But hey, you don¡¯t want to drink, don¡¯t drink. I on the other hand need one after everything you just said. Shit, need two. You know, you¡¯re a lot more work than most mentees.¡± I winced. ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°Ah, shit, sorry, didn¡¯t mean it like that. It¡¯s a good thing. You¡¯re like¡­marble, right? Everyone else feels like clay now, like they were practice for the real thing. No offense to them, of course.¡± He took a sip of his Irish coffee, before deciding to add another splash of vodka to it. ¡°I¡¯m lucky, get to carve you into a masterpiece.¡± I shrugged and made myself a cocktail to match, albeit with lighter pours. ¡°Fuck it. Let¡¯s live large.¡± ¡°You know, James,¡± Kas looked at me seriously, ¡°when we met, I think I said something to you like, ¡®You could really be something, kid.¡¯ Well, I¡¯m amending that statement. You¡¯ll be one of the greats one day, if you don¡¯t get yourself killed before then.¡± ¡°Big if,¡± I said into my drink. ¡°What do think though, about mine and Annie¡¯s changes?¡± He barked a laugh and scratched his neck. ¡°Oh boy. I know I never told you how I,¡± he did finger quotes, ¡°¡®unlocked¡¯ my Qi. But I¡¯m guessing your family didn¡¯t tell you many specifics either.¡± ¡°Train hard, train diligently was all we were ever told.¡± He nodded. ¡°Makes sense, that¡¯s pretty universal across the Arts.¡± Kas stared off into the distant for a moment with a half-smile on his lips. ¡°Want to hear how I did it?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°I was thirteen when I enrolled in Uzumaki Shinken Ryu Karate ¨C my sensei in Germany had sent off a video of me training without telling me much about the place. And what he had told me had sounded like it was straight out of a movie. I¡¯d been to India and America by that time, but Japan was like this magical world apart in my teenage brain, you know? Anything was possible there, especially when it came to martial arts.¡± ¡°It was my first time travelling alone. A senpai met me at the airport, and from there we took a sea plane out to the small island the dojo sits on. There¡¯s an actual road, but for the first time, tradition demanded we go up the cliffside path, up these tiny, sea-slick stairs. My senpai, when we were about to start, smiled, turned to me, and said, ¡®Don¡¯t fall. The currents will drag you to the bottom and smash your head open on the rocks.¡¯¡± ¡°It was slippery, but the hardest part was not getting fatally distracted by the stark beauty, the waves battering the Japanese shoreline. On the way up, he slapped me on the shoulder to get me to stop and pointed out at the sea. There was a whirlpool there, not too far from the shore. He said, ¡®You see that Kassem-chan, it¡¯s our namesake, Uzumaki. When you¡¯re ready to learn our secret techniques, sensei will wrap you in chains and drop you in the center. Then you¡¯ll be able to hadoken like Ryu from Street Fighter.¡¯ It was super popular at the time.¡± I looked skeptical. ¡°That sounds like something I¡¯d tell a teenager to fuck with them.¡± ¡°Just wait, you might be surprised.¡± He grinned. ¡°Anyway, cut to a 17-year-old Kas. At this point I¡¯ve spent three Summers at the dojo, I¡¯m feeling myself, and I¡¯m itching to step it up to the next level. But every time I bring up the whirlpool, I just get laughed at, told to do more repetitions or kata.¡± ¡°Well, like every good story, there¡¯s this girl, Mana. She¡¯s gorgeous and sweet, but she¡¯s got eyes for this other absolute jackass, a real arrogant mother fucker. And to my great shame, he¡¯s much better at Karate than I am. Not that it actually mattered to Mana, but in my dumb 17-year-old boy brain, it mattered a lot.¡± ¡°Classic,¡± I said. ¡°Agreed. A rival in love and martial arts,¡± he nodded. ¡°That piece of shit right there,¡± Kas pointed at a picture of him at his wedding, standing next to a shorter Japanese man serving as his best man, ¡°Goichi, drove me absolutely crazy.¡± ¡°So, it¡¯s close to when I¡¯m supposed to go back to Germany, and I am no longer feeling myself. We spent the Summer in grueling training, but it wasn¡¯t much different from the year before. Goichi¡¯s kicking my ass, both literally and in terms of Mana. One night I catch them kissing, and I decide right there that there¡¯s no way I¡¯m leaving Okinawa without tapping into my Qi. It¡¯s time to step it up, you know? That way, I figure, I can learn all sorts of special techniques then come back the next year to kick Goichi¡¯s ass. But, I needed the whirlpools there, I need the Uzumaki if I want tap into the next level of Uzumaki Shinken Ryu.¡± ¡°That night, I make a thermos of this green tea that helps you meditate and I head up to the cliffs by myself. I tell everyone I¡¯m going to spend the night meditating to the sounds of the waves, and because this is a dojo in Okinawa, everyone just accepts that. What I actually do, is head down to the beach to where I keep a paddle board.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pitch black dark out, no moon to speak of. Normally, that would be a nightmare to be out on the water, but it works in my favor. You see, the water has this very dim bioluminescent algae that glow when disturbed, which mean that the whirlpools are actually glowing like targets.¡± ¡°You can guess the next part. I drink that tea, try to focus on the nature of our Art, wrap a chain around my waist, and jump my dumbass into the spiral.¡± I shook my head. ¡°God, you were a really stupid teenager.¡± He laughed. ¡°Just hang on. Bear with me, you might be surprised. Well, the water pulled me down and under right away. I¡¯d shot for the biggest whirlpool I could see. It didn¡¯t look fast, but believe me, it was deadly strong. And there¡¯s this complicating factor, like, I don¡¯t actually know if I¡¯m supposed to be trying to escape or if I¡¯m supposed to be contemplating the Art.¡± ¡°That confusion lasts for ten, twenty seconds max, and then I¡¯m panicking. I¡¯m being tossed around and spun in every direction but up. I¡¯m fucking drowning, right. And you know what happens with my Qi?¡± ¡°What?¡± I asked. ¡°Nothing. I can¡¯t focus on anything but trying to escape and getting the damned chains off my waist. I don¡¯t even remember much about the struggle, just the end. I¡¯m in a cloud of blue algae, blind to everything, running out of air, and I realize, ¡®Oh shit, I¡¯m going to die.¡¯ And you know what happens with my Qi?¡± I leaned forward, enraptured by the story. ¡°Nothing,¡± he said. ¡°Fuck all. But, I survive, obviously. Not sure how, but I wake up on the shore with a huge stick of driftwood caught on my chains. I guess it happened to drag me out to safety. People are above me when I wake up ¨C Goichi gave me CPR, the bastard, absolutely ruining our rivalry by saving my life. They¡¯re asking me questions, but it takes me a while to answer because I¡¯m having this massive realization.¡± Kas paused for dramatic effect. ¡°I realized¡­that I didn¡¯t learn anything about martial arts by doing that. Like, nothing at all. Turns out, that¡¯s just an old joke they tell every new recruit to fuck with them. You were right.¡± There was a long silence as I waited for him to continue. My jaw dropped. ¡°Are¡­are you serious? You said I¡¯d be surprised. What¡¯s the surprise, old man?¡± ¡°No.¡± He pointed at me. ¡°I said you might be surprised.¡± I groaned, triggering a fit of raucous laughter from my mentor. ¡°You are such an asshole. What did that have to do with anything?¡± ¡°You mean other than the fact that you basically did the same thing 17-year-old me did, except with an anchor tied to you and Annie?¡± I frowned. That hit me like a gut punch. ¡°Oh, yeah¡­¡± I massaged one of my temples. ¡°Shit, Kas. I¡¯ve really got no idea what I¡¯m doing, man. Feels like I¡¯ve been caught in the whirlpool since last Thursday.¡± ¡°That¡¯s life, kid, for everyone. At least you¡¯re handling it better than I would have at your age.¡± Was I? Yesterday had been amazing. My power had grown in leaps and bounds, I¡¯d had a great time, and made a close friend, student, and lover out of Annie. It had been a success on multiple levels in terms of the Game and the show ¨C I was sure the Producers were ecstatic. But morally, ethically¡­I had taken a student while in the middle of a gang war, nearly killed her on the first day of training, and then magically manipulated her dreams to give her a new fetish. Sure, I¡¯d told myself it was necessary to survive tomorrow¡¯s ghost hunt, but my actions had hardly been heroic. ¡°For all this power and shit, I don¡¯t know if I like the person I¡¯m becoming,¡± I said. ¡°Never met a sane top level martial artist, James, just don¡¯t happen. And I¡¯ve been around too. What¡¯s that shit you kung fu guys say, ¡®To sup on the path to Kunlun is to drink the blood of foe and friend alike¡¯? I mean that¡¯s a pretty psychotic statement, is it not?¡± Kas scratched his chin and hummed. ¡°Let me ask you this, would you change how you¡¯d do the week if you could go back to last Thursday.¡± ¡°No,¡± I said without thinking about it. Someone was still going to have to hunt that ghost. ¡°That¡¯s what I don¡¯t like.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s how it goes,¡± he said with a sigh. ¡°Look, you don¡¯t judge others in a vacuum. Afford yourself the same kindness. Your life is hectic right now, anyone would fuck up a little. Nothing catastrophic¡¯s happened yet, take it easy on yourself.¡± I grunted. ¡°I crossed the line with Annie. That was way too risky.¡± ¡°Maybe. She¡¯d disagree though. Don¡¯t forget it worked out though. Plenty of people in this city that would love to prey on a girl like Annie. Now it¡¯s not so easy anymore. You did that, James. You¡¯ve given her the ability to live her life with the freedom that only the strong can know.¡± ¡°Right, it worked.¡± I took a long sip of my Irish coffee while trying to wrap my head around that. Enough brooding, I was here for a reason. ¡°What does that mean, Kas? What is happening to Annie, then?¡± Remembering that I was supposed to be confused about my changes too, I added, ¡°What¡¯s happening to me?¡± ¡°To Annie? I¡¯m not sure. But, the girl had a six foot vertical before she was ten ¨C she was obviously pretty gifted with some natural talents. If I had to guess, she probably had some ¡®spice¡¯ in her bloodline that you accidentally overcharged.¡± ¡°Spice?¡± He shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know for sure. I try not to think about all the things that can walk around with human faces. Better for my mental health. Demon maybe? Djinn? Those are made of fire, right? Lots of shit out there.¡± I sighed. ¡°Better than nothing. I¡¯ll have her look into her family history, I guess.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what to tell you. Nothing is impossible in this world, which is usually for the worst by the way, but you damn near did it with that ritual. I wish I could help you more but it¡¯s way outside my specialty. There are people I can ask about it, but it¡¯ll be hard to do that without revealing personal details. If you want, I can start looking into it.¡± ¡°Do you trust these people?¡± ¡°Not really. But I don¡¯t distrust them. You¡¯ll find that most people who do or study, or are even peripherally involved in, magic and sorcery to be paranoid assholes. I try to avoid that stuff. I¡¯d tell you to do the same, but it looks like you¡¯re deep in the mud already.¡± Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. I hesitated. Annie was probably going to be fine, but the only reason I had to believe that was that I knew how many Successes I¡¯d gotten. I was metagaming, pure and simple. There was no good way of communicating that, but at least I could be relatively certain she wasn¡¯t going to erupt into flame in a few weeks. I wanted to say yes of course, to pass this problem off onto Kas for him to handle for me. But I knew that would be too good to be true. ¡°Nah, don¡¯t worry about it, man. I¡¯m not sweating it, Annie¡¯s not sweating it, and my gut tells me it¡¯s a positive change. I have too many problems in my life to be adding scheming wizards into the mix, right now at least. Still, I do want to learn more about Qi Sorcery. If you know anyone willing to train me or pass on some knowledge, I¡¯m sure I can find some way to make it worth their time.¡± Kas nodded and smiled. ¡°Hey, it¡¯s important to follow your gut. That¡¯s been my M.O. since day one. Just be careful you don¡¯t go all in on it, or else you¡¯ll end up like me.¡± He gestured to the room. I looked around confused. ¡°Fantastically successful? A¡­homeowner?¡± He laughed and spread his arms. ¡°Divorced!¡± ¡°Ha! Fair enough. But the way my life is going, I¡¯ll consider anything short of death to be a win. Speaking of, it sounded like you had a theory on what¡¯s happening to me.¡± He slapped the table. ¡°That¡¯s right! I think I¡¯ve got it figured out. See, I¡¯ve been around for a minute, and met my share of legendary badasses in that time. Andina Katz and I were pretty tight for a bit, you know?¡± ¡°The murderer?¡± I narrowed my eyes. ¡°And how tight?¡± ¡°Please, the assassin, there¡¯s a difference,¡± he corrected. ¡°And a gentleman never tells.¡± ¡°You had sex with the woman who killed the Spanish royal family?¡± I paused and did the mental math regarding their age difference. ¡°Wait, that was in the early 80¡¯s. You had sex with her after?! Jesus Christ, man, she did the kids too, didn¡¯t she?¡± ¡°Look, brother, when a woman who headbutts tank shells out of the air slaps you on the ass and slips her room key into your back pocket, you¡¯re along for the ride, alright? Not my proudest moments, but it is what it is. Anyway, what I was saying, is that all of the greats of fighting have one thing in common ¨C luck.¡± ¡°Sure. They¡¯d have died otherwise.¡± He waved his hands ¡®no¡¯. ¡°Not just good luck, but bad, and weird too. Or, maybe luck was the wrong word. Fate! That¡¯s it! You get into a room with one of these people and it¡¯s like the world starts to revolve around them, know what I¡¯m saying? And the more time you spend with one of them, the greater that feeling gets, like you¡¯re just a background actor in someone else¡¯s story. Listening to your story, it was like flashing back to being with Andina.¡± Well, shit, Kassem Kahn was more insightful than he came across by miles. Still, I could hardly give this one to the man ¨C in universe it was a completely insane theory. ¡°You¡¯re saying I¡¯m a main character?¡± I asked, voice dripping with skepticism. He smiled proudly. ¡°Yes! That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m saying.¡± I shot him a withering look. ¡°Your brain has been broken by Hollywood, old man.¡± Kas laughed. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, I felt a touch of destiny the day I met you, and I¡¯m feeling it heavy right now.¡± ¡°I love the flattery, but that is the single dumbest thing you¡¯ve ever said to me. How does that work in your head, anyway? There¡¯s an audience of people watching me, voting for me in popularity polls and shit?¡± He sighed dramatically. ¡°Such knowledge is beyond my mortal ken, James. But I¡¯m telling you man, live as long as me and you learn that absolutely nothing is impossible. Stranger shit happens everyday.¡± ¡°Stranger than me being on an interdimensional reality television show?! Stranger than that, Kas?! Really?¡± ¡°No, no, give yourself some credit. You are definitely a Prestige TV premium cable series on Heavenly HBO. Heaven Box Office, if you will. And I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re pushing back so hard on this. You are literally being menaced by an overweight rat using high level ninjutsu. Other people have regular rat problems, you have anime rat problems.¡± ¡°That rat is a menace to everyone in this city, damnit! We don¡¯t know he isn¡¯t teaching his art to the other rats. They¡¯re social creatures, Kas. Can you imagine the havoc?¡± I stopped myself before launching into a full rant. ¡°Regardless, that can¡¯t be your only theory for what¡¯s happening to me.¡± He crossed his arms. ¡°You¡¯re just special, kid. Don¡¯t know what to say.¡± ¡°That literally doesn¡¯t explain anything. Do you have any thoughts on the mechanics of what might be happening?¡± ¡°Nope.¡± I glared at him silently in response. Kas laughed, putting his hands up in surrender. ¡°I¡¯m kidding. All I¡¯ve got are thoughts. I¡¯ll look into it, alright. Relax. Oh, hey!¡± He snapped. ¡°I¡¯ve got some tangibly useful advice. I was going to tell you about Dark Media. Check it out.¡± Kas threw me the rolled up newspaper he¡¯d whacked me with earlier, The Harbor Moon. He had said the paper was print edition only, an unthinkable business model in today¡¯s age. ¡°Lighthouse Press,¡± I read aloud, thumbing the symbol at the top corner of the frontpage. It looked so familiar, but I couldn¡¯t place where I¡¯d seen it before. The main story claimed that the New Jersey State Congress was set to repeal all obscenity laws to get ahead of the curve. Apparently, a bipartisan national repeal was all but certain to pass and be signed by the end of the year, and New Jersey was hoping to have businesses primed to take advantage of the new laws ahead of other States. I wasn¡¯t exactly sure what that entailed beyond setting up more pornography studios and strip clubs. The story, no author listed, claimed that the bipartisan push would be for less nanny-state oversight from the political right, and artistic freedom from the left, and that Senator Jilly Stevens of New Jersey was set to co-sponsor the federal bill after a successful rollout at the state level. The bill was also rewriting expectations for the globally important banks and credit processing companies to be less puritanical with their loans and services, deregulating them considerably in general ¨C no doubt the biggest reason for the legislation. ¡°This is insane,¡± I said, looking up from the paper. ¡°How have I not heard about this? It should be all over the news. What about religious organizations? I feel like they¡¯d be freaking out.¡± I was kind of freaking out myself. This had SkinDimensional¡¯s fingerprints all over it. ¡°Probably why it ended up in Dark Media,¡± said Kas. ¡°I¡¯m guessing there¡¯s too much profit riding on it to let any resistance to the repeal build up steam.¡± The implications of that were absurd; man screaming on the side of the street level crazy kind of conspiracy. ¡°But that¡¯s¡ªso every normal media organization is controlled then?¡± ¡°Of course. Are you serious?¡± I guess that made sense, I was in a world with immortal supernatural threats, but it was hard to wrap my head around the logistics of that. ¡°What about the internet weirdos that listen to CSPAN and read congressional bulletins? Shouldn¡¯t there be blogs and shit? I mean, how do you keep something like this under wraps?¡± Kas shrugged. ¡°They¡¯re probably posting about it. I wouldn¡¯t know, I don¡¯t trawl through obscure political blogs. Grandma and Grandpa Voter in Middle America don¡¯t either. And it¡¯s not like it¡¯s going to go viral, right?¡± Right, of course the internet would be tightly controlled in this world. There was a cyberpunk island dystopia in the Pacific. I shook my head, astonished. ¡°I just¡ªI don¡¯t know. This is a conspiracy of thousands of people.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll say it again, kid, nothing is impossible, and that¡¯s usually a bad thing. This one is pretty simple though; it¡¯s just basic economics. Take a guess how much I pay to get the Harbor Moon delivered twice monthly.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, a couple grand a year.¡± ¡°Try a month. Each issue is a thousand two hundred dollars. I¡¯m not subscribed to other Dark Media papers, but I figure that¡¯s about average for the privilege.¡± I whistled. ¡°Holy shit.¡± ¡°It makes sense when you think about it. There¡¯s a reason the obscenity repeal is a front page story and the chaos at the docks is on page three. It comes down to money. I already called my financial planner to move money into adult entertainment ¨C and marketing firms, since you know beer company ads are about to go fucking crazy. If I was really serious, I¡¯d ask around a few porn studios or nightclubs until I found one to buy into. Hell, me and you are pretty well suited to make money off this sort of thing. This is naturally going to mean an upswing in the film industry in general for the city, big money¡¯s about to move in after all. If you played your cards right, you could be a millionaire off the back of this. Obviously, other people are going to better suited to take advantage of different breaking stories.¡± I nodded. ¡°And why would anyone blow their chance at a golden ticket. It doesn¡¯t need to be a cohesive conspiracy if everyone involved is just looking out for their best interests.¡± ¡°Exactly. You think movie residuals paid for this place? With the way I spend money?¡± He shook his head. ¡°I went in twenty percent on a salvage company two months before the Governor announced the big coast clean-up initiative. We¡¯re talking a four hundred percent ROI within a year. Then they sold to a bigger company the next year. I bought this place cash.¡± I flipped to page three, to read about the chaos at the docks. The story wasn¡¯t long, a few hundred words at most, but it was more than I¡¯d read anywhere else. I lived fairly close to where the story reported a full on melee occurred, and yet hadn¡¯t heard a word. The paper didn¡¯t give specific names, or explicitly name the organizations involved, but reading through the lines, it looked like the Albanian mob¡¯s heavy hitters had fought with the private security aboard a small Greek freighter. There may not have been names, but there were enough details about the combatants, their weapons of choice and rough descriptions of their styles, that I could probably identify them in a fight. It finally clicked what I was looking at. ¡°This is a newspaper for the Underworld.¡± ¡°More or less. Definitely for the Martial side of it. Some things are never going to end up in writing, but it¡¯s there if you know what to look for.¡± Palpable relief relaxed a near week old tension in my shoulders. Finally, some much needed intel; I was no longer running completely blind through the night. The weight of ignorance had been wearing at me. I felt lighter. Confirming that the world was controlled and cloaked by Great Powers should have been an equal burden, but I had always known they were there. And before, they had loomed like invisible specters over the horizon, now at least, I could make out their shadows. I opened my mouth to ask Kas if I could borrow the papers, but he anticipated my question. ¡°I keep the older editions in boxes in the office closet. Here.¡± Kas threw me a key. ¡°I know you¡¯ll be fine, but I still felt bad about leaving you without a coach before the Qualifiers, so I prepared some surprises. The place is yours while I¡¯m away. And while I¡¯m here too, plenty of guest bedrooms.¡± ¡°Thanks, Kas, for everything. I was beginning to feel like a stranger in my own city.¡± ¡°Hey, no problem. You could even move in if you wanted. You know, ditch your rat infested concrete bunker in the slums for a luxurious Riverside brownstone.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not rat infested, there¡¯s only the one rat. And at least I can mine him for ninjutsu techniques. Your place is surrounded by art students and ten dollar coffee joints. Now that¡¯s an infestation.¡± Kas leaned forward in disbelief. ¡°You think you can mimic a rat¡¯s martial arts?¡± I smirked. ¡°Want to bet?¡± ¡°No, thanks. I already have a bad feeling about our first one. Speaking of,¡± he rolled his shoulders, ¡°ready to get this show on the road?¡± Coach Combo Kahn 2 Kas had a small home gym in his basement and a decent backyard, but neither were suited for a serious duel. I was here today to experience his signature move, the Six Star Meteor Kick, which involved launching your opponent into the air, juggling them, then sending them crashing down with crater-making force. I didn¡¯t think his ceilings or neighbors would think highly of the display. We walked instead to Kas¡¯s private gym, not far from his home in a nearby turn-of-the-century warehouse. Health Haus was a contender for the best gym in the city. A sports megaplex, it had three floors and a roof deck sectioned off into virtually every athletic training facility a man could need. There were two Olympic swimming pools, a rock climbing gym, basketball, tennis, and squash courts, and more. I¡¯d actually been pretty envious watching the commercials and tours of the gym when it had first opened eight or nine years ago. Nowadays I found the neutral aesthetic bland and uninteresting, and the clientele bougie and annoying. I scoffed at a sign for the ¡®Redlight Therapy¡¯ room in the lobby. We¡¯d passed multiple supercars lined up for the valet service outside the entrance. Health Haus was for people with more money than sense. ¡°You would come to a gym like this.¡± I said, teasing Kas. He pointedly ignored a couple in matching branded fitness clothing walking in with selfie-sticks and tripods. ¡°What, not enough bamboo for your kung fu sensibilities? I¡¯m sure we can find some bricks for you to balance on for a few hours if we ask.¡± ¡°You sure you want to go down that route, Karate Man? They got your signature punching trees here?¡± Kas led us past the front desk to a room labeled ¡®Membership Services¡¯. Inside were a few cubicles with workers handling clients both in person and on the phone. There was a sudden silence as we walked into the room. People¡¯s eyes flickered to the entrance and froze as they landed on me, glances becoming surprised and appreciative stares. It only took me making eye-contact with a few for everyone to snap back into what they had been doing, their faces a bit redder. This was the cost of being arrestingly handsome. A man waved us over and had me sit for a picture, clearly ready for us to arrive. He and Kas made small talk all the while, chatting about sports. I didn¡¯t fully understand what was happening until I was holding a warm, freshly made member ID card with my face on it and an expiration date set for next year. ¡°Wait a minute, I¡¯m not trying to sign up for this place. I thought this was for a guest pass.¡± ¡°Second surprise! It¡¯s too late, I already paid for and signed the contract on the membership.¡± I groaned. ¡°I really wish you¡¯d asked. How much is this? Now I¡¯m going to feel bad if I don¡¯t visit here.¡± The employee, a visible bodybuilding enthusiast, looked at me confused. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t you want to use Health Haus? We¡¯re easily the best gym south of the Beagle. I basically took this job for the free membership. This is Meathead Mecca.¡± Kas waved him off. ¡°Ah, don¡¯t mind him. He would rather train by doing backflips in a floorless unfinished apartment building than go to a professional gym.¡± I opened then closed my mouth. ¡°See. He can¡¯t even say anything because that¡¯s his literal position.¡± ¡°Are we going to duel or not?¡± Health Haus¡¯s designers had taken the century old steel shell of a warehouse and built it out with all the modern trappings of a high end luxury gym. The first floor around the entrance was a sprawl of machines and free weights, meant to be equal parts utility and spectacle. It was basically impossible to work out here and not be on camera, with at least a handful of people recording their sets at any given time. Kas took me past the weights to where a large open space was split between sprinting turf on one side and boxing rings on another. There were fewer gym-goers here, all six of the rings were unoccupied and less than a dozen people were sprinting or resting, but enough were passing by that I was sure some footage of our fight would make it out. I should have known Kas would pick somewhere with an audience. Black Harbor wasn¡¯t so overly full that we couldn¡¯t have found a private space to fight, if he¡¯d wanted that. ¡°Bit out in the open,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s not the same if you can¡¯t show-off. Besides, they don¡¯t have a fighting pit here ¨C liability, I assume. And if we fight in a squash court and ruin the floor, we¡¯ll be the assholes, but if I kick you through the ring because their equipment couldn¡¯t handle it, then they¡¯ll be the assholes.¡± Kas climbed into a ring and began stretching. ¡°It¡¯s been a while since I did any tournament fighting. Forgive me if I¡¯m rusty.¡± I leapt up and over the ropes, taking advantage of the jumping ability I¡¯d copied from Annie, and bowed, right fist forward and held in my hand in the traditional sign of respect. ¡°I¡¯m in your care. Thanks for agreeing to this.¡± He smirked. ¡°Thank me after we fight. You¡¯re good, kid, but I still don¡¯t buy that you can learn the Six Star Meteor just from a single duel.¡± I glanced at how much Experience I had saved. If I wasn¡¯t pretty sure that you couldn¡¯t kick a spirit, I could probably learn the technique immediately after seeing it once. But unfortunately, impressing Kas wasn¡¯t worth dying to the Hungry Ghost tomorrow. That said, I did have enough to spend a good chunk during the spar if I wanted. ¡°How do we start.¡± Kas stepped into a forward stance, weight mostly on his leading leg, poised to snap a kick with the back leg. ¡°Normally there would be a countdown. For now, just go when you¡¯re ready.¡± I wasted no time, dashing forward to test the old man¡¯s readiness. The instant our ranges overlapped, I felt the mental click and clack of dice determining who moved first. As Kas seemed to be setting up for a low roundhouse, I leapt up and torqued my entire body into a tornado kick, a hair faster than the karateka ¨C or so I thought. Kas circle stepped around me and into my side palms first the moment my body was fully in the air, and pushed. Surprised and defenseless, I flew out of the ring with a blast of air, rolling to a stop on the sprinting turf, nearly tripping the woman using it. ¡°I win,¡± called a smug Kas from the ring. The sprinter, a toned black woman in her late 20¡¯s, stumbled to a stop, and leant over my prone form. ¡°Oh my god, are you okay?¡± Kas had used a specialized feat for feinting that required specifically an Acting related Performance Skill to learn. ¡°Brilliant!¡± I said cheerily from the ground. Ignoring the startled woman, I kipped up to my feet. ¡°I¡¯m totally stealing your feints for Black City Style.¡± ¡°I¡¯d be honored! What did you think about that push, though? I learned it from a Sumo.¡± I hopped back onto the raised ring, front flipping over the ropes. ¡°Neat, but I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m going to specialize in pushing people just to get past pools.¡± The Qualifier was fought on raised stages up until the final bracket, top-16 in this case, at which point the action was moved to either a fighting pit or a cage. No one was tuning into mixed Sports Fighting to watch an Out-of-Bounds win. It was boring, and boring was antithetical to my whole vibe. Kas shook his head. ¡°Trust me, you¡¯re going to have to. The Qualifiers are going to have pools of forty people this year, and the Round Robin always takes place in a single day, no matter how many are signed up. Now the chances of you having to fight all thirty-nine matches is low, since a few will be injured out by then but it¡¯s still going to be a grueling slog. And you¡¯re going to want a firm lead at the end. A tie-breaker match at the end of thirty-plus fights is how a guy died of over-exertion at my first Qualifier.¡± I frowned, thinking back on my disappointment as a child watching Qualifier pools for the first time. Beyond the fact that watching two fighters try to push each other out of a ring while desperately conserving energy made for a boring watch, it flew in the face of what my mother had drilled into me about Sports Fighting. To her, it existed as a way to quell the cycle of violence. There were no weight classes or sex divisions, you were allowed to use any non-metal blunted weapon, and there were barely any rules beyond ¡®don¡¯t kill or maim your opponent¡¯. But this all served an ultimate purpose, to let warriors settle disputes and test themselves outside of the Martial World, where even friendly relationships could be fraught with peril. To fight for technical knock-outs was an insult to an otherwise noble pursuit. Still, thirty-nine honest fights in one day wasn¡¯t happening, and definitely not in time for the Qualifier. Plus, I wasn¡¯t bound by the rigor of my mother¡¯s martial path anymore. If Black City Kung Fu had to be cheap and annoying to make it into the finals, then that was how it had to be. The losers could chirp all they wanted. There was still the issue of entertainment value though. As impressive as the Sumo push Kas had used was, it was too simplistic to spam in a tournament without growing dull. I needed something more versatile. The Telekinesis tree was the obvious solution. There was a plethora of options for moving an opponent in battle naturally, and one immediately caught my eye. The only problem was that it required me to buy up the skill twice, which would put me way past what I¡¯d originally budgeted for what was supposed to be a relatively slow day. The point of this spar was to see Kas in action so I could dissect his moves. Ideally, I could push my mentor into showing off more than he intended without either of us getting injured. Actually, come to think of it, this was the sort of stunt that was sure to rile up the old man. Besides, the feat looked like way more fun than any of the sensible options, like buying my Martial Arts to 10 for the same amount of Experience. ¡°I guess you¡¯re right,¡± I said, spending the 95 EXP. ¡°Your push is too boring though.¡± I smirked, ¡°I¡¯ll have to come up with something better.¡± [Major Feat (Telekinesis)] Lance Pressure You are a tightly contained ball of incredible force. You can leverage much more power and speed the closer you are to something you are pushing away. In addition, you may use an extra Success on an unarmed attack to launch your target away from you. How fast something is sent flying in this manner depends on the mass of the target and your total number of Aura Dice, with each additional Success spent multiplying the force. If this would make the target collide with something, then they make another Defense roll against taking damage. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Kas clutched his chest and winced. ¡°Oof. Boring, huh? Careful, kid. Sumo¡¯s my favorite sport, you know?¡± ¡°The short matches let you bet more?¡± He shook his head and smiled. ¡°I know what you¡¯re doing, James.¡± ¡°Is it working?¡± Kas answered with a rapid, long step straight at me and a hard uppercut through my relaxed guard. I tucked my chin in and leaned to the side and would have dodged, except at the last second, Kas appeared to slide horizontally two inches without any tells. The fact that I couldn¡¯t see how he¡¯d moved like that meant that the technique was localized to his feet, which had been obscured by his attack. Luckily, it was close enough that my Force Armor absorbed it completely. He parried away my answering knife hand to the throat as though expecting it with a textbook example of Karate¡¯s iron circle defense. Kas¡¯s next roundhouse appeared to be faster, stronger, and more precise than his last attack, and as it collided with my ribs I got my first taste of the feats which had initially made him famous. Kassem ¡®Combo¡¯ Kahn pulled his kick ever so slightly to redirect his momentum into an overhead fist before I could respond. In system terms, he¡¯d used two of the extra Successes to make an immediate extra attack with a reduced dice pool using his Master feat, Follow-Up. Unfortunately for me, his other Master feat, Follow-Through, gave him an additional die for every prior attack he¡¯d landed in a fight without missing, canceling out the penalty. I staggered back, blinking off the skull shaking punch. Kas laughed and hopped from one foot to the other and rolled his shoulders. He backed off a bit to let me catch my breath. ¡°Ah, feels good to dust off the old techniques! We got to spar more often. What do you think of me so far?¡± To tell the truth, I felt humbled. My style was meant to be used in urban or enclosed environments with plenty of things to kick off or to use as distraction. In a straight up fight against a true master of martial arts, I stood no chance. That didn¡¯t mean I was going to make it easy on him. ¡°Think you should have kept up the pressure.¡± I had tricks too. As I circle stepped in and lifted my back leg for a front kick, I rolled an Agility + Performance (Stunts). He parried the kick with a downward chop, instincts honed from years of practicing the iron circle techniques ¨C I¡¯d been counting on that. I stumbled, my Successes on the performance making it seem as though I¡¯d lost my balance. Kas bought it, making no attempt to move as my hand reflexively snapped out to use him to catch myself from falling. He was smiling as I reached out. With my target unassuming and therefore defenseless, I rolled an Aura + Telekinesis uncontested as my palm made contact with the shorter man¡¯s chest. Twelve Successes due to the lucky Silver Dollar in my wallet ¨C poor bastard. Kas did have an Acrobatics related feat that let him try to correct his course when launched off his feet, but it was for nought against the outrageous result. He started to tuck his body and try to spin backwards with the blow, but that only led to him failing to fly over the ring and instead back-first into one of the ring¡¯s corner posts. The heavily padded wood snapped, breaking the tension in the ropes with a loud sound and rocking the entire ring off its base for a moment. A heavy thud as it slammed back down echoed through the gym. Kas hit the post dead on its center and instead of tumbling off and down, bounced forward, landing on his knees and hands. The back of his shirt was quickly reddening. There were gasps of horror from the now growing crowd of voyeurs. ¡°Holy shit!¡± I said, genuinely shocked at the double critical I rolled. ¡°Are you alright?¡± He let out a wet, rattling chuckle. I could have sworn I heard his ribs clattering as he did. ¡°Forgive me,¡± he said, rising shakily to his feet. ¡°That¡¯s my bad. I forgot I was standing across from the master of Black City Kung Fu. I ought to be showing you more respect.¡± Kas snapped a traditional Japanese bow, arms at his side, and returned to his stance. ¡°Let¡¯s do this properly, shall we?¡± I contemplated talking him down to take a breather, but it was a fool¡¯s endeavor. He was committed now, the look in his eyes said it all. I returned Kas¡¯s bow with the kung fu equivalent, fist in palm out. ¡°Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to help.¡± ¡°Thank me after.¡± He gave a toothy grin. ¡°So far I¡¯ve been sticking with what I used to qualify for the Black Harbor Martial Arts Tournament. This time I¡¯ll show you what I¡¯ve been up to since I quit sports fighting.¡± ¡°Oh boy. Lucky me.¡± He chuckled. ¡°Relax. I¡¯ll make it quick.¡± We¡¯d gathered a decent crowd at this point, all of whom were about to watch me get my ass beat. Ah well, that could be good for me at least. Maybe it would bring the heat down a bit. Plus, it would help Kas build up some modern day street cred, something he more than deserved. Kas¡¯s approach was much jerkier and more strained this time, a clear sign that I¡¯d taken him past at least one Injury Threshold. Judging by his tight breathing, he must have cracked a few ribs against the post. I switched to fighting purely defensively until I could get a feel for whatever tricks he was about to pull. Fighting defensively meant that instead of attacking on my turn I would roll a Martial Arts check to get ready for an attack and then add those Successes to my Defense roll. It made it all but impossible for a sole attacker of similar or even slightly greater skill level to land a hit without some kind of help. Unfortunately for me, Kas moved an instant before me, taking his ¡®turn¡¯ first. He stepped in diagonally and tried to mask a gut punch by loading his legs as if he was about to throw a low kick to my calf. His injuries slowed him just enough for me to turn his wrist away before his fist could make impact with my diaphragm. Then, simultaneously, I felt a glancing kick to my temple and the image and sensation of Kas in front of me vanished. The smell of his deodorant, his body heat, even the feeling of his wrist in my palm ceased to exist and instead I saw him slightly behind me out of the corner of my eye. I had no idea what happened ¨C even Style Maker was flummoxed. Thankfully the attack was light enough that he couldn¡¯t immediately tee off on me with a combo. I stepped away and held my arms up and ready for his next move. My preparatory Martial Arts roll was somewhat hampered though, normally it was an uncontested check, but against Kas I rolled against his ability to feint. That was another solid, affordable feat that I added to the growing list of ones I wanted to add into Black City Style. Smiling broadly, my mentor took a quick, short step and then launched into a mirror of the tornado kick I¡¯d thrown at the beginning of the match. I moved to try and catch his leg between my upper chest and arm with the intent of redirecting his attack into a brutal throw. I felt the reduced impact on my upper ribs as I checked the kicj, his body heat against me, and the texture of his sweatpants in my grip ¨C then, like before, the sensations disappeared, and I was taking a hard kick to the ankles that swept me off my feet and into the air. At least I¡¯d caught enough of his movements this time to see what had happened, though it wasn¡¯t about to matter much. The human brain is constantly predicting its environment. The senses after all, take time for the brain to process into perceptions. Without the brain filling in the blanks for us, we¡¯d be stumbling around, perpetually seeing a fraction of a second behind what was actually in front of us. You may have noticed this effect when particularly tired for instance, when the light switch on your wall appeared to move up an inch or two all of a sudden. That was your brain in real time adjusting where the light switch actually was versus where it, in its exhaustion, thought it would be. Kas had managed to feint so flawlessly that my brain completely failed to predict his movements. It had instead filled in the milliseconds between my senses and my perceptions with a completely false image of reality. He couldn¡¯t keep it up, eventually my nervous system would adjust to his shenanigans, but like I said, that didn¡¯t matter at this point. Another follow-up kick to my ribs lifted me into the air several more feet. I tried to curl my body into a ball to minimize the damage, but my Defense was ineffective. Kas kicked me again, sending us both up a few more feet. In the chaos of it all, I saw that old man was putting enough power into his attacks that he was fully airborne, held aloft by only raw skill in the martial arts. Each attack traced a rising vortex, with me caught in the middle as he battered me upward with the might of his signature move, the Six Star Meteor Kick. I had enough time between the fifth kick and the final to catch how high I was and reevaluate the decisions that had led to this moment. Was this truly worth the 5 Experience discount on buying Kas¡¯s techniques? The final, eponymous Meteor Kick was an axe kick from above. It landed squarely between my shoulder blades and sent me to ground with cratering force through the canvas covered plywood floor of the boxing ring, the wooden joists below, the hard concrete underneath, and into the blackness of unconsciousness. I came to lying on my back on the sprinting turf with Kas slapping my cheeks and splashing water onto me. Outside of his extremely amused expression, I was ringed by a circle of anxious and/or annoyed faces. The latter worn by gym employees. I turned my head to look at the pile of rubble that was the ring we¡¯d fought in. ¡°Whoops,¡± I said. Kas offered me a hand. I let him pull me to my feet, still extremely injured. ¡°You good?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be fine.¡± I gestured with my head to the ring. ¡°What kind of cheap ass gym did you sign me up for?¡± He shook his head dramatically. ¡°The rest of its alright. Definitely something wrong with that ring though; couldn¡¯t even handle a light spar. Maybe we just head to a park next time. Want to try out the sauna? I need to meditate these ribs unbroken.¡± We shuffled off, cheerfully ignoring the stunned expressions of the employees as we went. Maybe I would train here more. No Samurai 1 I sat on my couch and tried to think about dying. Tonight was the big night, an exorcism in Chinatown and my first real taste of supernatural horror. Any reasonable man would have been worried. Actually, no reasonable man would find himself in this position. After all, I had no idea what I was in for or how to fight a ghost, and the only expert opinion I¡¯d received thus far had told me I was going to die. It was almost like this was a really, really bad idea. A Taiwanese zombie action film played on my TV. It was strictly a comfort watch at this point for me, having exhausted any of the frights over repeated viewings. I loved the fight choreography and the cinematography though, and I learned or noticed something new each time. Alan would have preferred a quiet room or soft instrumentals to ponder to, but it worked differently for me now. I felt like I needed the ¡®background noise¡¯ of combat to occupy my mind enough to let me think freely. It was like there was this eager bird of prey in the back of my mind, watchful, ever watchful, and so, so hungry. If I didn¡¯t keep it satisfied, it would grow bored and start flapping inside the cage that was my skull, battering my poor, defenseless human brain for attention. Less than a week in this world and I already considered myself as much James as I did Alan. It wouldn¡¯t be long until I was a new man born from the synthesis of both, a process I was strictly in favor of. Neither of my two halves could survive the circumstances and situations sure to come on their own. James was bold and courageous, but was reckless and lived his life primarily by vibes. Alan was thorough and patient, but was gun-shy about big changes. Like Yin and Yang, only when I could reconcile both halves of me would I be whole. What were my friends like now, as their personalities merged with their characters? Victor basically played himself as a wizard in every game, presumably he would be relatively unadjusted. And Mars would surely have been a motorcycle riding shaman in the other world if it had been a real possibility, so I expected she would mostly be herself with certain personality traits turned up to eleven. But could Ted¡¯s eternal affability survive extended contact with Ryuukai, the dystopic corporate hellscape? Could his marriage to the extremely reserved Cici survive now that she was a seductress and assassin, off in an edgy anime version of Japan? Nasim had it the worst. I was confident in Nasim¡¯s ability to survive long enough to be rescued. He was a clever and resourceful man, funny and kind too ¨C someone I was proud to call a friend. If I had to bet on Nasim¡¯s ability to navigate a society of blood sorcerers and ritual sacrifice in a lost Mayan city, I¡¯d take the bet every time. But his character, Tor was a miserable fucking bastard. Nasim, who as a semi-practicing Muslim didn¡¯t drink or gamble, was now stuck in the body of an alcoholic, anti-social, berserker who was haunted by his decision to betray his country over greed. Tor Knudson was living on borrowed time long before our game/reality show got started. If he managed to survive the Mayans, then whatever amalgamation of Tor and Nasim that came out the other side was bound to be a mess. A large part of me wanted to rush off to Mexico, Japan, or Ryuukai. I was pretty sure that if I injected myself into any of those places, some questline would inevitably intersect with a party member¡¯s. But it was better for the group as a whole to have a single visible and obvious point for them to navigate by than to risk us accidentally passing each other like ships in the night. Becoming that lighthouse meant more than winning a single martial arts tournament. Fighting and combat sports were huge here, yes, but with that popularity came a more crowded field. The Black Harbor Martial Arts Tournament was one of the most prestigious and its winners were some of the most highly recognized fighters in the world. But if I wanted to guarantee my name penetrated even the far corners of this world, I would have to become a literal living legend. I needed to stand above the rest. Yesterday¡¯s spar had been eye-opening in that regard. Kas had schooled me quite badly, though I wasn¡¯t too put out by the results. My opponent had thirty-plus years of experience on me and was specialized for one-on-one, no-nonsense fighting, whereas I was an environmental fighter on a flat plane with no distractions. But still, in a little over a month I needed to be at a level where I could comfortably stand my ground against someone like him. Most of my opponents were going to be professional or aspiring professional tournament fighters, not adventurers who happened to need the win like me. If I wanted to be able to beat specialists at their own game in a month, I needed to keep up my current insane pace, to keep pushing myself past my limits, throwing myself into danger, even, no, especially if it seemed like a terrible idea. ¡°And that¡¯s why,¡± I said to the empty room, two fingers on each of my temples, ¡°if you think about it, this ghost hunt is, actually, a great idea.¡± I leapt up and pumped my fist, having cleared the last of my doubts. ¡°Yes! I knew I could get there in the end.¡± Hands on my hips I looked around my empty basement apartment smugly. ¡°All things considered, arbitrarily deciding to inject myself into Maki¡¯s ghost situation was both proactive and, I would argue, incredibly responsible of me ¨C neighborly even. I¡¯m practically Chinese Spider-Man over here.¡± Huo Laoshi picked me up from my apartment at around 4:30 in his cab. He was dressed in a formal grey kimono and haori jacket, though he still wore his ever present flat wool cap. I hurried into the front seat. It was another rainy afternoon in Black Harbor. ¡°Looking good, Huo Laoshi. Making me feel underdressed.¡± ¡°Your whole generation is underdressed. In my day, it used to be people only wore sports clothing to exercise. Now young men spend all day in their sweatpants. And young women! Don¡¯t get me started; practically naked in those skintight stretchy pants. And it¡¯s ¡®Sensei¡¯ today, James. We¡¯ll be doing Japanese calligraphy. Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll adapt quickly. How are you with traditional Hanzi?¡± I laughed. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re old enough for that to be true, Huo Sensei.¡± I switched over to Japanese. ¡°And I¡¯ll be alright. My Japanese is pretty good, right? I taught myself over the weekend.¡± He squinted at me through his thick square glasses. ¡°Eh?! What the hell? It¡¯s better than mine. What do you mean you taught yourself over the weekend?¡± Learning new languages after character creation in the game was as simple as buying the appropriate Linguistics skill Dice, 3 for conversational, 4 for fluency, 5 to be indistinguishable from a native. Since I was hoping to walk through a Shinto seat of power later without getting cursed on accident, I thought it was wise to invest 30 Experience total to get to 3 Dice in Linguistics (Japanese). Plus, it was the perfect level of proficiency to sell my presence there in the first place to Maki¡¯s parents. I wasn¡¯t a Youxia from Chinatown there to help their daughter with her vendetta, I was just a friend of Huo¡¯s who was trying to improve his Japanese to full fluency. ¡°I¡¯m kidding, I¡¯m kidding,¡± I lied. ¡°It¡¯s something I¡¯ve been working on for a while. There are lots of cool old martial arts manuals at the Little Tokyo flea market if you can read Japanese.¡± ¡°Ah, yes,¡± he nodded approvingly. ¡°I¡¯d call your reason strange, but I¡¯m sure others would say the same about learning Japanese for the calligraphy. It¡¯s good that you¡¯re learning other languages though, very sensible. And polite too; you should see the way people smile when their cab driver speaks the same language as them. Everyone likes to feel heard.¡± The drive to the Shinto shrine in Little Tokyo was pleasant if plagued by traffic. We were headed there during rush hour and the city¡¯s semi-recent commitment to walkability meant there were fewer shortcuts for Huo to snake through. I didn¡¯t mind, and enjoyed shooting the shit with my old calligraphy teacher. I was as ready for tonight as I could be, with my resolve affirmed and over 400 Experience in reserve. My only major outstanding responsibility, Annie, was relatively taken care of. We had dual cultivated around lunch and sneaked in a training and filming session before she had to go to work. She¡¯d left my place with 5 Dice in Martial Arts. Even if I died tonight, Annie would have the firm foundation needed to become a great fighter. She didn¡¯t have any of the feats that formed the core of my style unfortunately, but hey, it was the best I could do. I¡¯d also left an envelope addressed to my mother on my kitchen counter with a request for her to train Annie. With luck, it would go unopened. ¡°Oh, I almost forgot. Huo Sensei, would you mind not mentioning anything about Bell St. in Chinatown the other night when we get in there?¡± I asked when we got near our destination. ¡°Sure, sure,¡± he said, waving it off. I paused, having expected him to at least ask why. He seemed to sense my reaction and followed up with, ¡°I¡¯ve been a cab driver in this city for thirty-five years, James. You aren¡¯t the first youxia I¡¯ve driven around.¡± ¡°Ah, thanks.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the only one who is still alive though.¡± ¡°Ah, thanks,¡± I repeated in a drier tone. He patted my leg amiably, eyes still on the road. ¡°It¡¯s sad for old men like me to see the youth throw their lives away, so make sure you survive. Okay?¡± ¡°Ha. I¡¯ll try ¨C for you, Huo Laoshi.¡± He sipped his teeth. ¡°Could be firmer than that, boy. At least try to make me believe it.¡± I smiled. ¡°Sometimes a man¡¯s got to die for what he believes. There¡¯s no tragedy in that.¡± He chuckled. ¡°So manly. I¡¯m glad I don¡¯t have daughters. You¡¯d break their poor hearts. Well, you better give me a call if you need a ride. Or else I won¡¯t forgive your ghost.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep you on speed dial.¡± Black Harbor¡¯s sole Shinto shrine was in a former turn-of-the-century water treatment facility that had long since been renovated and retrofitted with modern conveniences. The frame of it was still a brick and concrete bunker though, meant to survive potential explosions from the dangerous quantities of chemicals it once housed. There were few windows and intimidating iron-spiked metal gates barring its wide alleyway to its side. They had modified its entrance considerably. The building was not far back from the sidewalk, so in order to create a proper entranceway, they had taken down the doors and turned part of the foyer into a space open to the world with a tall, vaulted ceiling and a torii gate in front of it. Two large stone dog statues guarded either side of it. The ground around and beyond the gate was covered in smooth stones, meant to purify the visitors as they walked on them, if I recalled correctly. The new doorway into the building was partially open. It looked like they had imported authentic Japanese doors. To one side of the entrance was a trough with moving water, and to the other was a metal lattice to which people had tied off their bad luck fortunes to. The wooden charms hanging from the torii gate occasionally tinked off each other lightly with the breeze as we approached. Little Tokyo was on the forefront of the city¡¯s push to become pedestrianized, so we¡¯d parked in one of the new parking garages that ringed its borders and walked in. Huo stopped me before we walked under the torii. ¡°Have you ever been here before, or another shrine, James?¡± ¡°No. Wanted to, always thought it looked cool.¡± ¡°It¡¯s super cool. They did a great job. But there¡¯s a proper way about entering to be respectful. It¡¯s important to show respect; we¡¯re guests here. First, we bow before passing through the gate, next, we always pass through the side of the gate. The middle is where the kami walk.¡± I watched Huo and diligently followed along. With the knowledge that kami were real in this world, and the confirmation that there were some residing in this building, I was on high alert. I bowed low and stepped through on the left of the gate, trying to communicate as much respect as possible with my body language. My foot passed beneath the torii and a great, whooshing gust of wind bellowed forth from the open doors to the shrine. The charms above me clattered up a storm and Huo had to clutch his hat tight to his head to keep it from flying off. Then, quickly as it started, the wind died down. A strong and ominous feeling of being watched lingered. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Huo said nervously, ¡°I think Kami-sama is excited to meet you, James. Come, next we purify ourselves.¡± I mechanically followed along with Huo Laoshi¡¯s instructions on how to use the ladle by the water trough to purify my hands and mouth, but my mind was elsewhere. I took a shot in the dark at extending my Qi into my senses, not even really sure where to begin. Carefully, I pushed my Qi into my eyes, ears, and nose, praying that I didn¡¯t accidentally fry my sinuses before an important mission, and rolled an Aura + Perception to make an improvised maneuver. A critical success as a result of the Silver Dollar in my wallet gave me seven Successes. The shrine began to brighten rapidly under my sight, until I had to squint to make out anything past the open doors at all. My nose and tongue were assaulted by a variety of strong odors, most of which tasted like nature, wet soil, and crystal clear mountain waters, but a few of which were truly rancid. The latter of which were almost, but not entirely, overpowered by the former. ¡°interesting¡­¡± whispered a dozen soft voices into my ears. I let my Qi retract and returned to normal, shaking off the goosebumps that had crawled up my neck. ¡°Ey, you alright? Your eyes were glowing.¡± Huo had a hand on my forearm. I had raised it without realizing to shield my eyes from the light. ¡°Yeah. Sorry about that.¡± ¡°Huo Sensei!¡± A chipper voice from within the shrine cut off Huo¡¯s response. A teen girl in a miko outfit waved. Our eyes met, and noticing me for the first time, she froze in her gesture, her eyes widening. Huo gave my arm a reassuring squeeze before turning around. ¡°Ah, Susy! So good to see you! This is one of my old students.¡± He gestured to me. ¡°James Li. He¡¯s an actor now. He was the chicken in that one funny commercial. What was that commercial for, James?¡± ¡°Theo¡¯s Country Fried.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the one! Awful food, huh?¡± ¡°God awful,¡± I agreed. ¡°Fun commercial though.¡± ¡°A man in a chicken suit whooping ass is good-old fashioned comedy.¡± He nodded. ¡°James, this is Susy Sunada. The Sunada and Ishida families have managed this shrine since its founding in 1928. Susy wants to be a singer. Do you think you could help her?¡± ¡°Haven¡¯t quite broken into Hollywood yet, Huo Sensei.¡± We walked into the building proper. The interior opened into a short hallway. Apart from the river stones on the ground, this section of the shrine had more of a community center look than something classically Japanese. The concrete walls were lined with art made by children in their various programs. Two cork boards were pinned full of flyers, business cards, schedules, and the like. One of the walls had tall windows exposing a Western looking office on the other side. Susy was still frozen, arm in the air, her smile looking more pained. Seeing my eyes track to her raised arm, she snapped out of it, grabbing her arm and pinning it to her side. Her face turned a bright scarlet red. She mumbled a barely audible, ¡°hi¡±. Oh good, she was just crushing. I¡¯d been worried that she¡¯d noticed my Aura maneuver. I switched to Japanese. ¡°Hello, nice to meet you. Would it be alright if I spoke Japanese? I¡¯m trying to practice.¡± The direct yes-or-no question did the trick and flipped her brain back on. ¡°Yes, of course,¡± she responded in Japanese. ¡°Wow, yours is pretty good too.¡± ¡°He¡¯s impressive, no?¡± said Huo, switching over as well. ¡°It¡¯s not fair. Smart and handsome, he¡¯s a villain, isn¡¯t he, Susy-chan?¡± I barked a genuine laugh. Susy giggled into her hand, the humor relaxing her a bit. ¡°I¡¯m only doing it for dumbass reasons though.¡± ¡°It¡¯s true. Be careful around him, Susy. He¡¯s a fighting maniac. It¡¯s his first time in the shrine though. You should show him how to make an offering. I¡¯ll go upstairs and start getting the class ready.¡± Susy froze once more, mouth open. She looked torn between excitement and terror at the thought of being alone with me. A short, plump woman in a formal kimono rescued her by slipping out of the door to the office with a soft smile. We took one look at each other and in an instant and I knew that she could sense my superhuman Qi, and that she knew, that I knew, she could sense my Qi. ¡°Huo Sensei,¡± she said with a slight head bow, ¡°it¡¯s good to have you back again. Susy, please take Sensei up and make him some tea.¡± ¡°It¡¯s always a pleasure to share the joy of calligraphy, Ishida-san. I hope you don¡¯t mind I brought my old student, James. I used to tutor him and his sister when he was as small as my waist, you know. Look at him now, so tall!¡± ¡°I heard. You are of course welcome here. Everyone is welcome to our services, and even if that were not true, Huo Sensei is a beloved member of our community. We are happy to receive you. Come, let me show you to the bell.¡± Her tone was that of a suggestion, perfectly polite and kind, but there was a quiet power in her voice and a sense of command about her. The other two, sensing they were dismissed, departed. ¡°Thanks,¡± I said earnestly. ¡°I always wanted to come inside anytime I passed, but I didn¡¯t want to intrude.¡± ¡°You should have. As long as they are respectful, all are invited. The Kami love offerings after all.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± I hesitated, wondering if it was rude to bring up. ¡°The wind when I entered was a little intimidating¡­¡± She nodded understandingly. ¡°Yes, I would apologize, but it isn¡¯t my place. You did nothing wrong, nor was it our intent to scare you. As you walked under the torii, you passed from the mortal world into the sacred, and caught Kami-sama¡¯s attention. That wind you felt was an aftereffect of so many of their eyes turning upon you at once.¡± I rubbed the back of my head and chuckled nervously, slipping into my earnest meathead persona with ease to make a Charisma roll. Another seven Successes ¨C an auspicious start to the night. ¡°Haha, I think that makes me even more scared.¡± She hid a conspiratorial smile behind her hand and patted my arm comfortingly. ¡°That¡¯s a sign of your intelligence, Li-san. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll protect you.¡± ¡°Please, Ishida-san, call me James. I¡¯m a really laidback kind of guy.¡± ¡°Oh, is that so? I should introduce you to my daughter, Maki. She could use a friend like you in her life to calm her down a little. And please call me Ai, then.¡± ¡°Thanks, Ai-san. Are you sure she wouldn¡¯t just find me frustrating?¡± ¡°Hmm, that might be good for her too, I think.¡± We followed the stone path to the end of the hallway. Ai led me with a single hand on my elbow, a surprisingly informal gesture. I didn¡¯t know enough about the woman to tell if it was a product of my good roll and my suite of social feats, or if that was her demeanor towards visitors in general. She was a community leader, I supposed. I did a double take once we¡¯d pushed past the double doors. It was like I¡¯d stepped into an ancient Japanese courtyard. The stone path wove around Zen gardens, koi ponds, and little wooden buildings in the traditional style. There were even bamboo and Japanese maple trees growing from the ground, fed by the bright square lights in the tall ceiling above. Without a close examination, you could easily believe you were in a mountain forest in Japan. ¡°Wow,¡± I whispered, momentarily awestruck. In here, I truly felt like I¡¯d entered another world. ¡°Amazing.¡± Maki¡¯s mother smiled up at me and patted my hand. ¡°Thank you. It was the work of many generations. Many families thought they¡¯d left their Kami behind when they left the old country, but gods are not so easily abandoned, nor are they limited by mortal boundaries. We came together to build this place for them.¡± ¡°It¡¯s beautiful. Please forgive me for any transgressions. I¡¯m completely new to all of this.¡± ¡°Is that right? I find that hard to believe.¡± She gave me a look to remind me she knew of my awakened Qi. ¡°I understand but¡­¡± I conjured a miniscule smokeless flame in the palm of my hand, shaping it to look like a lotus flower before blowing it out. ¡°This is all self-taught, I¡¯m afraid, and an extremely recent development.¡± She stopped in her tracks and furrowed her brow in disbelief. ¡°I believe you, but are you saying your mother didn¡¯t tell you anything about the Sacred World?¡± ¡°You know my mother?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve met on rare occasion, but I can¡¯t say that I know her well. I¡¯m shocked that she wouldn¡¯t prepare her son for the danger he would face though.¡± ¡°Hah, that¡¯s my fault really. I decided to leave the school to start my own style, so it¡¯s not really her responsibility anymore.¡± She shook her head sadly and started leading me forward again. ¡°You martial artists love to live hard lives, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Yeah!¡± I made a fist and smiled broadly. ¡°It¡¯s the only way to get stronger!¡± My response seemed to age the woman. She sighed, her eyes growing distant, her expression thoughtful. I could see the loss settle onto her shoulders, practically dragging her into the earth. I knew enough about older Asian women to know my words would do nothing, but I did take her hand from my elbow and held it. Ai seemed shocked at the gesture and the system immediately asked for a Charisma + Empathy roll from me. I did well enough that after a few seconds she squeezed my hand gratefully and kept walking. Ai showed me the offering shrine with its bell and box for donations. We bowed once more at the torii in front of it. ¡°Your Japanese is quite good. Are you familiar with the concept of kotodama?¡± she asked when explaining the donation box. I shook my head. ¡°No, sorry.¡± ¡°It¡¯s difficult to explain briefly. We Japanese tend to prescribe great power to words. You are, I¡¯m sure, familiar with ¡®kiai¡¯, the shout of warriors. This is an example of kotodama in use. For now, I will only say that some words are lucky and some are unlucky, and therefore some donations are lucky and unlucky. Five yen, or five dollars in America, is the typical donation because the word five sounds similar to the word for good luck. Feel no obligation to donate, but I would avoid donating ten dollars, for the opposite reason.¡± I put a fiver into the box, rung the bell, and followed along as Ai showed me how to do the traditional two bows, two claps, one bow form of worship. There was no noticeable change in sensations when I did so, but without physical contact I had no spiritual sense to speak of really, and didn¡¯t want to risk another improvised maneuver. For now, I was assuming that me and the Kami here were all good, or at the very least, I wasn¡¯t leaving with any curses. Ai stopped me before we could leave the shrine¡¯s interior courtyard, pulling me over to ostensibly take a look at the koi. I could tell she was working herself up to ask something. I let the small talk we¡¯d been filling the space with die down and stood in amicable silence. After a minute or two, she said, ¡°James-san, I know this is very forward of me, but I must ask you something as a mother.¡± Finally, I was wondering when my feat Can I Trouble You? was going to trigger. It had been almost a week. ¡°Of course. To ignore a mother¡¯s earnest plea is against my martial Dao.¡± ¡°Is that so? This might be a headache for you.¡± I waved her off. ¡°It¡¯s fine, really.¡± She looked wistfully at my reflection in the pond, the activity of the koi disturbing it slightly. ¡°My, my, it¡¯s like he¡¯s here with me again.¡± Turning to me directly she said, ¡°James, my daughter has been very depressed these past few years. Do you think you could reach out to her during Huo Sensei¡¯s class?¡± ¡°Is she pretty?¡± I blurted out. There was a long pause. Ai¡¯s mouth dropped. ¡°Kidding, kidding. Haha, sorry. I don¡¯t do well with serious moods. Is that all? Of course, I¡¯ll reach out. I love making new friends.¡± The laughter started small, just a little chortle that she covered with her hand, but rose until she was clutching at her chest, laughing so hard that her eyes were watering. There were others in the courtyard with us, who turned to look at the scene. ¡°You are a good man,¡± she said, wiping away a tear with her sleeve. ¡°Go upstairs now. And drive my daughter crazy, would you? It¡¯ll be good for her heart.¡± No Samurai 2 The double doors marked for the stairs actually opened into a large space with benches and shelves for everyone to take off their shoes. There were even complementary cheap flip-flops for those uncomfortable going barefoot. I appreciated the familiar sensibilities and made a note that the shelves had no locked cubbies; that was a level of communal trust that was vanishingly rare in Black Harbor. I joined a few stragglers, two women and their children, for Huo¡¯s class, identifying them by the large calligraphy pads they¡¯d brought. The youngest proudly showed off the jar of rainbow gel ink she¡¯d brought to me. We made small talk in Japanese as they led me to the classroom. Being an incorrigible extrovert, I did it without really thinking or noticing, but these little, day-to-day interactions with virtually everyone I met were also the in-world justification for ¡®Locals (Black Harbor)¡¯ being one of my Allies. Mostly, I just found it relaxing to talk to people, strangers or not, something Alan could never have related to. Looking at the second floor of the building, you could have easily been forgiven for thinking it was somewhere in Japan. Tatami mats for floors, rice paper wall dividers, paper lanterns, and appropriate d¨¦cor covered completely any hints of the building¡¯s former industrial use. Even my undeveloped spiritual sense was telling me to tread lightly here, especially around some of the older artwork. One vase, upon which two tigers fighting had been painted seemed to draw my eyes towards it. Not that that alone guaranteed something supernatural afoot; I¡¯d been preoccupied with tigers as of late. ¡°Ah, James!¡± called Huo as I entered. ¡°I was just telling Maki-chan about you.¡± He grabbed me by the shoulder and presented me proudly to the woman. ¡°This is my former student, James Li.¡± Maki Ishida was a haunted young woman, though I couldn¡¯t say why exactly I thought that when looking at her. She was beautiful and appeared to be put together. Her hair was straight, black and shiny in a way that only regular upkeep to maintain, her sweater clean, she even wore jewelry, but there was a flatness to her eyes and expression that gave me the sense that she hadn¡¯t smiled in years. I felt like a cow ready for slaughter at an auction as she turned to examine me. Her cold eyes picked me apart. Whatever she saw in me must have satisfied her because relief flickered across her face before vanishing as quickly as it came. ¡°Ishida Maki,¡± she said, ¡°Huo Sensei tells me you¡¯re here to practice your Japanese.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right! Please forgive me if I butcher your beautiful language.¡± I bowed a little. ¡°No, it¡¯s¡­good.¡± Maki seemed annoyed, if anything, at my easy smile, but I could see her estimation of me rise at hearing my Japanese. Rarely had positive attention like that made me uncomfortable, but I had to suppress a shiver at the woman¡¯s robotic evaluation. ¡°Maki-chan, a few of my ink jars broke in transit yesterday,¡± said Huo. ¡°James doesn¡¯t have one, and I¡¯m not sure if I have enough for everybody. Could he share yours?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± Maki led me over and knelt down at her foldout calligraphy table in the front corner of the room, deliberately choosing the area with the worst view of the instructor¡¯s easels and therefore the bulk of our classmates. As I waited for Huo to give me the brushes and paper I¡¯d be using, I got a text from her. ¡®Assume you¡¯re being watched.¡¯ I sent a thumbs up emoji in response. Maki had been forbidden from pursuing the particular ghost we were hunting tonight. I hadn¡¯t been told why, but I had a pretty good hunch after meeting with her mother below. In order to make the hunt work, I needed to visibly charm her enough to justify her bringing me back tonight to show me the shrine afterhours. Considering I was sitting next to the emotional equivalent of Fort Knox, that was going to be a challenge. The first part of the class didn¡¯t leave much room for conversation. Huo picked a kanji character and walked us through it twice. Once just to learn the stroke order and then again with some style and emotion. Todays was the kanji for ¡®attack¡¯, something I was pretty sure he chose for my benefit. As much as I might have vibed with the character as a concept, I didn¡¯t have the Calligraphy skill and was rolling only raw Finesse. I didn¡¯t embarrass myself with my two Successes, but I wouldn¡¯t be winning any awards either. The second half was more freeform. Huo put up a short phrase as well as a lengthier poem in simple script. We could choose to either keep working on the character from earlier or try one of the other two. Huo flitted around the class with suggestions, and we were encouraged to talk to our neighbors about our technique and thoughts. ¡°Huo Sensei said you were learning Japanese in order to read the martial arts pamphlets at the flea market. Was that a joke?¡± asked Maki quietly. ¡°I¡¯m always trying to improve. You¡¯re looking at a genuine, er¡­¡± unfortunately the closest Japanese word to Youxia, meaning literally ¡®Wandering Vigilante¡¯ was probably Ronin, which had dishonorable connotations, ¡°warrior.¡± She gave me a side-eye. ¡°You know those are scams, right?¡± ¡°Of course. I like the challenge of making flashy nonsense moves into truly dangerous techniques.¡± ¡°Is that even possible?¡± ¡°For me it is. I can give you an example. Did you watch any of the ¡®Road to¡¯ series?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t watch fiction.¡± ¡°Ah. Well, you remember Vega from Street Fighter?¡± ¡°Of course not.¡± ¡°Right, yeah, should have probably assumed that. I guess you¡¯ll have to take my word for it. Haha¡­¡± I let out a long exhale. Christ, woman, you could give me something to work with. We continued in awkward silence for a moment. I¡¯d deliberately chosen the hardest of the three options, the full poem, so I could have plenty of excuses to ask Maki for help. I didn¡¯t have the skill to choose to do badly, as strange as that might sound, at least not without giving the game away, so I gave it an honest attempt for my first go. One Success ¨C I hadn¡¯t spilled ink everywhere and the text was mostly legible, but beyond that it was pretty bad. ¡°Yeesh. I might need some of your help here, Ishida-san.¡± She shook her head at the sight. ¡°I thought samurai were supposed to value calligraphy as a skill. Why did you choose the hardest assignment if you didn¡¯t know what you were doing?¡± I held up my finger. ¡°One, I like a challenge. But let¡¯s be clear here, I am not a samurai. Do you see me walking around with a sword like some kind of maniac?¡± Her head snapped to look at me with more emotion than she¡¯d displayed all evening. ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean? You have something against swords and samurai?¡± ¡°Swords are great, very cool ¨C I love swords. I mean look at me, that should be obvious. But you see a guy walking around the street with a sword and what do you think? I think, hey look, that guy¡¯s nuts.¡± ¡°I think, ¡®There goes a diligent swordsman,¡¯ when I see one, which I see fairly often,¡± she said tersely. I confess, I didn¡¯t expect the woman to be so defensive about swords, nor did I expect that I would ever in my life be taking the anti-sword position in an argument. ¡°Okay, fair. But imagine you live in a neighborhood where there isn¡¯t a kendo or aikido gym every two blocks, like say, any other neighborhood. Say you see a guy grocery shopping in Upper Debney with a sword ¨C or hey! Imagine you¡¯re at your college library or cafeteria and some dude¡¯s walking around with a katana on his belt. You don¡¯t think, ¡®What¡¯s that guy¡¯s deal? I hope he isn¡¯t a maniac.¡¯?¡± Maki bristled. ¡°It¡¯s not like there are cubbies for swords outside the library or cafeteria. I would assume he lives a busy schedule.¡± ¡°What? No shot. There is absolutely no way you mean that. Okay, how about this, what if I had come here today with twin curved sabers on my back?¡± She shrugged. ¡°If I see a samurai with their swords in the shrine, I assume they¡¯ve brought them to be blessed.¡± ¡°But, wha¡ªguh! I refuse to believe that¡¯s the majority opinion! And again, I¡¯m no samurai.¡± Maki frowned. ¡°And what¡¯s wrong with samurai?¡± I had to switch back to English, my Japanese was not quite there yet. ¡°Samurai were a military caste. They existed by their lord¡¯s will. I¡¯m a Youxia ¨C these fists belong to the people.¡± ¡°Hmph, I think you¡¯re mischaracterizing both the noble samurai and the homeless vigilantes that once terrorized country sides around the world. But regardless, I imagine your opinion would differ if you used a weapon. You only feel this way because you rely on your unarmed abilities.¡± ¡°Wrong,¡± I said smugly. One thing I loved about this athletic windbreaker, was how deep the zippable pockets were. I reached into my right pocket and pulled out my titanium nunchaku. ¡°See, concealable weaponry! You had no idea I was armed. That¡¯s a much better place to be in at the start of a fight.¡± The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Maki jumped a little, startled by the reveal. ¡°Eh! What¡¯s wrong with you? Are those nunchaku?¡± My jaw dropped. ¡°You¡ªwhat. What is happening right now?¡± ¡°You walk around with metal nunchaku in your pocket? Is there something wrong with your head?¡± I searched desperately for a hint of irony on Maki¡¯s face but came up short. ¡°How on Earth are these worse than if I had brought two swords!?¡± There were snickers from the class behind us. I shot a very amused Huo an apologetic look. She scoffed but didn¡¯t respond. After a long pause, she said, ¡°You¡¯re not good enough at calligraphy to let your emotions guide the brush as you go. You need to clearly visualize what you¡¯re trying for and then take your time. Get more paper from sensei and then start again with the easier phrase.¡± I blinked at her statement, having forgotten what we¡¯d been doing, and closed my agape mouth. ¡°Ah, good point. Thank you.¡± There was a rising impulse to a die or two in Craft (Calligraphy), but I didn¡¯t want it hanging out on my character sheet to remind me of a bad decision. My life was on the line tonight; I wasn¡¯t wasting even 5 Experience on a skill I didn¡¯t actually need. Thus far, I had not actively tried to put the moves on Maki, instead just talking to her like I would one of my friends; after all, we were supposed to be working together on this, I thought. But she wasn¡¯t making it easy for me, and that was starting to wound my pride. As I consciously considered how I would actually woo a woman like Maki, I heard the mental clatter of dice, rolling my stacked Charisma + Seduction pool. I thanked the Lucky Penny and my Silver Dollar, as they gave me the third seven Success roll of the night. ¡°You¡¯re quite good,¡± I said, taking a different approach. ¡°Is that a function of being a Miko? I think I recognize your style from a few of the hanging charms I passed on the way here.¡± That was a complete bluff, based only on the fact that most of the charms were made of paper and that there were enough of them that multiple people were likely responsible for them. It seemed to work though. The question caused Maki to make an error in her stroke as she looked at me with new appreciation. ¡°That¡¯s¡­right. You have a sharp eye. It¡¯s one of our responsibilities.¡± Maki sighed at the small error. She moved to unclip the page from the desk and move onto a clean one. I grabbed her wrist gently, perhaps following some instinct born from my good social roll. ¡°Wait,¡± I said, ¡°you should try to fix it first. It¡¯s a class, right? Things will never all go as planned no matter how good you become ¨C adjusting course and correcting your mistakes is a sign of true mastery.¡± I used my expression to convey the subtext. ¡®Perfectionism will get us killed tonight,¡¯ I said with my eyes. Maki maintained eye contact for a moment past when it was awkward before nodding, nonverbally agreeing with both my spoken and unspoken message. I continued as she quietly contemplated her work. ¡°My sister and I were lucky enough to have Huo Sensei come to our home and tutor us. Most of the American-born kids I grew up with went to ¡®Chinese School¡¯ a few days a week as a way to learn how to read and write in Hanzi. If they were still enrolled by high school, then they¡¯d spend a lot of that time doing traditional arts or learning traditional musical instruments. Does the shrine serve in that sort of cultural education role?¡± ¡°A little, but not to the extent you¡¯re describing,¡± answered Maki. She paused to think before continuing the answer. Between her intense focus on her calligraphy and the agreeable topic of conversation, her walls started to lower. Once I had my hook in her, I began to reel her in like a patient fisherman. I kept up my questions about growing up in Little Tokyo ¨C my curiosity genuine, for what it was worth ¨C and occasionally offered tidbits about my background in Chinatown. As much as Maki may not have wanted to admit it, we had a lot in common growing up in such strict, distinctly foreign, upbringings, her in the Shinto shrine, and I in my family¡¯s martial arts. She also knew more than I was expecting about the various Chinese provinces and the historical waves of immigration which shaped the culture of Chinatown. It turned out that East Asian Anthropology was one of Maki¡¯s two majors in college, along with the more sensible choice of Accounting. I never got her smiling, and she was still visibly annoyed by my jokes, but by the end of the class our conversation flowed smoothly, and I could tell that she was less apprehensive about me in general. Throughout it, I had made sure the topic revolved around Little Tokyo. So it felt natural when I asked, ¡°It¡¯s crazy how little I really know about this neighborhood despite living in the city all my life. If it¡¯s not too forward, do you think you¡¯d mind showing me around?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know¡­¡± she said. I kept my expression as neutral as possible, but my widening eyes and the hint of a manic smile said, ¡®You can¡¯t be serious. What are you doing?¡¯ Her lips curled up ever so slightly. Her smug expression responded, ¡®You said all I had to do was let you woo me.¡¯ I had to bite back a laugh. The audacity of the woman ¨C for the first time tonight, I was hit with genuine romantic desire. What that said about me, I didn¡¯t want to examine. ¡°I¡¯ll even pay for dinner,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve got to have some proper sushi while I¡¯m Little Tokyo. What do you say?¡± ¡°Hmm¡­I suppose that¡¯s fair.¡± ¡°You are unbelievable,¡± I groaned once we were outside the shrine and a bit away. Thankfully, the rain had died down to where it was just an ever-present mist. It was firmly sweater weather and traversing the rooftops would be treacherous tonight, but at least it wasn¡¯t pelting down like it had been this morning. ¡°Why did my mother give you that strange smile?¡± she asked suspiciously, squinting at me. ¡°Because I¡¯d already charmed her into wanting to introduce us. She said you needed a friend. All you had to do was be even slightly warm to hanging out, and we could have gotten away without any suspicion.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± She frowned, clearly uncomfortable with her mother trying to help her with her social life. ¡°Well why didn¡¯t you say that when I texted you?¡± ¡°I would have if I¡¯d known you would make it deliberately difficult. That was like pulling teeth at the start!¡± ¡°You were the one who proposed the flirting plan. I remember you being exceptionally confident that you could sell it.¡± I gestured to the city around us. ¡°Hey, I got it done in the end, didn¡¯t I?¡± She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. ¡°Oh please, the only reason I agreed was for our exorcism.¡± ¡°Sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself.¡± I sighed and leaned against a wall, watching the crowds pass by. Little Tokyo had become a booming tourist spot, both from out of, and from within the city itself. The neighborhood had spent the better part of fifteen years revitalizing its network of alleyways, filling them with neon signs and little hole-in-the-wall shops. Not only could you feel safe walking through them, but it was also fun to see all the authentically Japanese shops and restaurants. ¡°So what now?¡± ¡°Now we wait. We need the shrine to empty out for the night. I¡¯ll text my mom and the other caretakers that I want to show you around it. My cousin Susy is an interminable gossip, and she¡¯s obviously¡­enchanted by your looks. I¡¯m sure she¡¯s stalking your socials as we speak, which means she¡¯s also going to see your fight with that gang member. She¡¯s sure to tell my aunt, who will tell my mother, meaning that it won¡¯t seem suspicious if I ask to perform a few blessings on you.¡± I checked the time. ¡°I¡¯m guessing that¡¯s a minimum of four to five hours we need to kill. Looks like you¡¯re showing me around the neighborhood.¡± ¡°I guess so.¡± She paused. ¡°You don¡¯t actually have to pay for dinner, by the way.¡± ¡°Thanks. Shall we?¡± I stuck my arm for her to take. She glared at it and crossed her arms. ¡°You¡¯re joking.¡± ¡°One, it¡¯s actually very crowded here. Two, it gives us an excuse to talk quietly into each other¡¯s ears. And three, your cousin is absolutely texting all of her friends about this. You want to fumble this now, after getting out of the shrine together?¡± ¡°Fine.¡± She slipped her arm through mine and leaned in close. ¡°I misspoke. You are paying for dinner.¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah. Let¡¯s go.¡± No Samurai 3 Maki, for how reticent she was about our ¡®date¡¯, was a pleasant hang after all. She cringed every time we met someone she knew, embarrassed to be seen hanging off my arm, but in the tight, noisy confines of Little Tokyo¡¯s alleys, it did make sense for her to lead by touch through the crowds. I also envied the fact that unlike when I walked through Chinatown, people here were respectful enough not to inquire about the specific nature of our relationship. Had these been my home streets, multiple aunties would have already interrogated both her and I about when and how we met, if we were dating or not, what our plans were, if we wanted anything to eat or drink, and why we didn¡¯t want anything to eat or drink. ¡°What¡¯s the plan for the exorcism, by the way?¡± She shook her head. ¡°At dinner. I¡¯ll show you on a map.¡± The yakuza were all over, but they blended in well. It was only because I knew what to look for and my ability to spot a fellow fighter that I noticed them. They lingered in twos and threes at every intersection, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly among themselves. Each time we passed by a group, at least one made a point of making eye contact with me. There was no enmity in the gazes, but they wanted me to be sure that my presence had been noted. Street cats leapt from awning to awning overhead and used the neon signage like little walkways. You could just barely keep yourself dry by stepping hurriedly between covered sections, and the alleys were narrow enough that they kept us free from the wind chill. ¡°Kitto Katsu!¡± I said, holding up a stack of imported green tea KitKats. I¡¯d made Maki stop at the first store I saw with them behind the counter. ¡°We¡¯ll crack these open after we¡¯re victorious. Mind putting them in your purse?¡± She rolled her eyes but obliged. ¡°You didn¡¯t mention you knew Japanese when we spoke on the phone. If you had, I think I would have been able to come up with something better than this ridiculous flirting plan.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because I didn¡¯t speak it then. I learned the language in preparation for tonight. Not bad, right? I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll keep it up though. My pride wants me to achieve full native proficiency, but that¡¯s a waste of time realistically.¡± I could tell she wasn¡¯t buying it, her face carved into skepticism from cold marble. ¡°Be serious. Do you take me for a fool?¡± ¡°What? People kicking each other through steel is believable, but me getting to ¡®pretty good¡¯ in Japanese over the weekend is unthinkable? I already speak Chinese, it¡¯s not exactly crazy.¡± ¡°You¡¯re more than pretty good. There are American-born Japanese here who would be jealous of your ability. The accent can be atrocious at times, but it¡¯s never too much to be unrecognizable.¡± ¡°Atrocious, huh? You better be careful, Maki.¡± I wagged my finger at her. ¡°You might fuck around and have to eat your words. I¡¯m not above reaching native proficiency out of spite.¡± ¡°You really expect me to believe you learned Japanese in three days? How, theoretically, did you achieve that?¡± I smirked, not bothering to hide the fact I was lying. Maki was clearly too Insightful to bother trying with over white lies; I was only risking giving away my tells before a hypothetical scenario where I genuinely needed to deceive her. But it was fun to annoy the pretty Miko. The way her hair escaped from behind her ears and partially obscured her irritated glances as she frowned up at me was, dare I say, cute. ¡°I memorized the 4000 most common words and looked up some basic grammar rules online. Then I watched a few movies to double-check I had it right.¡± She let out a tired sigh of disapproval, which made my heart go, as her people would say, doki doki. ¡°Fine, keep your secrets. Shall we go to Ito Square? There are usually some street performances to watch.¡± Ito Square was one of the city¡¯s modern marvels. The square itself had been around since the 60¡¯s when the city had demolished a decrepit tenement building and replaced it with flat concrete, but only recently had it been somewhere worth visiting. Investors from Japan had come in, backed in their dump trucks full of money, and gone wild. It was also the reason that Little Tokyo was so crowded on rainy days. A network of overlapping rollout roofs covered the square completely, all designed in a way to redirect the rainfall into the square¡¯s elaborate central fountain. On a sunny day, they appeared to be ordinary, if particularly wide and tall lampposts, but when it rained, they were a rainbow spiderweb of reinforced canvas and LED lights. Ito Square was the pride of Black Harbor and could be found in every brochure and ad campaign for the city, posters of people¡¯s faces lit by soft lighting staring up in awe in every airport. It was so nice in fact, that no one in city politics seemed particularly bothered that all that foreign money had firmly entrenched the Yakuza in Little Tokyo. That was New Jersey for you. It was banging tonight. They hadn¡¯t even needed to run the outdoor heating; the body heat of so many hundreds underneath the canvas enough to keep us comfortable. The smell of the dozen or so restaurants and bar kitchens mixed together to make an intoxicating atmosphere. Joy echoed from canvas roof to stone tile, the laughter and conversation of hundreds of revelers, and the clashing sounds of street musicians making for a timeless symphony. Here the humans of Black Harbor came together to forget their individual worries and anxieties and form a single, amiable crowd. My stomach rumbled at the sight of a food stand. Maybe if I filled Maki up prior to sushi I could save a little money. ¡°Yakitori?¡± She gave me an unimpressed look. ¡°Already thinking about the dinner bill, hm?¡± ¡°Phwah! You wound me. I¡¯ll have you know I¡¯m far too reckless with my money to have even considered that.¡± ¡°Finally, a plausible lie. I was beginning to think you thought I was stupid. I¡¯ll play along. We should space out our energy intake for the night, anyway.¡± I didn¡¯t disagree on the premise, but, ¡°¡®Energy Intake¡¯? What are you, an android?¡± I got us a pair of chicken skewers and we began to circle through the crowded space. Ito Square was big enough to support multiple musicians and street bands. I watched Maki¡¯s face for any indication, a hint, of interest in the acts. The closest she got was a sense of longing when watching a four-piece string band do orchestral covers of pop songs. Frowning, she unconsciously rubbed the tips of her fingers while watching the cellist. ¡°Used to play? Must have been pretty serious to develop calluses. They¡¯re long gone, huh? Don¡¯t worry, callusing your hands in the same spot again always hurts less than the time before.¡± My question startled the woman, who¡¯d been lost in thought. I got a rare, impressed expression from her, but she didn¡¯t answer, tugging on my arm to keep moving after an extended silence. I spotted a small group of people in familiar uniforms surrounded by a dense crowd and moved us towards the spectacle. ¡°Oh shit,¡± I said as we got closer, ¡°I know these guys. Hadiman Silat.¡± Hadiman Silat was a traditional Indonesian martial arts school not far outside Little Tokyo. I¡¯d never had a chance to really socialize with any of the students, but ¡®Pak¡¯ Hadiman, its master, was big in the charity scene. Anytime multiple schools in Black Harbor came together to raise money for some disaster relief or other humanitarian cause, you could be sure you¡¯d see Pak amongst its organizers. The crowd formed a circle around the Silat practitioners. In its center was one of their senior students, Henry something I think, in the traditional garb for Caci, Indonesian whip fighting, wearing the horned helmet, the beaded sarong, small shield, and had opted for the longer fuck-off, giant rattan whip that made the sport so interesting. His opponent was an out of shape man in a button-up, obviously here straight from work. A slightly tipsy group of businesspeople cheered him on as he used a shorter, more manageable whip to try and land a hit against the defending Henry. The businessman had clearly been given the shorter whip so that he didn¡¯t accidentally nail someone in the crowd with his wild swings. Soft foam balls had been tied to the ends of the whips, but the body of the rope would still sting or even cut if it landed wrong. ¡°Hell yes, I love Caci.¡± I leaned over to Maki to explain. ¡°In olden times, the aim of this sport was to use the knot at the end of the rattan whip to take one of your opponent¡¯s eyes. It was used to settle disputes. Isn¡¯t that awesome?¡± ¡°That¡¯s barbaric.¡± Watching Henry catch one of his opponent¡¯s better attempts by tangling their ropes together and misdirecting the offending whip to the side made me want to slap myself. I had an immediate epiphany ¨C if you could even call it that. It was more like I¡¯d suddenly realized that I¡¯d been wearing my shirt inside-out and backwards all day, and only after several job interviews. Since my spar with Kas, I had been scratching my head over how I could possibly utilize my style in one-versus-one combat without an active environment to engage with. Meanwhile the answer was literally tied around my waist. Once the man grew too tired to keep up his assault, Henry flicked his wrist and mercifully smacked his opponent¡¯s forehead with the foam ball at the end of his whip. The ball had been soaked in dye and left a faint red mark behind. The crowd cheered and the sweating businessman handed his shield and whip back. ¡°Heeey, give it up for John!¡± called out Henry. ¡°That was a good workout, right? And look how he¡¯s smiling. I promise you, there¡¯s no more fun way to get in shape in the city than at Hadiman Silat Gym!¡± ¡°Who¡¯s next! Any man who can land a hit on me wins a fifty dollar gift card to Tamaki Grill! You have nothing to lose but your pride. It¡¯s completely free! No one¡¯s done it yet! Who¡¯s going to be first?¡± I turned to Maki wide-eyed and opened my mouth, but she anticipated my question with a sigh. ¡°Yes, James, Tamaki has sushi.¡± ¡°Be right back!¡± I leapt from standing over the crowd, doing a front flip and landing in the middle of the circle. There was a suitably amazed series of gasps from the onlookers. ¡°Dibs,¡± I said quickly. I didn¡¯t want to risk getting in line behind a surprise ribbon gymnastics team and lose my chance. Those girls were pretty slender; they could all be hiding amongst this crowd and I¡¯d never have noticed. ¡°James Li?¡± ¡°What¡¯s up, man? Been a minute. We did that earthquake relief thing in March, right?¡± ¡°Uh, shouldn¡¯t you be in a hospital or something?¡± he asked, wincing in a manner that told me he¡¯d seen at least one of my recent fights on the internet. ¡°Why? I¡¯ve only had friendly spars lately.¡± Henry shook his head, torn between being annoyed that I was interfering in their school¡¯s demonstration, and excited at a chance to test himself. Before he could speak again though, Pak Hadiman came forward laughing and shaking his head. As a showman, I instantly recognized the shorter man¡¯s smile. The little master wanted to put on a performance for the crowd, and I was happy to oblige. ¡°Now, now, Master Li,¡± said Pak, projecting his voice for the audience, ¡°this is a little beneath you, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Listen, Pak,¡± I said, pointing at him brashly, ¡°you can¡¯t wave fifty dollars of sushi in front of me and not expect me to bite. I¡¯m the sort of man who agrees to pay for dinner without thinking about how much he has in his bank account. That¡¯s my martial Dao!¡± Pak threw his head back and laughed. ¡°I heard your mother recognized you as the rightful Master of your own Art. Is this how Black Harbor¡¯s newest Master comports himself?¡± Ha! Hadiman was a sucker for charity, wasn¡¯t he? He was kind for giving me a chance to advertise my new style after crashing his school¡¯s event unannounced. I would make sure to repay the favor. Though if I had to guess, the old man was probably going to give me a soft ball of a request, like asking me to give a few seminars at his Silat gym ¨C something I would have gladly done anyway. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s right! One of the tenets of my new Black City Kung Fu is never turning down a free meal! By the way,¡± I turned to the gathered crowd, ¡°we are also currently recruiting students. We particularly need responsible and reliable sorts of people. Currently Black City Kung Fu is entirely comprised of reckless maniacs! Many of you will likely die during training, but hear me! I can definitely promise that there¡¯s a chance that some of you might not!¡± The crowd laughed and a few even clapped lightly, clearly picking up on the act that Hadiman and I were doing. Of course I wasn¡¯t going to recruit anyone out from underneath him, even if someone did approach me. I¡¯d only added the line to make the Silat gym more approachable. ¡°Oho, you are as of this city as ever, my young friend! But surely James, you must agree it would hardly be sporting for the Master of Black City Kung Fu to stand against my student, senior and skilled though he may be. Please allow me to step in. I cannot call myself a master of Caci, but I think I at least could challenge you.¡± I waved at Henry dismissively. ¡°Of course, of course, I¡¯m not going to bully the man. Suit up, Pak.¡± Henry for his part was beaming as he handed off his gear to his Master, as were the rest of Hadiman Silat. If there¡¯s one universal truth among every student at every martial arts school, it¡¯s that getting a chance to see your Master cut loose was always so, so hype. ¡°In fact, Master Hadiman, if you would oblige me, I have a suggestion to make this even more interesting.¡± Pak looked up as he tied the wicker horned helmet under his chin. ¡°By all means, please.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you didn¡¯t come here with only one gift card. I propose that you put up two cards in exchange for me not using one of your shields!¡± He bounced on his heels a bit and chuckled, as if aghast at my arrogance. ¡°Put up two cards in exchange for guaranteeing I lose none? Ha! I would be a fool to decline. Very well, Master Li! You¡¯ll have no shield! Out of my sense of fairness, I¡¯ll allow you to pick which whip you¡¯d prefer to use.¡± I laughed as though he¡¯d fallen for my trap. ¡°Pah! Your arrogance does you no justice, Pak Hadiman. I¡¯ll raise you again ¨C for three,¡± I held up my fingers dramatically, ¡°I¡¯ll use neither your shield nor your whip.¡± There was a flash, less than a second of genuine, unrestrained battle aura. It was enough that those closest to the tiny Indonesian man took a half step back without thinking, pure animal instinct driving them away before their brains could even comprehend why. I smiled broader. Earlier I¡¯d had an epiphany, and it was time to bet on its validity. ¡°You are truly your mother¡¯s son, James Li. Again, I¡¯d be a fool to disagree. I won¡¯t hold you to the strict rules of the sport, but expect no mercy beyond that. We¡¯ll play to three points. One for the body, two for the head. Though I don¡¯t know how you expect to win without a weapon.¡± I unzipped my windbreaker and threw it to Maki, who was momentarily embarrassed by the mixture of jealous and interested looks that got her. ¡°Worry about yourself.¡± I gave a quick bow. ¡°Whenever you¡¯re ready, Pak.¡± Pak began to lazily draw circles with his whip as he shook off his shoulders and limbered up. ¡°Normally only one person may attack or defend during Caci,¡± he said for the benefit of the audience, ¡°but this is for the purpose of a friendly exhibition, so we won¡¯t concern ourselves with that.¡± ¡°I also don¡¯t have a weapon to attack with,¡± I added. ¡°Somehow, James, I doubt that.¡± The end of Pak¡¯s whip was beginning to reach a speed where it was all but impossible to follow with the human eye. I watched his hands and the rattan handle instead. He took a quick sharp exhale, his core going rigid, and snapped the whip directly towards my face. It shouldn¡¯t have reached, but Pak¡¯s pinky finger twitched slightly as he extended the rope, loosening the threads enough for it to just make contact. That would have tricked most half-decent fighters, who would naturally be keenly aware of their opponent¡¯s reach, and without Style Maker, it might have fooled me as well. I slipped my head to the right at the last instant and then rolled under Pak¡¯s follow-up attempt to clip the back of my head as he retracted his weapon. Pak and I shared a quick grin at the gasps we¡¯d elicited around us. ¡°Didn¡¯t know you played guitar, Pak,¡± I said, casually stretching out my wrists as I waited for his next move. The feat Pak had used to extend the rope of his whip had a peculiar set of prerequisite Skills. ¡°Ho. You have your family¡¯s eagle eyes. Shall I test them?¡± Pak brought the hand holding his shield to the base of the rattan and began to rapidly tap and vibrate the weapon while he continued circling the whip, the circles now making an umbrella-like shape over and around his head and shoulders. It took a bit for Pak to nail the technique, and I could tell that it had been a long while since he¡¯d used it, but soon enough the entirety of the rope whip was invisible, even to my trained eyes. I could still somewhat predict the movements based on the handle, but I was sure Pak had more tricks coming. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I moved into a defensive stance, crunching inwards with my hands out and ready to parry. My weight was balanced equally across both of my feet so that I could move without telegraphing it to Pak. ¡°Ready yourself!¡± I didn¡¯t respond, my focus split between watching the five-foot-tall Silat master and on gathering my Qi into my heel. As soon as Pak shifted his weight towards offense, I stomped my left heel down onto the paved tiles of Ito Square. Ito was well maintained and regularly cleaned but tens of thousands of dirty shoes had tromped through today, giving me more than enough dirt to work with. My telekinesis puffed up all that dust into a cloud between us, not so dense as to obscure the crowd¡¯s vision, but enough that the whip¡¯s movements left swirls and gaps in it. Thus began our dance. Pak¡¯s whip was a storm of lashes and I the leaf caught in the whirlwind. An ¡®Attack¡¯ in the system¡¯s terms didn¡¯t have to be a single physical strike, but was more a representation of an offensive moment in the course of the fight. Never had that been more obvious to me than now. The end of Pak¡¯s whip nearly intersected with my skull almost a dozen times in a handful of seconds. Similarly, my ¡®Defense¡¯ roll was represented by multiple dodges and parries, the back of my hands stinging as I batted away the rope again and again. In terms of rolls, we had two exchanges, but in reality, I must have avoided over thirty attacks in the course of ten seconds. The much smaller man had me on the backfoot, chasing me with his quick, short half-steps. I could tell that Pak was deliberately trying to corral me with his aggressive footwork, but unfortunately for him, the dust cloud was beginning to spread outwards due to the fanning from the whip before he could realize his plan. He retracted the weapon and gave me a micro-nod to let me know that I could safely do something about it before the crowd started coughing and blinking dirt out of their eyes. I pulled the misty air out from the layer between two canvas rollout roofs and forced the dusty air to clear out. There was a round of applause as we paused. Pak shook off his hand and pretended to be breathing hard to cover for me as my focus was elsewhere. ¡°That was a clever trick, Master Li. I thought for certain that I¡¯d land a point. Lucky for you, I don¡¯t think my wrist is conditioned to keep using that particular technique for any longer.¡± I couldn¡¯t tell if Pak was being sincere, or if he didn¡¯t want to use his invisible whip attacks after asking me to clear the cloud I¡¯d used to counter them. Despite what he¡¯d said about no mercy, I wouldn¡¯t put the latter past him. Pak Hadiman was a gentleman through and through. ¡°You should give your wife a break, Pak. A married man¡¯s wrists will never compete with a bachelor¡¯s.¡± I made a jerk off motion to really get the euphemism across. It also served to show off to our audience how red and battered the back of my hand was. There was a mixture of groans and giggles from the audience. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw Maki facepalm. ¡°Hahahaha! You rascal! If that gets back to my wife, I really won¡¯t forgive you, James!¡± The Indonesian master switched his grip on his weapon and grimaced a bit. Oof, I caught sight of his wrist behind the shield for a moment as he did, and that shade of red was no joke. It must have been a decade plus since he¡¯d trained Caci seriously for his wrist to have so lost the conditioning. As I understood it, the sport was more of a novelty for the Silat gym, their way of preserving and sharing Indonesian culture more than anything else. Pak took a series of deep, slow breaths as he circulated his Qi. Like when I was in the shrine, I couldn¡¯t instinctively sense the power rising in him, but my Style Maker enhanced eyes could make out all the micromovements, the shifting of his veins and tendons in his neck, and the slight changes in his stance that indicated what was happening. I wasn¡¯t alone in noticing either. Henry and two of the other senior students that had come with Pak to this demonstration began to practically vibrate with excitement at what was about to happen next. More interestingly, I saw Maki in my peripheral completely shift her attention to the older man. ¡°Still, I think you may be right,¡± he said. ¡°My wrists aren¡¯t what they were thirty years ago. I¡¯ll need to take a more deliberate approach. Let¡¯s see, I haven¡¯t practiced this in a long time¡­¡± The end of the whip began to bounce up and down as Pak began to rhythmically shake the whip. Back and forth, up and down, with each jerk of the rattan handle the rope started to extend and twitch. Pencak Silat involved the use of percussion and other musical instruments in its drills and training methods, but this was the first time I¡¯d seen it extend to an actual martial technique. Pak kept the beat by striking his heel against the ground and drumming his fingers against the handle of the weapon. Soon the rope of the whip was more than twice as long as before, and more than just the end was making sharp, swift changes in direction. It started with a 90-degree angle in the center of the rope, and then two, then four, then more and sharper angles started to appear. Once the whip resembled the shape of crackling lightning, Pak started to twist the base in half circles, keeping the beat by switching the direction of the circle like the end of the metronome. He began to draw elaborate three-dimensional geometric shapes and patterns around him and in the space between us. I whistled as I finally got to see the full scope of the technique I was up against. It required a very small amount of Qi to work, but the finesse was superhuman, which was remarkable for a Major feat. Pak¡¯s battle aura began to escape him as his focus shifted entirely onto maintaining the technique. He must have been consciously holding back his excitement thus far. The circle around us widened as our audience moved as one to give us more room, even as they, like me, were riveted by the sight. It was time to end this match quickly if I wanted to win. This stance feat of his was giving him five extra Dice with his whip in exchange for reducing his mobility to almost nothing. That made it virtually useless in a real fight, but dominant in the sport of Caci. Without feats that would let me convert extra Successes on Defense rolls into different actions, I had no way of knowing the exact amount that Pak had rolled when attacking. But I had gotten four Successes the first time I¡¯d defended and eight the second, and both times I¡¯d been dangerously close to giving up a point. Pak gave me a subtle look to let me know I¡¯d have to take care of the talking for this next part. He wouldn¡¯t be able to take more than a few steps while keeping this up, let alone speak. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. ¡°Impressive ribbon dance, old man! I didn¡¯t realize this match had a half-time show.¡± I put both of my hands behind my head in a sign of absolute confidence and yawned, preparing my next move by making a Read. ¡°I¡¯m too hungry to stay interested though. Mind if we get back to it?¡± He grunted through gritted teeth and twisted his hips. Like a serpent made of living lightning, the whip lashed out at me, its movements erratic and unpredictable. Unpredictable for most, at least ¨C I had made the safe assumption that with my hands above my head, Pak would make the reasonable move of striking my unprotected body. At about two-thirds of the way between us, the whip went low as though it was trying to tangle up my ankles, clearly his way of preventing me from blocking the body blow with a kick. I obliged the obvious misdirection and hopped my feet back a foot while leaning forward, looking for all the world as though I¡¯d been surprised. As the foam ball at the end of the whip shot straight up, aiming for my gut, though, I played out my Read. My telekinesis held my shirt in place. With my hands already over my head, it was easy for me to slip out of the shirt as I rolled backwards out of the way. I could see a flash of confusion on Pak¡¯s face as the whip struck the shirt as though there was a body behind it. In his moment of hesitation, I used some very rudimentary telekinesis to tangle the cloth up amongst the rope. Pak was forced to withdraw the whip to untangle it from my shirt. He made sure to hold the rattan in front of his face, clearly anticipating some kind of treachery, but that combined with my shirt flying back at him partially blinded the man. In that opening, I untied the sash that my mother had given me from around my waist and struck out, tagging him on the solar plexus with the tip. I grabbed my shirt out of the air as I retracted my sash. While I didn¡¯t have the feats or finesse to do this manually, I was able to replicate the effect and give the appearance of skill with my Telekinesis. The end of my sash spun around the shirt, tying it into a ball not dissimilar from the foam at the end of Pak¡¯s rattan whip. Pak rubbed his chest with a wince, dropping his stance for a moment to catch his breath and speak. ¡°Yowch! That stings. You snapped that like a towel in the locker room, you hooligan! What an embarrassing way to lose a point.¡± When I had first used my sash during my fight with Kuze I had done it out of desperation, and forgotten about it afterwards. It had been a long first full day in this reality. I had worn it tonight partially because the Producers had made the silk ¡°almost indestructible¡±, and I¡¯d thought it might be useful for knife defense. But, really, it had been for my own morale. If I were to die tonight, I wanted to do it with my mother¡¯s gift tied around my waist. ¡°With that point, you¡¯ve already lost! Do you know how much a good sushi dinner for two costs? Not to mention that I¡¯ll want to try some sake. For the health of my wallet, I¡¯ll be ending this now.¡± I took two spinning, leaping steps forward, torquing my waist with all my strength, and slammed the end of the sash down onto Pak before he could start up his stance again. What the little master had been doing with his whip had required grace and dexterity built from decades of practice. This was pure thuggery. Pak managed to raise his shield and block but the little knot of balled up cloth and silk shattered the mostly decorative wicker and twine as it ricocheted off. Broken pieces blasted off, dusting the nearest audience members. The old man tossed the destroyed shield behind him and laughed. His battle aura was raging now. Our crowd had grown quite large, stolen away from nearby performances and food cart lines by the excited gasps and cheers of their peers. Children watched from atop their parents¡¯ shoulders, and some industrious teens had shimmied up the closest lampposts to get better views. All at once, they held their breaths. ¡°Incredible! You¡¯ve taken your family¡¯s art to its vicious finale and beyond!¡± His expression grew more serious, though still amicable. ¡°You reflect the soul of this city, James Li. Long have I lived here and never seen it so clearly. Your Black City style truly embraces the laughing brutality of its namesake.¡± ¡°I¡¯m the city¡¯s finest son, Pak. But don¡¯t forget, I¡¯m incredibly fickle too. Go on, get back into your stance.¡± As the old man began his dance again, I prepared my next Read. It was an easy guess; we¡¯d been broadcasting our intentions to each other up until this very moment. This was one part Caci duel, one part performance, and one part our way of catching up with each other. Pak would be going for the finish, all three points in one strike. He would try to ricochet from body to head, or head to body, I was sure of it. I bet my entire dice pool on the Read. If I was wrong, I would lose in a suitably comical way, and if I was right then he stood no chance. All I had to do was ensure Pak went for head to body. As his whip sparked towards me, I tucked my chin and held my sash taught, using it to parry everything going for the body. I presented the opening, lifting my chin for a fraction of a second as I backed up, counting on the veteran master to seize upon it. Had he been attacking normally and testing my defenses, he may have second guessed, but I had called it correctly. Once the foam end of Pak¡¯s whip appeared in front of my face, I reversed course and headbutted it as hard as I possibly could, unleashing the full force of my tactile telekinesis upon the ball. Because of my successful Read and Lance Pressure, the feat I¡¯d bought when sparring Kas, that meant I rolled my Aura + Martial Arts pool twice. In the space between seconds, twenty-eight Dice clattered in my mind. Fifteen Successes triumphed over Pak¡¯s formidable defense with six extra Successes. I didn¡¯t want to actually hurt the man, nor did I want to embarrass him by knocking him down, so I put three towards the called shot on his head, and the last three towards disarming him. The little ball struck my forehead and then vanished from human perception as it blasted at Pak like a cannon. You could hear and see the wake as it broke the sound barrier, kicked up the dirt on the ground and shook the canvas roofs overhead. It hit Pak cleanly on his head, but ricocheted up immediately, the sudden counter tension on the whip causing the bound rattan handle to splinter and break in two parts. Pak reacted quickly, catching the broken whip as it flew out of his hands before it could wing off into the crowd. He stopped and looked at the ruined rattan wide-eyed. I savored a few seconds of satisfaction at eliciting real surprise from the old timer. ¡°Ha! Three points to two, Pak! That¡¯s my win,¡± I said, slinging my sash over my shoulder and putting my hands on my hips. Beads of red dye ran down both our foreheads. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Defeat ¡®Pak¡¯ Hadiman in a game of Caci. Reward: 20XP, +1 Martial Arts [Hidden Quest Complete!] Put on a live performance. Reward: 5XP, Gain Minor feat Rope and Chain Combat [Recurring Quest Discovered] You can receive unique rewards every time you put on a successful live performance. [Minor Feat] Rope and Chain Combat ¨C Your mind and body have learned to account for the wild trajectories of rope and chain weapons in the heat of battle. Add 1 Die to your rolls when attacking or defending with weapons that can be swung in this manner. Pak beamed. ¡°A-amazing! Absolutely amazing! Henry, take this and the shield, we¡¯ll hang them up in a place of prominence. You have a bright future ahead, James. I¡¯m excited to see where you take your new style.¡± He began clapping, signaling the rest of the crowd to join in. I bowed to him and held my arms up to quell the cheers. ¡°Hang on, everyone!¡± I scratched the back of my head. ¡°I doooo, kind of, feel bad for breaking Hadiman Silat¡¯s whip in the middle of their demonstration though. If you all wouldn¡¯t mind, I¡¯d really appreciate it if you would schedule a class with them before you go! How much does the first class cost, Pak?¡± ¡°The entire first week is free, actually!¡± ¡°What? That¡¯s crazy! I charge extra for my first class, you know? What if they don¡¯t come back? Well, you people would be fools not to take that deal! What are you waiting for?¡± It took me almost ten minutes to extract myself from the buzzing crowd. Pak did in fact extract a promise to teach a seminar at his gym next week, though he was trying to pay me for it, as if I¡¯d let that happen. Evidently, his students were fans of mine and Annie¡¯s new videos, and Pak, being the thoughtful instructor he was, made sure to leverage his social pressure into getting them pictures with me. That started a bit of a rush as more people from the audience asked for pictures as well. I thought the fervor was a bit much until I remembered that my shirt was still off. Maki was as mirthless as ever once we finally got away, but was less stiff and appeared somewhat more assured. ¡°What did you think?¡± I asked, pulling my wrinkled shirt on. She opened and closed her mouth. ¡°I¡­I don¡¯t think I ever thanked you properly for offering to help me. I must confess, I thought your confidence was born of naivety, but I was clearly mistaken. Please, forgive¡ª" Maki tried to do a formal bow but her forehead slapped into my palm before it could move an inch. ¡°Ah, come on, don¡¯t worry about it. I bullied you into this, remember? Besides,¡± I fanned out the three gift cards I¡¯d won, ¡°all I want to hear from you right now are the directions to Tamaki Grill.¡± The Hungry Ghost 1 Musky air steamed out from a vent in a stinking vaporous cloud as a train passed underneath, shaking the ground and rattling a fire escape above. Maki and I smoothly evaded it as we hurried towards Tamaki Grill, instincts honed from years of city living. I thanked the light drizzle for evaporating the concentrated subway smell quickly. My eyes locked onto every street cat we passed; my mind occupied by idle plans of vengeance. If there was anywhere in the city I could find a cat to fight the rat menacing my apartment, it would probably be in Little Tokyo, was the thought. The weather was growing cold ¨C I could probably trade one of these strays warmth and shelter in exchange for a little pest control. That was a bargain as old as agriculture. I just needed to find a real killer, the feline equivalent of a street samurai to match the vermin ninja haunting my apartment. ¡°I¡¯ve never been close to two high level martial artists fighting before,¡± said Maki, interrupting my thoughts. ¡°Your ki is radically different from anything I¡¯ve experienced.¡± Maki gripped my arm possessively, the embarrassment of being seen with me having passed. Still, it wasn¡¯t from affection, I didn¡¯t think, more that she seemed worried I¡¯d run off if she didn¡¯t keep a close tab on me. You front flip away from a date into a full street performance one time and they start getting clingy ¨C go figure. ¡°How do you mean?¡± I asked, turning my attention away from a particularly scarred cat warming itself atop a convenience store¡¯s lit-up sign. That was a good spot, they probably fought for it. ¡°I¡¯m totally self-taught, so I don¡¯t know how it¡¯s supposed to work.¡± She leaned in closer to speak quietly, painting a romantic image to outside observers. ¡°It¡¯s hard for me to speak with authority, my senses aren¡¯t as refined as I would like them to be. I¡¯ve observed a few types of spiritual power, from Kami, normal humans, and now martial artists. Kami are comprised equally of spirit and intent. Everything they do and are, is a manifestation of their purest selves. It¡¯s not that they use spiritual power, but rather, they simply make their wills reality, with what they can do being limited by what they are.¡± ¡°And people?¡± I asked. ¡°I really don¡¯t know anymore. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said that people are mind, body, and spirit, and that they can learn to manifest their spirits through deliberate meditation or prayer. We use talisman making and calligraphy for example. Before you can bind borrowed power from a Kami, in our families at least, you must first prove you can draw from your personal intent and will. But now¡­¡± She paused to gather her thoughts before continuing, ¡°You and Hadiman used your spiritual pressure completely differently from what I¡¯ve known. I assumed that ki was merely a different word for what I knew, and it is, somewhat, but at the same time, it¡¯s nowhere close. There was so much more¡­physicality to it. And the truly confounding thing, is that beyond the shared base of physicality, yours and Hadiman¡¯s ki were completely unique from one another¡¯s as well.¡± I nodded, thinking back to how Pak extended his whip, lengthening its every thread with pure Qi. If I hadn¡¯t seen it in action, I would have had no idea where to even begin developing a technique like that. ¡°Yeah, Pak¡¯s finesse is really otherworldly. I guess that¡¯s what happens when you train knife fighting your entire life.¡± ¡°Much like how develop our spiritual control through the use of calligraphy and meditation?¡± ¡°Exactly. Swordsmen love training calligraphy for that reason as well, and is a knife really all that different from a calligraphy brush? The ink is your opponent¡¯s blood, and the rice paper is his skin.¡± ¡°A distasteful analogy, but I suppose at some level you must be¡ª" Maki went quiet as we passed a group of four younger Yakuza members huddled under the covered entrance to a smoke shop. Neither she nor I had been reacting to the gang presence thus far, so I was a bit surprised to see her stop herself, until the group caught sight of me, at which point it became obvious that something was different. The three youngest stiffened and stood up straighter as I passed, visibly annoying their oldest companion with their lack of subtlety. It was crazy to me that Maki had noticed the change in their mannerisms prior to them spotting us. They had looked completely unremarkable to me, only notable for their age, and the fact that two of them had been playing on handheld gaming consoles unique to this world. But then, Maki had been impressing me with her ability to read people the whole night. The woman had a seriously freakish Insight and/or a set of nasty feats that would make her deadly in a poker game. ¡°How did mine and Pak¡¯s Qi differ?¡± I asked once we were past the group. ¡°You were completely different. Hadiman¡¯s ki felt like a bundle of tightly coiled steel wires, whereas yours is hard to even describe. At first, when you used your ki to stomp the dust into a cloud, and then again, when you drew the mist down to banish it, you felt like a roaring bonfire. When you headbutted Hadiman¡¯s whip back at him though ¨C I almost don¡¯t want to say, out of fear of coming across as histrionic ¨C but it was like witnessing a volcanic eruption. I realized that I had been looking at not a bonfire, but rather a roiling caldera earlier. Everyone even slightly sensitive in Little Tokyo must have felt the spiritual shockwave.¡± I groaned loudly and palmed my face. ¡°Goddamn it. I really wish you hadn¡¯t said that last part.¡± ¡°My apologies.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± I sighed. ¡°What¡¯s a few more targets on my back at this point?¡± ¡°For what it¡¯s worth, my family is well respected here. People will at least think twice before moving on you now that we¡¯ve seeded the idea of our intimacy.¡± ¡°Thanks. We¡¯re probably not going to keep fake dating after tonight, but I appreciate it nonetheless. And thanks for the Qi breakdown. You¡¯re the only person I know who will talk to me about this.¡± ¡°I thought you came from a martial family.¡± ¡°Yeah, but I awakened my Qi on my own after I left to start my own style.¡± ¡°Oh? Hadiman complemented your family for producing your new style a few times though. I would have thought that they would take pride in your new art. Your family didn¡¯t take your decision well?¡± We paused at a red crosswalk. Little Tokyo was the only neighborhood in the city where I felt weird jaywalking. ¡°It¡¯s complicated. My mother initially banned me from teaching the family Eagle Claw style, but I guess she¡¯s come to terms with it. Back in Hunan, I know my grandfather is pretty pissed, but my great-grandfather started sending me DVDs of his favorite action movies on my birthday. Regardless, I wouldn¡¯t ask them about it even if I could, and my mother for sure wouldn¡¯t answer if I did.¡± She tensed and I could see her bite back her first comment. Maki had been making an effort to be a bit friendlier since the Caci game with Pak. ¡°That¡¯s a little¡­Many go mad pursuing the way of the immortal, do they not? Would your mother really deny you? Some might call that cruel.¡± ¡°It is cruel. It¡¯s the same cruelty that creates the deadly Eagle¡¯s Claw.¡± I reached for the brick wall and casually carved a small channel as we walked, flicking the dust off into the rain. Maki tugged at my arm hard. ¡°Tch. Don¡¯t commit property damage to make a point, you ogre!¡± She¡­wasn¡¯t great at being friendly, but I could tell that she was trying. Who knows how she would have reacted prior to the Caci duel. ¡°Haha, sorry, sorry,¡± I said with a chagrined smile. ¡°I really didn¡¯t think at all before I did that. Haha! Oh man.¡± She made a sound of frustration and shot me an absolutely scathing look. ¡°Anyway, I do follow your argument. You and your mother both believe her helping you will make you weaker in the long run. While I know nothing about Qi, I do hope you¡¯ve actually analyzed the risk of being somewhat weaker against the risk of potentially going completely insane, because it sounds absurd to a rational observer.¡± I looked around dramatically. ¡°There¡¯s a rational observer here? Huh, I see a girl leading a youxia into a ghost hunt, but it couldn¡¯t possibly be her.¡± She stiffened, becoming as robotic as she¡¯d been when we¡¯d first met. God, I hated when she did that. ¡°If, after I¡¯ve described my plan to you, and you feel it insufficient, you are of course free to decline.¡± I groaned. ¡°Maki, relax. You made a good point, I was just¡ª¡± ¡°Stop. Your point was¡­also valid.¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°Forgive me. I can see why you might think that, but I assure you, once you¡¯ve heard what I¡¯ve prepared, you¡¯ll understand.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t sweat it. It could be outright suicidal and I¡¯d still probably be down.¡± I gave her the cheesiest, most himbofied grin that I could. ¡°That¡¯s just the way I do things.¡± Maki snapped me a glare and came to a sudden stop. I recognized the look, that was the face of someone who just remembered something they had been angry about for a while. She spun me around to face her. ¡°I really hate that you feel the need to slip into this ¡®Stupid Hunk¡¯ act of yours.¡± She gestured with her head back at the carved groove I¡¯d left in the bricks, ¡°That was a poetic statement earlier; it concisely and effectively conveyed a very complex argument. In fact, I¡¯ve seen you act deliberately and with cunning in almost everything you¡¯ve done since we first interacted. It¡¯s insulting that there is even a part of you that believes I could or would buy into this ridiculous farce. I understand you may have developed this routine to comfort those intimidated by your appearance, but as you know, I don¡¯t find you attractive. And for your consideration, I want it to be known that I don¡¯t enjoy spending my time with idiots, pretend or not.¡± I raised an eyebrow. Who was she trying to convince? ¡°Gee, Maki, you keep complementing me like this, and I¡¯m going to start believing this is a real date.¡± I had to fight back another himbofied grin, this one a genuine reaction. There was something about an angry Maki that made my heart start racing. She was just too fun to tease. And certainly, this version of her, with color in her cheeks and actual human emotion in her eyes, was far superior to the unfeeling gynoid she tried to present herself as. Right, that was the reason I found it cute. It had nothing to do with the notion that I was a tsundere fanatic, a rumor that had haunted me since high school, went I went through a chain of relationships with particularly headstrong women. I¡¯ll admit, my last long term girlfriend, Maria, happened to have some tsundere tendencies, but that wasn¡¯t why I stayed with her. I stayed with her because she had a legendary ass, and was fun to spend time with, despite her tendency to harp on me. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Not that my very reasonable protests stopped my friends from digging in on it. They went particularly wild after we covered Freud and the Oedipus Complex in social studies ¨C that Austrian, cocaine-addled pervert doomed me. My mother being famously strict, and domineering had nothing to do with my romantic tastes. Maki barely reminded me of my mother at all. Outside of the fact that they were both Asian, smart, straightforward, stubborn, and frequently irritated by my behavior, they were nothing alike. Hell, they could have been basically identical, and it wouldn¡¯t have mattered, because that was not a thing happening in my brain, at all. The only reason I would even consider hooking up with Maki was for the Experience Points. For one, I felt weird and a little gross invalidating her prior sexual identity with my Social feats, and two, frankly, I found her annoying. Which I didn¡¯t find attractive. And it definitely, for certain, wasn¡¯t the primary reason I really wanted to lean in and steal a kiss right now. Which I didn¡¯t even want to do, more or less. It was merely an intrusive thought, that was all. I pinched her cheek lightly and let her slap my hand away. A wild flash of anger came upon her before she paused, caught herself, and gave me an annoyed look as if to say, ¡®You thought that would work?¡¯ ¡°For the record, Maki, I am an idiot. And I hate to break it to you like this, but so are you.¡± She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. ¡°Explain.¡± I laughed, picking up Maki by the waist and took a few steps into a very narrow and purely functional alleyway, out of sight from passing strangers. Her breath hitched as I did, shocked by the ease with which I could carry her, or perhaps the audacity of it all. I put her down with her back against a dry brick wall, sheltered in the shadow of an old HVAC unit above. I leaned in close, one hand on her lower back pulling her against me and the other on her cheek and neck. This was so that we could talk semi-privately, I told myself, and while the system did make me roll a Seduction check, that was incidental to my actual intentions. I almost felt bad about the four Successes, to tell the truth. ¡°Let me impart some Li-family wisdom to you, Maki-chan. We like to say, ¡®You¡¯re only as clever as your actions.¡¯ So no matter how reasonable you think you are, no matter how well you¡¯ve studied, or how intelligent you may be, if you¡¯re doing dumb shit, you are dumb.¡± ¡°As I¡¯ve said¡ª¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care. Listen, just hear me out. Smart people don¡¯t make plans to illicitly break into the Shinto shrine afterhours, they don¡¯t agree to needlessly risk their lives alongside people they¡¯ve known for less than half a day, and they sure as shit don¡¯t run towards killer ghosts.¡± Her eyes were starting to water as she glared up at me. ¡°So we should, what, quit?¡± I flicked her earlobe. ¡°Obviously not. I already told you I¡¯m in this win or fail, live or die. This city needs idiots like us. But just because we have to be stupid, doesn¡¯t mean we have to be crazy.¡± Maki grit her teeth. ¡°Now I¡¯m insane¡ª¡± I wanted to say, ¡®Maki, you are clearly not okay.¡¯ And, ¡®Every time you go emotionally glacial, I get incredibly creeped out,¡¯ but these were not helpful statements. No, I needed to try a different approach. Luckily for me, I had the Skills and Attributes to back it up. ¡°This is a vendetta, right?¡± She went stiff in my arms, her face freezing in a rictus of anger. ¡°Yeah, thought so. That¡¯s why you aren¡¯t allowed to pursue this exorcism? Maybe someone went after this ghost the last time it showed up and didn¡¯t come back, is what I¡¯m guessing.¡± Her eyes slipped from my own, migrating towards my chest and focusing on some distant point past the horizon. It was all the confirmation I needed. ¡°You¡¯ve probably been focusing nonstop on this for the past few years. Researching, training, getting ready to take your vengeance, right?¡± I continued, utilizing a particularly good Empathy roll to keep pushing. I gently pushed her chin up and waited for her eyes to focus again. ¡°That¡¯s good. I approve of all of that. And yeah, you weren¡¯t dumb when you were doing your preparation. I imagine you pushed your mind and mental endurance to the limit pretty often. But, Maki, I think if you¡¯re being honest with yourself, you were probably pretty nuts during all that.¡± The anger drained from her face, but the robot didn¡¯t return. Maki was present and listening, skeptically, I could tell, but she was listening. ¡°Again, that was good. Preparation is the time to be crazy and smart. You needed to withdraw into your little bubble and single-mindedly pursue revenge in order for us to have gotten to where we are.¡± I had no idea where I was going with this, I was just running my mouth, letting my brain freestyle for a bit. But there was yet another seven Success, Charisma + Persuasion roll backing it up, so I was confident my mouth was running somewhere intentional. ¡°But now we have reached the point of action. We need to have our heads in the game if we¡¯re to survive. We need to observe reality as it is. When you do that thing where you shut off your emotions and go all Terminator with it, that¡¯s you denying reality; that¡¯s you ignoring a big part of yourself. That worked great when you were in the library ignoring concerned phone calls from your friends and family.¡± She winced. I gently lifted her cheek so that she was looking at me again. ¡°But tonight, we need to examine everything that is really happening, around us and within us, and then to reliably do the dumb thing anyway, which, again, is the part where we actually go and try to exorcise the undefeated, martial artist exterminating, Hungry Ghost. You know what most people would say if we told them what we¡¯re doing tonight? They¡¯d say, ¡®What are you, fucking stupid?¡¯ And you know what I¡¯d say? I¡¯d say, ¡®Hell to the motherfucking yes I am.¡¯ You know what I¡¯m saying?¡± There was a long pause as we stared into each other¡¯s eyes. Light rain pattered against aluminum ventilation, and a few curious strangers glanced our way as they passed us. To them, we were the cover of a romance novel, two lovers totally consumed by one another. Then my eyes slowly drifted to the side as I started to think about what I just said. What the hell was I talking about? Had I leaned too hard into the Himboforce? Because even I didn¡¯t know where I was going with that. Maybe you couldn¡¯t just let a good roll take over for you. Or maybe, the best way to come across as stupid, is to be stupid. Maki pressed against my chest lightly. I obliged her, backing up and giving her some space. ¡°I disagree,¡± she said, ¡°with almost everything you just said. Your worldview is preposterous, pointlessly self-destructive, and exists only to justify your own unhinged desire to play the hero.¡± She looped her arm through mine again and started pulling me along beside her back on our way. ¡°And another thing! Nothing you said addresses the fact that it is annoying when you pretend to be dumber than you actually are. You shouldn¡¯t debase yourself to make others more comfortable, and doing so with me when in private insults both of our intelligences.¡± ¡°Aiyah, Maki, I¡¯m telling you, those are the real dumbass thoughts that run through my head. I have poor impulse control, woman. Don¡¯t take it so personally.¡± I was smiling widely, taking short, shuffling steps to match her quick pace. Maki¡¯s words may have denied the validity of what I¡¯d said, but she was notably more animated and alive. She had a frenetic energy to her, was speaking with her hands, and her facial expressions displayed a range of emotions. Granted, it was all in service of yelling at me, and all of those expressions were some variation of ¡®irritated¡¯, but still, I counted it as my win. She glanced up at me and narrowed her eyes as if reading my thoughts. ¡°You can¡¯t wax philosophical at me and possibly still maintain that position. And why do you sound proud of your impulse control problems?!¡± ¡°If I were smarter, my argument would have worked though, right?¡± I shot her my smuggest grin, daring her to call me out. ¡°Ugh, look.¡± She came to a stop and pointed at a narrow door up a flight of stairs. The sign above it was in Japanese with small English lettering beneath. We stepped to the side as the bell above the door jingled to let some people step out. ¡°Tamaki Grill. We were basically here before you, you¡­decided to pick me up and have your way with me, you impatient brute. The whole point of coming here was for the privacy of a booth!¡± ¡°What can I say? I just can¡¯t control myself around you, Maki-chan. You¡¯re too delectable.¡± I waved at the woman and her family who were halfway down the steps. ¡°Oh hi, Mrs. Carter, fancy seeing you here! How was the food?¡± The middle-aged woman returned my smile, her twin daughters giggling behind their hands. Her husband non-verbally congratulated me for my date with an amused grin. ¡°Hello, James! It¡¯s been so long! And we haven¡¯t had a chance to sit down yet, there¡¯s a bit of a wait.¡± She gestured to her family. ¡°This is my husband, Steve, and my daughters, Lana and Sarah. I don¡¯t know if you remember them; they were freshman the year you graduated.¡± ¡°Hey, nice seeing you again. This is Maki. Maki, Mrs. Carter was my English teacher for three out of four years in high school.¡± Maki, for her part, had turned bright crimson and was staring intently at the sidewalk between us and the Carters. ¡°Hi,¡± she nearly squeaked, ¡°nice to meet you.¡± The twins giggled again, earning a chiding look from their mother. ¡°Nice to meet you too, Maki. Well, I won¡¯t keep you from booking a table. We¡¯re going to try our hands at the crane games next door. Have fun kids, and stay safe!¡± One of the girls laughed out loud. ¡°Yeah, James, keep it wrapped up,¡± she said. ¡°Real smooth, mom.¡± Mrs. Carter sipped her teeth. ¡°Get your head of the gutter, Lana. Bye, James!¡± I waited for them to pass through the door to the little arcade next door before turning to Maki. ¡°¡®Have my way with you¡¯? Such a weird way to put that. Made it sound like I fingered you in the alley.¡± She elbowed me. ¡°I was trying to be discrete! You didn¡¯t have to make it worse! ¡®Can¡¯t control yourself around me¡¯, really?¡± ¡°It¡¯s called improv, Maki, I was doing a ¡®Yes, And¡¯. Now, do me a favor and try your hardest to not imply we¡¯re going to fuck in the booth when we make the reservation.¡± The Hungry Ghost 2 Tamaki Grill had all the hallmarks of a classy establishment. We were greeted by a well-manicured and many-decades-old bonsai in the initial waiting room, framed by ornate, carved wooden finish work in an arch around it. Ink paintings with stark and impressionistic scenes of somber Japanese forests adorned the walls. There was something vaguely ominous about the paintings, though I couldn¡¯t put my finger on it. One of the women behind the counter stepped out as soon as she saw us enter, menus in hand. She bowed low and said in Japanese, ¡°Li-sama, Ishida-sama, your table is ready. Please follow me.¡± Hm, something was afoot. Not only were we not expected, but the Carters had said there was a wait, and the little waiting room was full. Someone had definitely arranged for us to cut the line, and I could think of only one group of people who had both the power to make that call and the interest in me to do so. I surreptitiously looked around for more evidence, but it wasn¡¯t like they were going to be showing off their tattoos in public. The suspicion was enough to let me roll a Wits + Investigation though. Two Successes guided my eyes back to the ink wash paintings; the trees had a way of blending together ¨C was that their meaning? They were like individual trees hidden in a forest; I couldn¡¯t find them if I tried? Or maybe, they were the forest looming over us ¨C either way, the choice in d¨¦cor felt deliberate, even if I was missing why exactly. Speaking in English, I said, ¡°We were hoping for a booth, actually. It¡¯s no trouble if we need to wait.¡± She responded in Japanese. I made a note of that. ¡°Of course, all arrangements have already been made. We hope they¡¯ll meet your expectations.¡± Maki and I shared a hesitant glance before following the hostess. She led us past the primary dining room with its packed seating, into an even more formal setting behind an unmarked heavy mahogany door. Once we were past it, all the noise of conversation from the room behind us went silent, trapped by the thick wood at our backs. Heads did not turn, nor did conversation stop when we entered. There was in fact, a total absence of reaction or attention, in a manner which communicated that we, in turn, would be expected to ignore our fellow diners. The staff, what little there was, moved quickly and quietly about their tasks, avoided looking at the clientele, and never lingered anywhere within ear shot of the low conversations. Even the inebriated old men at the bar didn¡¯t so much as look up. Two men were standing by the door in finely pressed suits, one a rectangular, refrigerator shaped giant, and the other his physical opposite, very slight and shorter than Maki. They at least reacted a little to me entering, shifting their stances slightly. The hell was Pak doing, handing out gift cards to a Yak restaurant? We were all forced to tolerate their presence, but deliberately sending people to one of their establishments didn¡¯t seem like his style. Maybe he¡¯d missed the forest for the trees and didn¡¯t know, or maybe they were so inescapable in Little Tokyo that it didn¡¯t matter. Well, if they expected me to play their game, they¡¯d invited the wrong man. I slapped the smaller man on the shoulder, shifting the collar of his shirt just enough for me to catch the hint of a tattoo. His eyes widened in surprise, and I could feel the entire room tense. ¡°Sheeeeesh, look at you, traps up to your fucking ears like the goddamn Pyramid of Giza. That¡¯s a Silat body if I¡¯ve seen one. Were you the one who gave Pak the gift cards he was handing out?¡± He let out a breath of relief, cheeks pinkening slightly. There was a confusion there, perhaps from encountering the Social feat which made me universally appealing regardless of orientation. He cleared his throat. ¡°That¡¯s right, sir. I¡¯ve been lucky enough to train with Master Hadiman for ten years now. I heard that you beat him in a game of Caci. I¡¯m excited to watch the video after my shift.¡± ¡°He was taking it easy on me!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure sir is being too humble.¡± I waved him off. ¡°Tell you what, I¡¯ll man the door for a bit, and you can watch it now. Decide for yourself.¡± He put his hands up. ¡°No, no, I can¡¯t do that.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Me and the big man will beat the hell out of anyone who dares trespass. You a judoka, bro? Built like a brick shit house; that¡¯s usually a good giveaway. You can hold them down while I wail on ¡®em.¡± The other security guard shrunk a little from embarrassment. Neither man seemed to have any plan for dealing with my unique style of belligerent friendliness. ¡°Uh, freestyle wrestling mostly, sir. I¡¯m no good at the standing stuff, but I¡¯m working on it.¡± ¡°No kidding. I could work on my ground game. Let¡¯s exchange numbers. You should come by my backyard gym some time. I¡¯ll teach you some Chin Na. You¡¯ll come to love stand-up grappling when you start practicing on top of a stone surface.¡± He started to stammer a reply but was saved by Maki, who tugged on my sleeve and gave me a hard look. I patted the big man on the arm. ¡°Hey don¡¯t sweat it, brother. I¡¯ll catch you off shift sometime, right?¡± It¡¯s amazing what a little flagrant violation of social norms can do for a room. Most of the people here seemed to be cautious and confused by what just happened. I could see them debating whether or not to actually turn and look at me. They, I assumed, were the ones who didn¡¯t know who I was, or what I was doing there; probably the regular, wealthy members of Tamaki¡¯s select club. Of the rest, most of them had shifted their focus towards three of the middle-aged men drinking at the bar, as if awaiting their judgment. Those men had all turned to watch me directly, completely uncaring of the unspoken rules of the establishment. I winked at the three of them, committing their faces to memory. One of them barked a laugh at my audacity, the second raised his martini glass at me, and the third only shook his head before returning to his drink. With that, everyone, even those ignorant of what was happening, relaxed back into what they¡¯d been doing before we entered. Our hostess took us to the most discrete booth in the room, tucked into the corner and surrounded by walls on all three sides. Maki slid in, patting the seat next to her and pulling her phone out. I ordered a sparkling sake and Maki a water. ¡°You could have told me this was a Yakuza bar,¡± I whispered to her once we were alone. ¡°My apologies. I¡¯ve been to Tamaki many times and never realized the purpose of this room. I assumed there was private reservation seating here, not a hidden club.¡± ¡°Did you notice that the hostess only spoke Japanese to me?¡± She waffled her head. ¡°Hmm, many people living here are on work visas. She may have been embarrassed by her English.¡± ¡°She didn¡¯t switch when I responded to her in English. When have you seen a service employee do that? I¡¯m positive someone told her to speak exclusively Japanese with me. It¡¯s a threat.¡± ¡°How do you mean?¡± ¡°Maki, in order to understand these people, you have to get into their heads. Outside of a mental institution, these are some of the most paranoid people that you¡¯ll find on the planet. The decorations, the way the flowers are arranged, the way the seats face each other ¨C all of those are methods of communication. Every little slight, and every social inconsistency is seen as carrying intent. Having the hostess speak exclusively their own language was their way of reminding me whose house I was stepping in. Plus, my proficiency isn¡¯t common knowledge. I haven¡¯t spoken more than a few words of Japanese since we left the temple¡± Not on purpose, it was too loud for my shoddy accent. ¡°They wanted me to feel the shadow of their intelligence network all around me.¡± She scoffed. ¡°You¡¯re seriously underestimating my cousin¡¯s ability to gossip. With the kind of eyes she was making at you, Susy is probably cutting K-pop style fancams of you as we speak.¡± ¡°That might be, but you¡¯re missing the big picture. Regardless of the source of information, they¡¯re still implying that they know what happens inside your shrine. Doesn¡¯t that bother you?¡± Maki drummed her fingers on the table. ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m skeptical or accusing you of being alarmist, but have you considered that you¡¯re just on edge due to your own recent less-than-pleasant interactions with organized crime? By all appearances, we¡¯ve been treated with utmost hospitality.¡± She was as unerringly insightful as she¡¯d been all night. That said, while I was definitely primed to see Tigers in the reeds, and was certainly more annoyed than ever by Black Harbor¡¯s criminal underworld, I was pretty sure I was onto something here. I gestured to the booth we were in. ¡°What do you think this is if not a message?¡± ¡°A message certainly, but you used the word ¡®threat¡¯.¡± ¡°There¡¯s little to distinguish them in the Martial World.¡± ¡°I see. And that¡¯s why you felt the need to make a fool of yourself with the security?¡± I nodded. ¡°Yep. Letting them know I¡¯m not scared.¡± ¡°By disrespecting them in their own establishment?¡± ¡°Yeah, exactly.¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t that be considered a provocation, or an escalation?¡± ¡°Eh, they started it.¡± ¡°By saving you a table in their private section?¡± I sighed. ¡°You¡¯re hopeless. Yes, of course. That¡¯s obviously way more intimidating than if they¡¯d saved us a table outside.¡± She rolled her eyes and rested her head on her palm. ¡°Does being a youxia require you to be relentlessly combative with any and all authorities, or is that a James Li exclusive?¡± ¡°It¡¯s Black City Kung Fu¡¯s newest tenet, as of seconds ago. And I would hardly call¡ª¡± I went silent as a waitress approached with our drinks. She bowed as she placed a red envelope with a golden tassel next to my sparkling sake, but didn¡¯t comment on it. A name in Chinese was written in gold ink, the calligraphy immaculate, each stroke a masterpiece. Some subtle charm in the way the characters were drawn presented covetous greed, with a hint of carefree recklessness. It would have made for a lovely surprise if not for the name in question. Instead, I scowled when I read it. The absolute audacity of the criminal class never failed to astound and infuriate. The waitress was frozen mid-movement, trembling in her plain kimono, and the room was silent, conversations cutting out. I took a breath and calmed my roiling Qi. The Yakuza were playing with fire. Just because I accepted the necessity of organized crime in the city, didn¡¯t mean I had to accept the necessity of the specific members or organizations. Hm. That thought made me smile. I let the anger flow through and out of me ¨C thinking instead about a brighter future where I got to break a few heavily tattooed backs. The waitress did her best to discretely wipe the sweat off her palms and cleared her throat. ¡°Excuse me. Have you decided on anything to start? I should inform you that an anonymous patron has decided to pay for your entire meal. They said, ¡®Please get everything you could want,¡¯ and that holding back is the same as calling them poor.¡± ¡°Wow! Drinks included?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, sir. Dessert as well.¡± ¡°I can order anything? Anything at all?¡± She bowed again. ¡°Yes, sir.¡± ¡°Hohohohoho!¡± I rubbed my hands together. ¡°Alright! Tell the chef we¡¯re doing an omokase for two! Wait, that¡¯s not enough food. Okay! Let me start with the chef¡¯s sashimi sample platter, the sushi sample platter, the beef fried rice, the chicken fried rice, and three orders of every kind of gyoza and dumpling you offer. And then for drinks¡­Hm, get me a cup of the best sake you carry from each region of Japan, the second best too, in case there¡¯s contention over that, and a few bottles of sparkling water. How about for you, Maki?¡± She just glared at me in horrified silence. I nodded. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re probably right. Can we also get a huge bowl of edamame, and two orders of shrimp tempura? A few bowls of white rice too. Anything else, Maki?¡± Maki pinched the bridge of her nose. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s a good point. I can actually order the main platters right now too, if that¡¯s okay.¡± The overwhelmed waitress nodded, face frozen in a tight smile. ¡°Yes, sir.¡± Regrettably, I hadn¡¯t really read the rules for cooking and nutrition beyond making a note that they were oddly dense and as needlessly complicated as the rest of the ruleset. I figured I¡¯d have the time to familiarize myself with them once the game started. However, the system was definitely designed to be able to run just about any major martial arts trope, and the trope of a martial artist putting back tens of thousands of calories in a single sitting was probably a millennia old or older. I was pretty sure that I could eat like Goku without worrying about it, and probably come out the better for it. Hopefully, at least. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Even if not, we had hours to kill. It would be fine. ¡°Great! I¡¯ll do one of every steak you carry, medium rare. An entire roast duck, as well as two of the other duck dishes, whichever is most convenient for the kitchen. Three each of your ten bestselling sushi rolls. Each of your toban yaki. And the chef¡¯s sharing sushi and sashimi platters. No such thing as too much sushi.¡± ¡°Anything else, sir?¡± I scratched my chin. ¡°Should I get some ramen? I¡¯m worried that it¡¯ll fill me up. Uhhhh, how about a few salads, and by a few I mean, like, I don¡¯t know, one of each on your menu. And can I get a few cokes to chase the sake?¡± ¡°I see. Should I leave a menu, sir?¡± ¡°No, thank you. Actually, never mind, leave one behind.¡± Maki stomped on my shin as soon as the waitress left. ¡°Are you insane!?¡± ¡°Ow! What? They said to get everything I could want.¡± ¡°We¡¯re exorcising a ghost tonight, you lunatic!¡± ¡°A Hungry Ghost, and the best way to fight a hungry ghost is on a full stomach,¡± I said, nodding knowingly. ¡°You don¡¯t know that! You don¡¯t know anything about this ghost!¡± I shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re here, is it not? I study better with snacks on hand.¡± Maki buried her face in her hands and groaned. ¡°You are the most frustrating man I have ever met!¡± ¡°Plus,¡± I added, picking up the red envelope that had come with my drink, ¡°I was feeling vindictive. Notice anything?¡± I said, passing the envelope over. She furrowed her brow at it. ¡°Plum, Will, Stron¡ªah, this is your name? Forgive me, my Chinese is nonexistent.¡± I pointed at each symbol. ¡°Li Zhiqiang. My name, my Chinese name. Not something easily found. All of my documents use my American name. I have genuinely no idea how they came across it, and it¡¯s really bothering me.¡± ¡°I see¡­that¡¯s¡­¡± ¡°Alarming? Threatening? A clear show of power?¡± My Qi pulsed with every word, partially from anger, partially from a desire to rise to the occasion. Flashing their intimate knowledge of me was the sort of provocation that justified retaliation, and I was eager to establish some firm boundaries with the Yakuza in the only way they knew how ¨C the deliberate application of violence. ¡°You¡¯re burning up,¡± said Maki, shuffling away from me. My battle aura had a real heat to it since awakening my Fire nature, but I wasn¡¯t leaking enough of it to push her away. I suspected I was overloading her spiritual senses, like what had happened to me when I tried to sense the supernatural at the shrine. ¡°Whoops, sorry,¡± I said with a chuckle. ¡°I¡¯m good now.¡± She nodded slowly before sliding back to my side. ¡°Sure. Perhaps now isn¡¯t the time to read this message?¡± ¡°Eh. It could be important. You read it first and let me know. Or don¡¯t let me know. But definitely read it first.¡± She opened the envelope and pulled out the little slip of paper inside. ¡°Kami-sama, you martial artists are all incredibly strange. It¡¯s an invitation for tea followed by ¡®light mortal combat¡¯, or in reverse order if you prefer, and at your leisure. There¡¯s no name given, but there¡¯s a number and it¡¯s signed, ¡®An Old Friend¡¯.¡± ¡°Oh. That¡¯s fun! Pretty friendly, all things considered.¡± I took the letter and quickly added the number into my contacts. ¡°Now I feel bad about getting mad.¡± ¡°You¡­you can¡¯t be seriously entertaining the offer. Someone wants to kill you. I was about to apologize for doubting you.¡± ¡°No, no, I should be the one apologizing for losing control like that. They were just rolling out the red carpet before asking for a fight. That¡¯s actually pretty classy of them, hm? I mean, you could buy me a few beers, and I¡¯d probably agree to fight you ¨C That¡¯s just the kind of guy I am. Well, not you specifically, but you know what I mean.¡± ¡°But you were right! They were intentionally antagonizing you!¡± ¡°Maki, if someone fucks with me, but then immediately hands me an opportunity to beat their ass, how am I supposed to stay mad at them? Every great face needs a great heel, and this is some proper petting-a-cat-while-seated-in-an-armchair type villainy right here.¡± Her mouth dropped. ¡°James! They. Want. To. Kill. You.¡± ¡°He said ¡®light¡¯ mortal combat; I¡¯m guessing he wants a No-Limits match. That¡¯s fine. Who doesn¡¯t like a good fight, right? Just because someone gets killed doesn¡¯t mean that they¡¯re dead, Maki.¡± Maki rubbed her temples and took a few breaths to center herself. She then pulled up a map of the city on her phone and slid it between us. ¡°Let¡¯s just get to it. The plan is simple, and doesn¡¯t require you to be an expert on exorcisms or ghosts of any kind.¡± ¡°Hold on. Before we get to that, I want to know about who I¡¯m avenging tonight.¡± Her breath hitched. ¡°I¡¯m risking my life for the man, Maki. I want to at least know his name. Or hers. Hell, at least tell me their gender.¡± There was a long silence as she stared emptily at the table in front of her. ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right, of course. And it¡¯s relevant to your part for tonight¡¯s plan as well.¡± ¡°His name was Ishida Ken,¡± she continued, ¡°my older brother. We, the Shrine¡­don¡¯t typically look much further past the bounds of Little Tokyo, unless someone specifically asks us, and then we still may decide not to act on it. But he was like you, a hero, always meddling.¡± Her expression grew distant. I waited for her to collect herself again. ¡°I don¡¯t know much about the man who initially reached out to my brother, nor how they knew each other, but the man died shortly after Ken, in a shootout with police. The particulars of his relationship with this Triad are unclear to me. Much of this is. I had just started college at the time, and my family excluded me from all of this in order not to distract me.¡± ¡°From what I understand, after investigating the man who asked for help with the Hungry Ghost, my parents forbade my brother from involving himself further, despite initially giving approval.¡± She clenched her fists. ¡°If they had¡ªif I had been there, I would have told them that was a fool¡¯s errand. It should have been clear that he wouldn¡¯t back down, especially since he¡¯d recovered a weapon from the Second City capable of injuring spirits. Ken was a total sword fanatic; he was itching to put it to a real use.¡± ¡°The Second City?¡± I asked. She looked up surprised. ¡°You¡¯ve not heard of it, the subterranean section of Black Harbor?¡± ¡°Like the subway tunnels and sewers?¡± ¡°No, far beneath those. From what I¡¯ve heard, the Second City dwarfs Black Harbor in terms of size, though its population is completely unknowable. It¡¯s the home of those who cannot, or choose not to live above the surface. My brother described its layers as nearly endless, and as a tangle of three dimensional mazes. He said it was older than the US, and potentially older than mankind. Though, truthfully, I think many of these may have only been tales to scare a younger sister. I do know that Ken cut his teeth exploring it.¡± Every kid in the city had heard the spooky tales of a supposed undercity. The legends went that the original sewers had been built by carving out the natural caves under Black Harbor, and that when the first crews were exploring, they found already worked shafts and passages that traveled far beyond what a human could comfortably tolerate. Heat and poisonous gasses had chased them out, but every mayor since had covertly spent a sizeable budget on secret excavations ¨C or so the stories went. This was the supposed real reason that all the Well-Diggers and Shorers Union members lived in the Greenbelt, and not because they were extremely well compensated for their dangerous, back-breaking work and could afford homes in the suburbs. ¡°Ah, we used to call it Blacker Harbor. Your brother actually found a way in, huh? My friends and I must have spent hundreds of hours down there looking during elementary and middle school. Though, we were mostly just dicking around and doing parkour tricks off the pipes.¡± Maki mouthed ¡®elementary and middle school¡¯. ¡°Every time you describe your past, it gets harder to believe we grew up in the same century, let alone city. You¡¯re lucky you didn¡¯t find it for real. Never once did Ken return without some injury or another.¡± ¡°I believe it. We basically stopped going down after my boy Danny spooked a sleeping homeless guy down there and got stabbed. Pretty shitty for everyone involved ¨C the dude felt terrible about stabbing a kid, and Danny got sepsis and had to drop out of basketball for a year and a half. He was super traumatized too, won¡¯t even take the subway any more, poor guy. And that¡¯s just from regular underground exploration.¡± The Second City did answer more than a few questions that had been running in the back of my mind since getting here. Considering the emphasis the nutrition and alchemy systems placed on using monster parts, there weren¡¯t any obvious places to farm for resources, which would cripple a lot of builds. ¡°Dark depths filled with unspeakable horrors would make for a good place to train. Your brother ever say how he was getting down there?¡± ¡°No, he was extremely private about that.¡± She paused. ¡°Is there something wrong?¡± My expression had soured. I had just thought about the only other being in my life that probably knew a way down. ¡°Eh, it¡¯s nothing¡ªunless¡­you don¡¯t know anything about rats that can do ninjutsu, do you? Like, maybe a really, really fat one?¡± Maki¡¯s eye twitched and she took a deep breath. ¡°I must ask that you refrain from making jokes during my explanation.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right, sorry. I got excited. Tell me about this weapon your brother found.¡± ¡°Thank you. He called it Hakkotsu no Ha, Bleached Bone Blade. He said that it had first resembled a rusted, ordinary wakizashi when he first encountered it, and that he had first brought it with him out of curiosity to see if he could identify its history and origin. When he was cleaning it however, the sight of the blade inspired temporary blind rage in one of the Kami of our shrine. Ken lashed out with it in self-defense and as the weapon tasted the blood of the Kami, the rust fell away, revealing a perfectly white metal underneath. I say all of that¡ª¡± She paused as the first round of food and drink arrived. The booth, which was easily large enough to comfortably sit six or more, could barely contain the stacks of plates and bowls. Maki was visibly more and more annoyed as dishes just kept piling up, so I wisely avoided making a comment. Maki caught my hand as I went to pick up some sashimi between my chopsticks. ¡°Wait, I need to know you¡¯ve heard and comprehended this. I say all of that, James, to clarify that the weapon my brother brought with him to fight this Hungry Ghost was more than capable of harming spirits. The Kami he injured that day spent years resting off his wounds. Furthermore, my brother practiced Aikido since he could walk, and Iaido since he was ten. After seeing your match against Hadiman, I don¡¯t think Ken could have matched you in raw combat prowess, but Ken was a trained exorcist and onmyoji as well. He knew what he was doing, had a weapon that should have worked, and had the knowledge and tools to deal with most spirits.¡± I switched the chopsticks to my left hand and shoved a delicious cut of sashimi into my mouth, all while keeping eye contact with Maki. Out of respect for the flash of outrage I saw in her eyes as I did, I refrained from loudly proclaiming, ¡®OISHII!¡¯ like I wanted to. ¡°Right, I get it, you don¡¯t want me to try and literally fight the ghost. This sword, by the way, was it ever recovered?¡± ¡°No. Nor was my brother¡¯s body. In truth I suppose there¡¯s a chance he was a simple victim of gang violence, but my heart tells me that isn¡¯t the case.¡± ¡°My condolences.¡± I squeezed her shoulder comfortingly, then pushed her one of the cups of sake. Picking one up myself I raised it to the heavens and declared, ¡°Ishida Ken, on my honor as the Master of Black City Kung Fu, I, James Li, will either avenge you or join you tonight!¡± Maki took a sip of her sake while I downed mine in a single go. ¡°Thank you. Though I wish you wouldn¡¯t drink so recklessly.¡± ¡°The food will soak up the booze.¡± ¡°Do what you will. You certainly know your body¡¯s limits better than me.¡± The Hungry Ghost 3 She unlocked her phone and pulled up an overhead street map of Chinatown. ¡°As for the plan, as I said, it¡¯s quite simple. I¡¯ve spent years doing what I can to get ready, all that I was lacking when you reached out was suitable bait. This is the approximate area where the Hungry Ghost attacks its prey according to what I¡¯ve been able to gather. It¡¯s impossible to narrow it down further without identifying who the Ghost was in life. All that we can infer from his hunting behavior and choice of prey, is that he was likely killed by a male martial artist and carries a vendetta against them. And considering that the vengeful spirit became a Hungry Ghost and not some other variety, he was likely also obsessed with attaining martial prowess himself when he was alive.¡± ¡°You¡¯re describing a type of guy more common than pigeons in Chinatown. I used to have to beat the shit out of dudes like that once a week back in my senior year of high school.¡± It was a tradition to challenge the strongest in the school to fights of dominance. Not sure why people cared so much, it wasn¡¯t like the position came with any tangible benefits. Maybe it would have helped with girls, but I was already dating Maria by the time I was considered the strongest. ¡°Indeed. Which is why we had to focus on likely victims. I triangulated the cases and approximated a radius of peril.¡± Maki tapped the screen and selected one of her custom filters, making a red circle appear over a section of Bell St. ¡°Since the 1950¡¯s, every five or so years, a freshly injured male martial artist has gone missing while walking alone at night in roughly this area, with the exception of this year. The attack on you was approximately three years earlier than I was expecting based on the pattern so far.¡± I pointed at her with my chopsticks, a pork gyoza dangling between them. ¡°By ¡®we¡¯, you mean you and who else?¡± ¡°I was able to recover my brother¡¯s notes on this matter. Without his help, I doubt I would have been ready in time. I¡¯m not sure why the Hungry Ghost is attacking ahead of schedule¡ª¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± I interrupted. ¡°It¡¯s obviously hungry, right? I bet your brother tagged it good with his sword, and now it¡¯s been forced to come out of hiding early to look for prey. That means it can be hurt.¡± ¡°Maybe.¡± Maki placed a hand on my bicep and squeezed as tightly as she could. ¡°But you absolutely will not bet your life on that assumption tonight. Do you understand me, James?¡± Some of the blood had drained from her face and her tone was cold, but it wasn¡¯t creepy and inhuman like earlier. Rather, I could tell she was genuinely frightened for me. ¡°And what will I be betting my life on then?¡± I¡¯d only phrased the question that way for the word play, but Maki took it to heart, nodding seriously. ¡°There¡¯s an ancient Native American spirit who has taken up residence in our shrine, a huntress by nature and one local to this area ¨C or, rather, our shrine was built on ground that is rightfully hers. Either way, like my brother two and a half years ago, you¡¯ll be making a pact with her in exchange for a blessing of the hunt, which will draw the ghost to you. You don¡¯t have to worry about the price, Elauwit is eager for her own chance at revenge; she favored my brother highly.¡± She zoomed out on the map. ¡°Once you¡¯ve captured the spirit¡¯s attention, you¡¯ll lead it to here,¡± she pointed at the Ames Canal which served as the far southern border of Chinatown, ¡°which is where I¡¯ll be waiting. I¡¯ve spent the past two years crafting an urn to seal the creature, as well as talismans to aid the process. If you can get it in my range, it stands no chance. Any questions?¡± ¡°Sure, one big one. Why the fuck do I need to run this thing all the way down to the canal? That¡¯s like, nearly a mile and crosses through basically everyone¡¯s territory at some point, including the Tigers.¡± Maki bit her lip ¨C a rare sign of uncertainty from the miko. ¡°There¡¯s no other way. In order to operate with the effectiveness I needed to challenge such a dangerous spirit, I had to incorporate the natural power of running water into my ritual. I would say that the heart of my Sealing Arts is a core built off my understanding of semiotics, which allows me to synergize traditional Shinto techniques with those based on Western practices. Like you, I¡¯ve had to develop my own style. It has its weaknesses, but if you can bring me the Hungry Ghost, I¡¯m positive that I can seal it. What I¡¯ve developed could match even a greater Kami¡¯s strength.¡± I absentmindedly shoveled food into my mouth as I thought about the problem. Catching the ghost¡¯s attention while avoiding both innocents and the Tigers, and any thus-far-unknown attacks from the monster, and then roof running nearly a mile was a Herculean effort. I could do it, probably, but there would be complications, that much I was certain. Luckily, the talk about tunnel exploring called to mind a much easier target. ¡°It¡¯s just got to be running water, not the canal itself?¡± ¡°Yes, running water represents the passage of souls from this world into the next ¨C that¡¯s what I¡¯ll call on with my sealing ritual. Why, what do you have in mind? Surely, there¡¯s not a hidden creek only the locals know of.¡± I dragged the map view to an alley, only a quarter of a mile away from the red circle. ¡°Check it out.¡± She leaned over and furrowed her brow. ¡°I don¡¯t see anything. This alley doesn¡¯t even have a name.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because they had to wall it off. There¡¯s an old storm drain under there ¨C it collects all the water for like half the neighborhood¡¯s streets and diverts it towards the canal. Dumbasses in my dad¡¯s generation used to try and body surf their way down and through the pipe that leads into the canal. So many of them drowned, that the city closed off all the easy entrances. Luckily for us, the lock on one of the doors has been broken for three years. It¡¯s definitely bigger than most creeks. And with how much it¡¯s been raining recently, the drain is sure to be at death trap levels of depth and water flow, but you¡¯ll only have about two feet of standing room though. Think it¡¯ll work? Hell of a lot closer.¡± ¡°Two feet? You¡¯re lucky I¡¯m thin. It¡¯ll add some difficulty, but at a quarter the distance, it exponentially lowers the probability of external interference. It¡¯ll have to work.¡± She paused. ¡°No, I should say, I¡¯ll make it work. You can put your trust in me, James. I will deliver, I promise.¡± ¡°Heh, that¡¯s what I like to see.¡± I gave her a toothy grin, while clamping down my fighting spirit. ¡°The resolve in your eyes has got me burning up. Alright, partner, my life is in your hands.¡± She nodded. ¡°I won¡¯t let you down.¡± We still had a few hours to go, and there was plenty of food, so I used the time to chow down and ask about the Hungry Ghost itself. Egui, as they were known in Chinese, were the spirits of the jealous and obsessed who never achieved their desires in life. In death, they sought out those they once envied to try and devour. The fact that it targeted only injured fighters spoke to the kind of man it once was, a hyena and a coward. He¡¯d likely tried to prey on weaker foes while scrambling up the ranks of the Triads, before meeting a predictable end. What a dumbass. In the Martial World, you are what you eat. If you wanted to become strong, you had to devour those as strong or stronger than you. Anyone who didn¡¯t even know that much had no right to call themselves a martial artist. I¡¯m going to enjoy snuffing you out, loser. Maki couldn¡¯t tell me much about the specifics of how the ghost would fight; in general, Egui were known for their ability to turn into smoke, and, like many evil spirits, the weaponization of their dread presence. That gave me very little to go off, and that wasn¡¯t accounting for the real possibility that it differed completely from Maki¡¯s expectations. With the time for me to spend my horde of Experience rapidly approaching, I could envision a few paths I could go down on, all existing somewhere on the spectrum of Survival vs. Glory. At the far end of Survival, was a path entirely focused on defenses and mobility. I would spend it all on becoming hardy and hard to hit, both things I needed in the long run, and would allow me to set up Maki for the goal tonight. At the far end of Glory, wer not only the big, flashy purchases, but a gamble on my future. These were the feats that would set me up to become something truly great, a new force on the scene, if I survived that long. Alan wanted Survival, James wanted Glory, but I knew the answer didn¡¯t lie directly in the middle. That path led to neither. No, I needed to pick one to focus on, if I didn¡¯t want tonight to be the prologue to my own sister and Maki teaming up to beat this thing in five years. As sick as that movie sounded, I didn¡¯t want to become someone¡¯s tragic backstory. ¡°Dumpling for your thoughts,¡± said Maki, holding a lobster dumpling between her chopsticks up at my face. I raised an eyebrow; I didn¡¯t realize we¡¯d leveled up our relationship like that, but didn¡¯t question it and scooped the dumpling into my mouth with my tongue. Maki blushed. ¡°You, you were supposed to use your chopsticks,¡± she stammered out. ¡°Huh? Then why did you hold it up so close?¡± ¡°Ugh. Forget it. Tell me what had your brow so furrowed. You¡¯ve been staring off into the distance for a few minutes now.¡± ¡°I was just trying to figure out my strategy for tonight. It¡¯s hard to explain. I guess I¡¯m trying to decide what aspect of my style I want to bet tonight on.¡± ¡°Hmph. Bet on me, you idiot. I¡¯ll keep you alive. What¡¯s so hard to understand? I¡¯m the idiot counting on you, and you¡¯re the idiot counting on me. Isn¡¯t that what you were getting at in the alley?¡± ¡°Ha! You actually got something from all of that? I was mostly just trying to cheer you up.¡± Maki rolled her eyes, but to my shock, the corners of her mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly. ¡°Hey, James, can I ask you a question? I¡¯ve been wondering for a long time.¡± I began to open my mouth, but she angrily interjected, ¡°I swear, if you were about to say, ¡®You just did¡¯, I¡¯m going to stab you with a steak knife.¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. I smirked. ¡°Just ask the question, you maniac.¡± ¡°Why do you fight? Not just here, why do you fight when there aren¡¯t heroics involved? Why do you throw yourself into danger, over and over? And when you¡¯re training, and consumed by pain, what makes you push on? What¡¯s the point?¡± She was turned to face me, and her eyes pointed at mine, but Maki wasn¡¯t talking to me. She was looking through me, through time and space, at a different man altogether. I couldn¡¯t answer for Ken, but she deserved to hear my truth. ¡°It¡¯s an ugly answer. You sure you want to know?¡± She nodded. ¡°It¡¯s funny, I¡¯ve been trying to figure it out for a week, but tonight, something about walking past all the Yaks made it click for me.¡± I didn¡¯t bother to speak quietly; I was hoping this was overheard. ¡°I¡¯ve got responsibilities to others that I¡¯m not going to abandon, but if you¡¯re asking me, personally, what I want? It¡¯s not complicated, I want to be the strongest in Black Harbor,¡± I said in a casual tone. ¡°Not just the strongest person, or even the strongest being, I mean I want to be stronger than anything in the city, no government, organization, or conspiracy above me, nothing. After that, who knows? Maybe I¡¯ll get greedy and go for the world, or maybe not, but I¡¯m not stopping until I¡¯m the undisputed king of the Harbor. I¡¯d rather be dead than be anything else.¡± I wasn¡¯t just talking big. Before Alan had arrived, James Li felt safe in the city; it was his, after all. James had lived and breathed Black Harbor. I wasn¡¯t delusional, I knew it was a dangerous place, but cold logic could do nothing against the fact that, emotionally, I felt safe. When I thought about what I could do to return to that feeling, only one answer came to mind: be the strongest. I was sure that just like in High School, being known as the strongest would only bring more problems and challengers to my door, but that didn¡¯t stop me from wanting to feel safe again. Maki closed her eyes and nodded. ¡°Ah.¡± ¡°Not what you were expecting?¡± ¡°No, I think I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it said out loud. Thank you.¡± ¡°Yeah, I feel the same way. That helped me figure out my strategy.¡± I scooched over to Maki, so close our sides were pressed together, and slung my right arm over her shoulder. This was the third Seduction I was rolling on Maki, the first two having worked her out of her shell enough for me to step it up like this. I leaned in, so that my face was inches from her, and promptly did a mental double take at the results of my Presence + Seduction. ¡°Hey, Maki, this is going to sound crazy,¡± I said quietly, ¡°but I need to kiss you.¡± Her face scarlet, she shrunk in on herself, pulling her shoulders around her. ¡°W-what? Why?¡± ¡°Because I¡¯m going big, I¡¯m betting my survival on you. So, I need to kiss you ¨C it¡¯ll make sense, I promise.¡± ¡°F-fine. Just be quick.¡± Maki raised her chin and closed her eyes, steeling her will for what came next. I bent down and kissed her gently, very grateful that the system was letting my twelve Successes from my Seduction roll continue to guide my actions. My lips massaged and played with hers as I focused my Qi on a very basic Erotic Sorcery spell, gathering up the lust energy from around us and processing it in my body. The miko was producing very little at first and I could feel that she was fighting the sensations, despite not instantly pulling away. Then, at once, the floodgates opened and a river of energy poured forth, far more than I¡¯d expected. There was an anxious aura about Maki¡¯s lust, and the way it exploded out of her implied long years of neglect. She gasped and grabbed the cloth of my jacket between her thumb and forefinger and pinched it tight. It was a profoundly cute gesture, and I knew instantly that I was stuck with this woman, for better or for worse. No way was I letting her go now. Our tongues met, and I could tell that she was hesitant. Even with the twelve Successes, this was just past where her new comfort level lay, and that was alright. I had gathered enough power to cast the blessing. It was the most basic I could do, but it was certain to come in handy. Seven Successes was enough to give Maki a pool of six Dice that she could spend once for any roll tonight. Her hand moved to her core, where the bundle of transformed lust energy was now merging with her Qi network. While Maki recovered in shocked silence, I checked my notifications. [Hidden Quest Completed] Convince a lesbian to make out. Reward: 25 EXP, Gain Ishida Maki as an Ally [Ally Quest Completed (Ishida Maki)] Reawaken Maki¡¯s ability to feel lust again. Reward: 35 EXP, +1 Willpower, +2 Linguistics (Japanese) God, that was going to be funny to drop on her later. Maki elbowed me in the ribs as hard as she could and harrumphed. ¡°You jerk! I said quick!¡± ¡°Ow! It takes as long as it takes, woman. Aren¡¯t you going to thank me?¡± ¡°Maybe if you told me ahead of time instead of tricking me! Respect my boundaries, beast!¡± I untangled myself from her and took a gulp of sake. ¡°I didn¡¯t know how to explain it with words. I¡¯m self-taught, remember.¡± She narrowed her eyes. Now that I knew for sure Maki was sublimating her lust into annoyance, it only served to make my heart thunder and my grin go goofy. ¡°Of course you taught yourself sex magic. Ugh, I can¡¯t believe I¡­¡± ¡°Can¡¯t believe you what?¡± She responded by kicking me in the ankle. ¡°Ow! Fine, we¡¯ll move on, Jesus!¡± I put my palms togethers in front of me, and said, ¡°You¡¯re going to want to have your spiritual senses turned up for this next part. I¡¯ve decided that tonight, I¡¯m the monster.¡± I was going for the 90% Glory, 10% Survival path, my reasonable half demanding at least that much of the latter. But otherwise, this was totally future focused, designed so that all I needed to grow was to keep putting myself in really, outrageously dangerous situations. First, I spent 50 Experience on bringing my Martial Arts up to 10 Dice, which was the last threshold I needed to pass to upgrade my signature ability. [Master Feat] Style Maker (Upgraded) ¨C You are the demon at the crossroads of all conflicts, and your style is synthesis manifest. You may ignore tutor requirements to buy feats so long as you¡¯ve seen them in action and possess the Feat, Attribute, and Skill requirements. During combat, your mind is continuously processing the flow of battle in order to evolve and develop your fighting style, and outside of combat you may be struck by the occasional epiphany while observing seemingly unrelated phenomena, like the waving of grass in the wind or the way the roots of a tree grasp the earth. Feats that come to you in either way and their specifics are outside your direct control, born from your subconscious, but they will always be useful. You receive a 5 EXP discount to buy all feats gained from Style Maker. With that I was down a total of 100 EXP, but like money, Experience was meant to be spent, not horded away. Before I got to the really fun part, I obliged my more cautious side by buying two of Kas¡¯s footwork feats in the same tree at a heavy discount, and upgrading the jumping feat I¡¯d taken from Annie. [Minor Feat] Fancy Footwork Your ankle mobility and strength are exceptional. Add 1 Die to either your Attack or Defense pool every round. [Minor Feat] Slide Steps You have learned to slightly shift your position quickly and without any tells. Add 1 Die to either your Attack or Defense pool every round. You can choose to add this Die to a pool after knowing the result; This feat also upgrades Fancy Footwork to have the same option. [Major Feat] Coiled Hamstrings (Upgraded) Your jump distance is multiplied tenfold, and your sprinting speed is considerably increased. ¡°Were you able to follow along?¡± I asked Maki. She shook her head. ¡°I sensed a change, but the complexity was far beyond my ability to track.¡± ¡°Keep watching. I¡¯m just getting started.¡± The key to maximizing Style Maker was to have the highest possible Attributes and Skills that I could manage, in order to unlock the highest echelon of feats, while still having EXP in my bank to actually utilize it in the heat of the moment. I was pretty well-rounded right now, but with the Quest reward for actually encountering the supernatural on the way, it left me with only one real choice for tonight. I gritted my teeth and got ready for the next part. Buying Attributes had been unnoticeable so far, but I was about to enter a new strata. I¡¯d be announcing my power growth to the world with this, but I¡¯d sailed past the chance for discretion after my duel with Pak anyway. ¡°Are you watching, Black Harbor?! I¡¯m coming for the throne!¡± The booming of a great gong burst forth from my chest as I bought my seventh Aura Die. Whether or not it was actually audible to others was beyond my ability to perceive, fighting as I was to control the sudden burst of power roaring through my dantian. The next gong was louder, making my vision start to narrow as I bought the eighth Die for Aura. With the final Die, my ninth, leaving me with 87 EXP, there was no sound. Instead, it was like a canon blast went off and continued to do so, my world becoming white, and all the bones in my body vibrating a high-pitched, warbling scream as my body adjusted to the unbelievable Qi growth. There was a small audience gathered when I recovered, four bussers with more food and the two security guards from the door behind them. The smaller man had two karambits out and his partner had whipped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Both looked terrified at the thought of approaching much closer, lines of sweat dripping down their necks. ¡°Perfect timing!¡± I shouted, ears still ringing slightly. ¡°I¡¯m starving!¡± Bell Street Exorcism 1 Maki pursed her lips before angrily texting her mother back, the white light from her phone bouncing off the underside of her umbrella, framing her pale face in a dim halo. She was sublimating her embarrassment into annoyance; that microsecond pause between pursing her lips and getting upset was her tell. Her burgeoning attraction to me irked some part of her personality enough to drive her into denial; a process I couldn¡¯t get enough of watching. Over the course of our long meal, I had finally learned to read and interpret the subtle cues that revealed the inner workings of Maki¡¯s peculiar mind. I immediately seized on the chance to tease her a bit, unable to resist. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± I asked. ¡°We still have permission?¡± We were walking an arm¡¯s length apart on our way back to the Shrine, though not because of a sudden falling out. I had deliberately sped up my metabolism with some creative use of Fire Qi via an Endurance + Elemental Control roll. It was working, but as a side-effect, I was currently radiating an intense heat; so much so that the sidewalk beneath my steps was left dry as I lifted my feet, and I was shrouded in a faint cloud, the lingering mist turning to vapor as I walked. Maki kept her tone neutral and answered matter-of-factly in an attempt to move on quickly. ¡°It¡¯s nothing. My mother just wanted to know when she should check up on me. We can assume we¡¯ll have some privacy then.¡± ¡°What did you tell her?¡± She hid her face with her umbrella. ¡°Tomorrow morning,¡± she said primly. I could hear her blush. ¡°What else could I say?!¡± I laughed boisterously, the sound echoing off the brick and glass of Little Tokyo. It was late enough that the families and responsible working adults had cleared out of the neighborhood, but still too early for the nightclub scene to be out and about. Without the crowd noise drowning out the echoes and the sounds of distant wind, the space felt much larger. We were sharing the streets with other couples and locals going about their nightly chores, for the most part. And the Yakuza, but it was business as usual between us. They weren¡¯t shy about staring, but there weren¡¯t noticeably more of them than earlier, and they weren¡¯t hostile. I got the impression that someone higher up had called dibs on me; there was an air of bureaucratic tension about them, more like scared employees than wary gangsters. I made a note to attend tea with my anonymous benefactor before some other big wig got involved. One boss at a time, please. We did the purification ritual once we reached the Shrine, washing our hands over the basin, standing in the long shadows cast by the lights projected onto the fearsome faces of the guardian dog statues. There was no gust of wind as I stepped beneath the torii; evidently, I wasn¡¯t as interesting the second time around. Maki unlocked the door and ushered me inside. She flicked a few of the lights on, revealing a dim and thankfully empty hallway. I sighed with relief. I hated jump scares and had been worried there was going to be a freaky Junji Ito style spirit waiting in the dark for me. The Shinto Shrine struck me as a place where that could go down. ¡°Wait here. I¡¯m going to get changed.¡± ¡°Got it. I¡¯ll be here metabolizing as fast as I can.¡± She sipped her teeth at that, walking through the door into the offices and closing it behind her. Maki was still upset by how much I¡¯d eaten at Tamaki Grill ¨C I didn¡¯t know why; It had objectively been a great idea. I was about half-way done, and I¡¯d already gotten an incredible buff: my next Recovery Check was guaranteed a number of Successes equal to my Injury Threshold. That was an outrageous boon, especially with my Circular Breathing technique. I couldn¡¯t tell what about the meal had triggered that specific bonus, but it was good to know that all I had to do to sleep off a shattered limb, was to drop a few thousand dollars at a sushi restaurant. Obviously less relevant for me, but what I wanted to know was, would it work for Annie and others? Something to test, if I lived through the night. The hallway, empty and liminal, swallowed me whole like a great, ponderous worm. Psychic sensations of being watched danced across the back of my head, their points-of-origin leaping from brick to brick in the walls behind me. It was silent save for the hum of the ventilation system, yet like a chorus of cicadas, the pressure of their attention grew louder and louder in my mind as the minutes stretched out. I stood relaxed, focused on my breathing, and continued to stare blankly at the wall of children¡¯s drawings. While deeply unsettling, I didn¡¯t want to show any signs of weakness. The attention wasn¡¯t malevolent, just feral, like I was being circled and inspected by curious coyotes. Nausea began to turn my overfull stomach. Normally, I savored being watched ¨C I was savoring it now, thinking about the Producers watching me during this mission ¨C but this was oppressive. I felt like a small child being paraded around a room of drunken elderly relatives, and I could ¡®hear¡¯ on the back of my neck their remarks about me, the words alien but their tone teasing. Small ¨C that was the word. I never had smallness come crashing down on me before. The longer I stood alone in the hallway, the more I was assaulted by an external and growing sensation of megalophobia. Then, slowly, I felt what I assumed were the kami wander off and away, perhaps bored by my lack of reaction. Fewer and fewer pin-prick urges to turn-around-and-look lingered until there was only one, hidden in the crack beneath the door to the stairwell. I checked my phone; it had only been five or so minutes since Maki had left. I would have sworn at least thirty had passed. The silence fell like a knife, quick and cutting, the rattles and hum of HVAC and distant appliances draining away, leaving me with only the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my chest. Darkness followed after, my screen going black, before I was left standing in a void. The doors to the stairs opened noiselessly, illuminated by a sourceless dull red light, and I could just barely make out my own silhouette. Apart from that, I was alone amongst nothingness. Immediately, almost like a fear response, I summoned a ball of fire into my palm. It roared to life, lighting up my body, but failing to show anything in the inky black surrounding me. I held my hand up and over my head like a lantern and began to will it to grow brighter, but within seconds the fire dwindled away to less than a match-flame. A chill wind blew in from all around me and snuffed it out. With it came a voice, speaking in archaic Japanese. ¡°Thy mortal arms fail thee, whether they be artifice or natural.¡± [Quest Completed: Enter the Shadows!] Encounter the supernatural underbelly of the City of Shadows. Reward: 25 XP, +1 to Aura, Affinity, OR Attunement (Aura Selected) I had been counting on the Quest to push my Aura up to 10 before the confrontation with the Hungry Ghost, but the surge of power still caught me off guard. The linear increase in Attribute Dice did not resemble a linear increase in power ¨C this was almost twice over what I had experienced at Tamaki. My Qi network spasmed, and it was all I could do to send the coursing river of flame outwards, pushing it through my hand. A white-hot ring of fire surrounded my closed fist, spinning at incredible speed and screeching heat into the void. For a moment, the shadowed veil the Kami had cast over me wobbled, as though it might break. A staccato, rasping laughter echoed from the dark. ¡°Thou dost not disappoint, Son of Li. But stand ye in the Divine World.¡± The ring of fire disappeared, blown out by another cold breeze as easily as I could blow out a candle. ¡°Know thy place.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I said, putting my hands on my hips, at a loss for what to do. ¡°That¡¯s fair. I did walk through the torii. What¡¯s up, man? How¡¯s it going?¡± It was a bit flippant, but I assumed the Kami wanted something from me or else it wouldn¡¯t have bothered with the theatrics. And frankly, I was panicking ever so slightly. I didn¡¯t have much in the way of solutions to being trapped in the void. In fact, wracking my mind, I couldn¡¯t think of any at all. ¡°Ahhh,¡± came an exhale of relief, ¡°yes. We have waited for this day, and how sweet it tastes. The others were fools to turn away from you, but we know better, for we have watched you with interest from your birth.¡± That was worrying. ¡°Uh huh, cool,¡± I said nodding, trying to rack my mind for ways to get out of this. Would Maki be able to rescue me if I stalled for long enough, or did this thing have control over the passage of time in this place? ¡°That¡¯s sick, man. Yeah, um¡­tight.¡± The voice chuckled. ¡°Fear not, mortal. Thou were conceived in our home and born into our arms. We are Funikugami ¨C Carrion God. King of Killers and the Killed alike. Thou have a place for us in thy heart. Know it to be true.¡± The command sank into my chest, the words conjuring images of my fight with Kuze, the smell of blood, and the joy of combat. I shivered, shaking my mind free from the memories. ¡°I don¡¯t know about all that. Pretty sure I haven¡¯t killed anyone yet.¡± ¡°Not yet, but it will come to pass. Thou are destined to stand amongst corpses. Come, let us show thee our memories of James Li.¡± The doors to the stairwell swung open, though I could see only fog beyond. I turned my head to where the office that Maki had entered would be, were this only an illusion. If that were the case, all I would have to do was to stay here and call out loudly. At the very least, it was sensible ¨C the cautious strategy ¨C to try before playing along with the Carrion God. Yeah, sensible and cautious weren¡¯t my style. I strode with faux confidence past the threshold and into the fog. The dense clouds, painted an eerie red from what little light there was, swirled around me, growing grey and then thinning out to nothing. Even before the fog departed, I knew the place that Funikugami was bringing me by smell. It was that mix of piss, trash, and the distinct perfume that hung around the entrance to Damn Henry¡¯s, the gambling den my dad had once frequented. My nose wrinkled just like it had when I was a child, dragged here by my father¡¯s unscrupulous dealings. I walked through the diminishing mist until I found myself in a familiar scene. Time had paused in the alleyway that led to Damn Henry¡¯s, with a younger version of myself, maybe nine-years-old, holding his little sister¡¯s hand, following a few steps behind our very hungover father. It was jarring to see him like this, over ten years younger than when we¡¯d last met in person but far unhealthier. He looked harrowed, his clothes unwashed and with great, big bags under his eyes. This must have been shortly before the divorce; I¡¯d hated it at the time, but separation had done wonders for both of my parents¡¯ physical and mental wellbeing. ¡°Ugh, Damn Henry¡¯s, never liked coming here.¡± My father commonly made us stop by on the way back from school or grocery shopping. ¡°Well, I guess if there¡¯s anywhere the Carrion God would find homely, it would be here.¡± ¡°The den of vice is too dull for our tastes. Dost thou truly not remember this day? We have had a question for thee since.¡± I scratched my head as I thought back. ¡°Nothing in particular stands out.¡± ¡°Fitting. That violence means so little to thee speaks highly of our affinity. Watch, then.¡± Time started flowing as he finished the sentence. I felt the breeze on the back of my neck as though I was really here and heard the sounds of city traffic around us. The illusion was indistinguishable from reality no matter how hard I tried to test it with my senses; the bricks even left dust behind on my fingers as I dragged them along the wall. Funikugami had a hell of a memory. Was this how gods perceived the world? My father rubbed his jaw and winced. He was muttering to himself and slurring his words slightly. ¡°One day late and I get punched in the jaw for it ¨C unbelievable. I¡¯ve been early before, you¡¯d think that¡¯d cancel out a mistake or two.¡± He sighed and patted his pockets for his cigarettes. ¡°You two make sure you get real jobs. Even if you do poorly in school, just find a job where you can sue your boss if he punches you.¡± He fished a cigarette out and put it in his mouth and started the search anew, looking for a light this time. ¡°Shit. Never a cigarette when I got a lighter, never a lighter when I got a cig.¡± He cast a guilty glance back at his two young children. ¡°Hey, either you wouldn¡¯t happen to have¡ª¡± ¡°Here.¡± The younger James Li lobbed a book of matches to his father. ¡°Huh, didn¡¯t think that would work.¡± He lit the cigarette and took a long drag before jumping a bit with a realization. ¡°Oi! Why do you have matches anyway?¡± ¡°To start fires, duh,¡± said Young James. ¡°Duh,¡± echoed Crystal, sticking her tongue out. ¡°Tch, when did you two become so rambunctious? Just for that, I¡¯m keeping the matches. You should show me more respect ¨C I¡¯m still your father.¡± A man shimmered into visibility from where he had been leaning against the brick wall, just in front of my father. I recognized the camouflage technique as the Tiger Style¡¯s Crouching Tiger Stance. ¡°Seems to me they¡¯re smart enough to know you deserve none.¡± ¡°Ah, fuck,¡± said my dad. ¡°Language, Johnny-boy,¡± said another man, stepping out of the shadows across from his fellow triad. ¡°There are kids present.¡± ¡°What do you guys want?¡± grumbled my father into his cig. ¡°Ha! Are you serious? You can¡¯t be serious,¡± said the first man. He paused and leaned in, examining my father¡¯s face closely. ¡°Holy shit, you¡¯re actually serious.¡± ¡°No,¡± said the other, ¡°he¡¯s just a good liar. Look, Johnny, ignorance wouldn¡¯t have saved you either way. This is happening whether you want it to or not. You¡¯re leaving with us, or you¡¯re leaving in a body bag ¨C no alternatives.¡± ¡°It¡¯s real low of you to do this in front of my kids. Stupid too.¡± The second man waved his concerns away. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll be sure to get them back to their mother safe and sound. We aren¡¯t suicidal.¡± ¡°Eh? What about me? I¡¯m her husband too. You don¡¯t think she¡¯ll want to avenge me, you bastards?¡± ¡°We hear you two are on the outs.¡± ¡°No surprises there.¡± ¡°Either way, we¡¯re ready to die by your missus¡¯ hands if it comes to it. We¡¯ve got these things called ¡®principles¡¯, you know? Mighta heard of ¡®em.¡± My dad shook his head and turned back to young me. ¡°You two turn around. And James, cover your sister¡¯s ears.¡± The second gangster rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. ¡°Oh come on, Johnny, you¡¯re a thief, not a fighter. You couldn¡¯t take either of us, let alone both of us at the same time. Give it up, idiot.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll spend a few days with us, do a job or two, and by this time next year it¡¯ll all be water under the bridge.¡± John Chang ¨C he never took the Li name ¨C cracked his knuckles and shrugged out of his dirty leather jacket. Underneath the oversized coat and veneer of hapless incompetence was a wiry and dangerous man. He took two steps forward to be equidistant from both men, and appeared, even to my trained eyes, to take an imbalanced and easily toppled stance, feet slightly crossed and far too close together. ¡°Right, I remember this now,¡± I said aloud, slapping my forehead. ¡°Can¡¯t believe I forgot.¡± Time stopped again. ¡°Here was born my question. Why did thou stop the girl from turning away?¡± I glanced at the younger version of myself and Crystal. I¡¯d been so enraptured studying my father¡¯s stance that I had almost forgotten they were there. Young James had a hand on his sister¡¯s shoulder, stopping her from looking away, and a finger over his lips. Crystal was wide-eyed with gratitude and excitement. ¡°And stop her from seeing dad fight? No way. Our mother was so strict about him not corrupting us with his ¡®vulgar¡¯ Arts that we rarely even got to train with him.¡± ¡°So simple? No hatred, no malice?¡± ¡°Of course not. Plus, look how happy Crystal is about me letting her watch. She would have sulked for a week if I hadn¡¯t.¡± It was strange. Obviously, at the time, letting a six-year-old girl watch her father fight two men to the death carried less emotional weight to it. After all, I was nine; Crystal wasn¡¯t that much younger than me, and I was, in my mind, definitely old enough to watch. But what I was struggling to wrap my head around, is that I didn¡¯t regret the decision. Alan would have been ¨C was appalled at the idea of potentially letting a child watch her father die, but James wanted to know if the child was a martial artist before making a call. Until this moment, I¡­hadn¡¯t quite realized how different the two halves of me could be. ¡°Brotherly love and a child¡¯s joy¡­so rarely found within our Domain.¡± Time started up again. My father mussed his hair, his palm obscuring most of his vision, and yawned. ¡°We doing this, or not?¡± The fight, like most real ones, started with an explosion of violence. The first man reached behind his back and was in the middle of drawing forth two hatchets when my father buried a push knife into his ribs. I hadn¡¯t seen him draw the blade and couldn¡¯t tell where he might have hidden it. The second triad lashed out with the Tiger¡¯s Claw technique, one hand reaching to rend dad¡¯s face and the other his neck. Dad slipped the first claw and rolled under the second like a boxer, his hands a blur as they countered by slashing at the tendons in the forearms. The first man recovered quickly enough from the stabbing for an overhead chop with both hatchets, but Dad twisted around the attack, somehow leaving one of his push knives behind deep inside the triad¡¯s thigh. Where was he getting all these knives? And why did he never keep a lighter in the same space? I sucked in a breath of excitement as I had a realization; Funikugami¡¯s memory was detailed enough for me to use Style Maker to pick apart my father¡¯s style. Finally, I¡¯d been waiting to learn from him my entire life. This was the ¡®Startled Cat Stance¡¯, a high-level technique from my father¡¯s thievery-based martial art that let him make a counterattack every time he successfully dodged a blow. The skill requirements were all designed around a cat burglar¡¯s needs, but it was undeniably perfect for Black City Kung Fu. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Dad didn¡¯t look very impressive, every attack seemed to shock and surprise him, and his movements were erratic and ugly from a body mechanics point-of-view. His style was incredibly energy inefficient, and I could immediately tell it had been a long while since his last real fight, but that mattered little. He was dodging every attack, and while his counters were by no means devastating, they were adding up. In under two minutes both men were dead, slumped against the alley walls. My father was covered in their blood and breathing hard but uninjured, a lit cigarette still dangling from his lips. He turned around to see both of his young children staring at him, practically bubbling with excitement over the fight. ¡°Neither of you looked away, did you?¡± We shook our heads no. He rubbed his face, exhausted, and leaned down. ¡°Okay, listen. Daddy¡¯s going to go see Uncle Hank and use his shower, and then I¡¯m going to need to take care of some things. But I need you to do something very important, you absolutely cannot tell your mother about this. Promise me you won¡¯t tell her.¡± Young James and Crystal looked at each other and frowned. Dad waved his hands in a panic. ¡°Okay, okay, hear me out. If you promise not to tell your mother, I¡¯ll have Auntie Shreena take you to get McDonalds while I¡¯m taking care of business. Pretty neat, right?¡± We shared a look of disbelief and repressed anticipation ¨C processed fast food was verboten to our mother. ¡°Really?¡± young me asked. ¡°Really, really,¡± he said. ¡°Yes!¡± Young James pumped his fist while Young Crystal started jumping up and down, smiling and carefree, just feet from the two dead gangsters. I could not believe the only thing I remembered from this day was getting McDonalds with Auntie Shreena. Fog swept the scene away. I stood there in shock, shaking my head in disbelief. My first reaction had somehow been, ¡®How could I forget such a sick fight?¡¯ and not, ¡®How could I forget my father killing two men in front of me?¡¯. Was I, maybe, completely insane? Asked the Alan half of me. I felt like a normal, mostly rational guy, but I guess most maniacs would probably say the same. Maybe Black Harbor wasn¡¯t a great place to raise kids. ¡°Wholesome, was it not? There is an innocence to this memory that we have savored often.¡± ¡°It was weirdly cute, certainly not what I was expecting. But I don¡¯t know if it means I¡¯m ¡®destined to stand amongst corpses¡¯.¡± Granted, I was literally standing by two dead triads in the memory, but the implication had been that the corpses would be of those I killed. ¡°It will come to be. The trove of evidence contains more than this day of your past.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve¡­actually watched me since I was nine?¡± I didn¡¯t know how to feel about that. ¡°No, we have watched thee since thy conception in a pool of blood and viscera.¡± The fog began to swirl again to bring me to another scene. I started waving my hands wildly. ¡°Woah! Hey! Please tell me you were not about to show me my parents fucking. I¡¯ll take your word for it, alright. Damn.¡± ¡°Forgive us. Mortal inhibitions are not well understood. Then, we shall show a scene from thy first days. Consider it a gift. Thou enjoyed greatly watching thy father fight, we see. Walk forward.¡± The obsequiousness of the death god was beginning to chafe; I couldn¡¯t see a world in which it was being entirely sincere, if at all. But in for a penny, in for a pound. A child¡¯s terrified screaming urged my feet forward; illusion or not, I couldn¡¯t stop myself from hurrying towards the infant¡¯s cries. The howling of wind and rain, shaking and battering the windows, joined in the cacophony as the fog faded, leaving me standing in my mother¡¯s apartment sometime in the distant past. It was amazing how little had changed; apart from how new the furniture looked, and the ancient TV and radio, the only real giveaway I was in the past were the missing framed pictures of our family vacations. The cries were coming from my room, while sounds of banging and clattering were coming from the kitchen. Reminding myself that rushing off towards my past self was pointless, I poked my head into the kitchen out of curiosity. A very young version of my father was prone on the ground, writhing and wriggling to escape what appeared to be ropes made of soaking wet hair. They were wrapped around his neck and limbs like living serpents, strangling and crushing him with enough force that his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head, his face bright red from the pressure and strain. I backed away, my stomach churning at the sight of him on the verge of being killed. In my room, stood a woman in a tattered Hanfu dress next to a crib. Her flesh was pale grey, with greenish blue bruises, and all of her, from head to toes was soaking and dripping with water, as though there was a localized rainstorm an inch above her scalp. ¡°My sweet baby boy,¡± she cooed in an accent of Mandarin that I didn¡¯t recognize. ¡°Don¡¯t cry, sweet one. Mama¡¯s here.¡± I recognized her as a Rain Woman from the horror stories told by my older relatives. They were said to be the cursed spirits of mothers who had lost their children after birth, driven mad with grief to the point of suicide. On rainy days, they haunted the homes of new mothers, scratching and banging on the windows to be let in. Her hand went to cradle my infant head, and I, the modern-day James, shivered as an ancient sense-memory of those cold, wet fingers came unbidden to mind. Past James screamed for his life, too helpless to even fully turn his neck away from the unwanted touch. ¡°Oh my dear son, sweet son. Mama will take you home.¡± The Rain Woman leaned over the crib to pick me up and though I was standing to the side, an image of her cold, dead eyes and rotting, bloated face flashed in my mind, buried in some crevice of my brain. Pre-vomit acid started to boil up to the back of my throat. ¡°AHHH!¡± A scream of primal fury erupted from behind me before Lily Li, my mother, rushed into the room like a golden blur and tackled the demon to the ground. Her hands were locked in the Eagle¡¯s Talon and glowing with golden flame as they sank into the cursed flesh, her face a rictus of anger. She took a full back mount, legs controlling the demon¡¯s hips, one hand digging into the thing¡¯s neck while the other pinned its arms to its torso. Her battle spirit wreathed her in a visible aura, taking the shape of dozens of talons, tearing and clawing at the creature as they came in and out of physicality. Mom had essentially turned herself into a living woodchipper. The Rain Woman let out a haunted sob, emanating a wave of mind-crushing grief. Even though it was a mere memory of the moment, the attack forced me to one knee, but my mother only yelled louder and dug in deeper. When that didn¡¯t work, the demon began to thrash around, trying to escape with every fiber of its being. And here I finally got to see the true pinnacle of the Li-Family Eagle Style. Every twitch of the Rain Woman¡¯s body tore at her flesh, spilling open and unleashing a wave of dirty red and brown water. She was killing herself in the struggle. My mother only had to stay latched on and maintain the grapple as her opponent ripped herself apart with her escape attempts. It was brutal and efficient, every second seemed to hasten the inevitable and before long Lily Li was kipping up to her feet, soaked to the bone and dripping onto the nursery floor. The Rain Woman had dissolved into a stinking puddle of filthy water. My father ran into the room, coughing and clutching at his neck, as mom scooped me into her arms and hugged me tight to her chest. ¡°Johnny,¡± she hissed, trying not to further alarm the baby, ¡°what happened?¡± He coughed, pointing back at the kitchen. ¡°Came in ¨C ow, shit ¨C through the window. Cracked it open when I was cooking. I thought the talismans would have worked regardless.¡± ¡°Sabotage,¡± she spat. ¡°The only answer for why they wouldn¡¯t. Give Zhiqiang a bath. I will bring retribution to the dogs that did this.¡± Mom thrust me into dad¡¯s arms and was already taking off her wet shirt and walking away quickly by the time he could properly cradle me. ¡°What?¡± he said, following behind her while rocking me back and forth. ¡°Lily, be reasonable. You gave birth three days ago.¡± She spun around on her heels. ¡°They tried to kill our son!¡± He cradled me in the crook of his arm and took a step forward, placing a calming hand on his wife¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Hey,¡± he said slowly, ¡°I¡¯m no less upset than you. But Zhiqiang has two parents, right? Let me make a few phone calls ¨C get a plan together for god¡¯s sake.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± she nodded, brushing his hand away. ¡°Tell your friends to come and help protect the two of you while I¡¯m away.¡± Dad groaned. ¡°Goddamn it, woman, you know that¡¯s not what I was saying.¡± She ignored him, already halfway to their room. ¡°And put some ointment on your neck,¡± she called back. ¡°Don¡¯t skimp on it either, Johnny! Use the full dose!¡± He sighed and shook his head, giving me a tired smile. ¡°Aiyah, Zhiqiang, make sure you don¡¯t follow in Daddy¡¯s footsteps and fall in love with a martial artist. Strong women might be sexy, but they¡¯ll drive you crazy in the end.¡± I heard her disguise a laugh with a cough. ¡°What are you telling my son, you bastard? Of course, he¡¯ll marry a martial artist. Any girl who wants my Zhiqiang will have to beat me in battle!¡± Dad blew a raspberry into my belly, eliciting a giggle from my baby-self. ¡°You¡¯re going to marry a librarian, aren¡¯t you, Zhiqiang?¡± He blew another raspberry. ¡°That¡¯s right, you are! Or a schoolteacher, eh, Zhiqiang?¡± Mom reemerged from their room in a pair of jeans and a wool coat, two sheathed butterfly swords dangling off her belt. She moved with lethal purpose towards the front door, not even glancing at her husband and child. ¡°I¡¯m serious about the medicine, Johnny. There better not be any ointment left when I get back home.¡± ¡°Eh? At least, kiss your son goodbye before you go off killing.¡± She paused at the door, her face softening before walking back over to the pair of us and planted a kiss on my forehead. ¡°Goodbye, my darling son. Be good for your Baba and his friends.¡± ¡°Does Baba get a goodbye kiss too?¡± asked my dad with a cheeky grin. Mom obliged him with a roll of her eyes, planting a soft kiss on his lips. ¡°I love you. Come back to me, yeah?¡± ¡°I love you too. Don¡¯t be cheap with the medicine. I¡¯ll have my aunt send us more.¡± Dad held me up as she left, bouncing me in his arm. ¡°Wave goodbye to your mother, Zhiqiang. She has to go build a mountain out of corpses. Say, ¡®Bye-bye, Mama! Bye-bye!¡¯ Say, ¡®Good luck with all that killing, Mama!¡¯¡± Mom smiled and shook her head, pausing once more at the door. ¡°Damn it, Johnny, you ruined my cool exit.¡± The scene dissolved into fog. I stood for a moment in silence, a sad smile on my face. It had been a long time since I¡¯d seen them so happy together, and amidst such strained circumstances too ¨C it was¡­nice, nostalgic. ¡°Thank you,¡± I said, ¡°for showing me that. All said though, I presume you were going somewhere with this. Why take me down memory lane?¡± The fog shuddered, then suddenly I was standing amidst a town square surrounded by smoldering buildings and a grim battlefield. Clouds of rising black ash mostly obscured the sky and bones littered the ground for as far as I could see, crunching under me as I shifted my weight from foot to foot. I nearly gagged at the thick smell of blood and gore that seemed to waft in from every direction. A crow-headed boy wearing a plain tunic sat on the lip of the well in the center of the square. Apart from the crows and vultures which circled overhead in the uncountable thousands, he was the only living thing in this horrible place. ¡°Because you would have rejected me out of hand had I not,¡± said the crow-headed ¡®child¡¯ in perfect English. ¡°Hello, James Li. It¡¯s good to finally meet.¡± ¡°Funikugami?¡± ¡°Not what you had in mind? This is my least visually distasteful form, and the best spoken. I thought you¡¯d appreciate it. Welcome to my home.¡± I looked around at the hundreds if not thousands of corpses in various stages of decay. ¡°Thanks. It¡¯s, uh, something alright.¡± ¡°It is an honest sight. I do not veil my nature.¡± ¡°Admirable,¡± I said dryly. ¡°Some people might have moved all the bones into piles, but you like what you like, and I respect that. Even if what you like is a carpet of corpses.¡± He quirked his head. ¡°Hm. You still deny your place here by my side after what I¡¯ve shown you of your own life?¡± ¡°Back in the fog, you were for sure starting to sway me. But, uh, I mean holy shit, man,¡± I gestured to the Bosch painting we stood amidst. ¡°This is clearly hell, right? Like, what else would you call it?¡± The crow-headed boy chuckled a strange, throaty laugh. ¡°Ho, funny. Do you recognize the skull by your right foot?¡± I grimaced at the half-crushed, still bloody skull on the ground. Its face, thankfully, was gone so I was spared that horror, at least. ¡°Oh yeah, this is the dude that played Yorick in Hamlet, right?¡± He laughed again. ¡°The village you see is that of where I was born. I crawled unwanted into this world from the blood-soaked soil of this battlefield over a thousand years ago. But every single body you see displayed around you is taken from my memories of just this place, Black Harbor. Each man, woman, and child decorating my fields today died violently in this city in only the past century in which I¡¯ve been here. This is the truth of your beloved city, James Li; all its fruit are fertilized with blood.¡± I inspected the body again. It was dressed in black, ratty clothing that wouldn¡¯t have been out-of-place in a scene club. There was something familiar about that outfit, though I still couldn¡¯t place it. ¡°His name was Josh Bhatti. He met his death during a gambling game gone wrong while still recovering from injuries that you had given him.¡± ¡°No kidding. Man, this guy was a real menace my sophomore year. Always wondered what happened to him.¡± Maybe I should have felt bad about the news he¡¯d died after our last fight, but he did suck as a person, and it wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d personally killed him or made him go gamble illegally. Still, knowing that all these people had been fellow residents of Black Harbor changed my attitude towards this place. It had gone from extremely, almost violently, ominous to flat depressing. ¡°Well, this is a bummer. Thanks for showing me those memories of my parents and all, but, uh, I sort of have some shit to do tonight, so¡­¡± Funikugami bobbed his head. ¡°Yes, you must hunt a foe of mine. I will be brief. The Huntress Spirit wishes to empower you as a tool to avenge the death of her last champion, but I have my own motives to see the creature defeated. I offer an alternative that benefits us both.¡± ¡°Elauwit,¡± he continued, ¡°would grant you temporary strength, and while you would be doing a favor by assuaging her wounded pride, you would leave with nothing. I offer you this: instead of treating this like a hunt, we shall treat it like a trial. I will place two curses upon you before you leave, and if you succeed, I will grant you permanent power and name you as my champion. The first curse will guarantee you meet the Egui in battle tonight, something you would have had to pay Elauwit for. The second curse must remain secret if you are to survive it. What say you?¡± I let out a long breath. ¡°Eeeh, I don¡¯t know, choose between a maybe hot Native American spirit with a gift, or a fucked-up crow-boy dual-wielding curses ¨C it¡¯s a toughie. You got to understand where I¡¯m coming from. I mean, I¡¯m snapping bones and squishing guts every time I move my feet. This is an objectively miserable hellhole.¡± ¡°The Huntress, and the rest of the Kami of this shrine, see you as you present yourself to be, as a well-natured, good-intentioned hero. I see you as you are, a blade fresh from the forge, ready to be quenched in blood and tempered by the fires of battle. They cannot help you as I can. But I hear your concerns. Take this.¡± Funikugami opened his beak and spit up a wet eyeball into his palm before throwing it to me. I caught it, despite myself, and could feel the not-quite-Qi burning inside the mangled, slimy mess. ¡°Eat it. It is a taste of the power I can give you, freely offered and without strings. If you still express doubts after, then I will return you to the Miko and the Huntress without further delay. Regardless, the power will be yours to keep.¡± I looked back and forth from the crow-headed child to its disgusting offering and cursed my decision to shoot for the position of strongest in the city. ¡°Fuck it.¡± If only I¡¯d chosen Survival over Glory back at Tamaki. ¡°This has to be the dumbest thing I¡¯ve ever done,¡± I grumbled before popping the eyeball into my mouth. [Special Feat] Smells Blood The Carrion God has bestowed upon you the ability to sense the desire to kill in those around you. This is distinct from the intent to kill. The range of this ability is determined by your Affinity Attribute, and how much you can learn from it is determined by your Empathy Attribute, including if the murderous desires are directed at you. Smells Blood can reveal beings even supernaturally hiding from you. ¡°Huh,¡± I said, reading through the ability again. ¡°Helpful?¡± ¡°Extremely.¡± ¡°It is but a fraction of what you will gain if you survive my trials. I will not lie, both curses will make your night more difficult than if you would have taken Elauwit¡¯s offer, but you will be compensated well. Your answer?¡± I sighed and ran a palm down my face. ¡°Maki is going to kill me. Yeah, alright, goddamn it. Let¡¯s do this.¡± ¡°Delightful.¡± [Hidden Quest Completed!] Make a pact with a Kami. Reward: 10 EXP, +1 Affinity Bonus, It was Funikugami: +2 Intimidation, +1 Perception Extra: Rules Explainer Here''s some basic System information for those interested. I did make it intentionally over-complicated for comedic effect and because I wanted it to feel like a system still in Alpha. Most rolls are determined by an Attribute by itself (Recovery Checks, Untrained Checks), an Attribute + Attribute, or Attribute + Skill roll. A Success is measured as a 5 or higher on a d6, and a Critical Success occurs when three 6''s are rolled, which doubles them. As an example, let''s say James is trying to escape police pursuit while driving a stolen car down the highway. Well, James is a city-slicker and never learned how to drive, so the best he can do is roll his Finesse Attribute by itself. He rolls 5 dice and gets 1, 2, 2, 3, 6. One Success is nowhere near enough to escape pursuit, but he didn''t whiff by rolling no Successes, meaning that he doesn''t suffer from some catastrophic complication. The police are getting closer however, and more cops are converging on his location, making the next roll more difficult. He rolls again, desperately trying to get off the highway and lose them on the side streets, and gets 2, 3, 6, 5, 5 - Three Successes. Not enough to lose them, but enough to find an exit off the highway. Unfortunately, while he might have ditched a cop car or two, the chase has now gone on long enough for the police and news media to call in helicopters. This is his absolute last chance - the storyteller (me) sets a secret Success Threshold and if James fails to hit it, he''s getting cornered by a lot of very trigger happy New Jersey State Police. James rolls again, and it''s a damn miracle; he gets 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, the highest he can possibly roll. Three 6''s is a Critical Success, so three of them get doubled, meaning they count twice. The remaining two 6''s are counted once each. That means James gets 8 Successes, one more than he needed. What does that look like? It depends on the situation. In this case, I might say that James somehow jumps the car over a wall down to a subway track and drives his stolen car into the tunnels below. If he was out in the suburbs, I might say that he drives into a field of tall corn, obscuring himself from view by the cars and scaring a large murmuration of starlings which then fill the sky, forcing the helicopters to back away for safety. Health is a 10 + Endurance track, with Injury Thresholds set at Endurance + Willpower. Once an Injury is occurred a character takes penalties to rolls and movement. If an Injury involves Murderous Damage, the penalties are increased. Recovery Checks can be rolled with a night''s rest or a day down spent recovering. There are, of course, feats and items that can affect this. If the Health track is filled up, the character is immediately incapacitated. Should the track have any untreated Murderous Damage on it when this occurs, the character will roll Recovery Checks at short intervals to try and stabilize, with failures filling up more of the normal damage on the tract. Should every tract be filled with Murderous Damage, a character will die. There are effectively two tiers of enemy in the game. The first is occupied by most mooks and normal beasts. This tier doesn''t roll opposed checks against a PC, but instead sets a Success Threshold to be met. The second tier are significant foes and supernatural threats. These enemies will roll opposed checks against a PC. This applies to more than just combat. Seducing a guard might be a Success Threshold 3, while seducing the mob boss'' elite doorman will require a character to roll against his Willpower + Relevant Skill. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Attributes Physical
  1. Strength: Represents physical power, muscularity, and raw physical force.
  2. Agility: Represents speed, reflexes, and overall body coordination.
  3. Endurance: Represents stamina, resilience, and the ability to endure physical strain.
Social
  1. Charisma: Represents charm, persuasiveness, and the ability to influence others through words.
  2. Empathy: Represents the ability to understand and relate to others'' emotions, as well as to perceive their intentions.
  3. Presence: Represents personal magnetism, physical beauty, and the ability to command attention.
Mental
  1. Willpower: Represents resilience, focus, and the ability to resist manipulation and attacks on the psyche.
  2. Wits: Represents the ability to process and recall information, and the ability to draw conclusions from what you¡¯ve learned.
  3. Finesse: Represents tool usage, manual dexterity, and the ability to manipulate items and the environment to accomplish your goals.
Mystical
  1. Aura: Represents the internal cultivation of mystical energy and the ability to call on this power.
  2. Attunement: Represents the ability to perceive and command the raw forces of creation and destruction which govern the universe.
  3. Affinity: Represents the ability to contact, bargain with and bind intelligent sources of power, and the channeling of their borrowed or stolen power.
Sexual
  1. Sensuality: Represents awareness and sensitivity to physical sensations, pleasure, and intimate connections.
Skills Social
  1. Persuasion
  2. Diplomacy
  3. Intimidation
  4. Deception
  5. Seduction
  6. Etiquette
  7. Leadership
  8. Negotiation
  9. Insight
  10. Interrogation
Physical
  1. Acrobatics
  2. Athletics
  3. Dance
  4. Climbing
  5. Flexibility
  6. Martial Arts
  7. Mobility
  8. Swimming
  9. Throwing
  10. Weapon Proficiency
Practical
  1. Lockpicking
  2. Animal Handling
  3. Survival
  4. Appraisal
  5. Craft (specific fields)
  6. Stealth
  7. Disguise
  8. Tracking
  9. Driving
  10. Legerdemain
Mental Skills
  1. Investigation
  2. Perception
  3. Knowledge (specific fields)
  4. Linguistics
  5. Meditation
  6. Research
  7. Strategy & Tactics
  8. Kinesthetics
  9. Creativity
  10. Deductive Reasoning
Arcane/Mystical Skills:
  1. Demonology
  2. Occultist (specific tradition)
  3. Divination
  4. Elemental Control
  5. Healing Magic
  6. Necromancy
  7. Alchemy
  8. Mentalism
  9. Telekinesis
  10. Illusion
Technical/Scientific Skills:
  1. Engineering (specific fields)
  2. Hacking
  3. Electronics
  4. Medicine
  5. Forensics
  6. Chemistry
  7. Botany
  8. Geology
  9. Biology
  10. Physics
Bell Street Exorcism 2 There was no fog when Funikugami dismissed me. One moment I was in his nightmarish domain and the next I was standing in the exact position I had been in the hallway before the lights had gone dark. My phone was even still in my hand, as though I¡¯d been paralyzed in the instant of checking the time. Had that all been in my head? Eight minutes had passed, and the Quest Rewards were real, but had I just been standing here this whole time? Was I standing here, or was this still the work of the Carrion God? Maki stepped through the office door in her official Miko attire, decorated in talismans and holding a satchel. ¡°Sorry for the delay, it took me longer to¡­What are you doing?¡± She had found me in the peak of my existential crisis, right in the middle of waving my hands in front of my face so fast that they were a blur. I was trying to check if they looked ¡®right¡¯; maybe if I pushed my perception to its physical limits I might notice something off, was my thinking. Not my best idea, but not my worst idea either. Granted, that wasn¡¯t saying much. My worst idea was either using an improvised ritual to awaken Annie¡¯s Qi or agreeing to play test this game in the first place. It was going to be hard to top those two. ¡°How would I know this is actually happening?¡± I asked Maki, wide-eyed and on the edge of mania. ¡°Ah.¡± She tilted her head up with sudden understanding. ¡°Forgive me, I was worried this might happen, but they¡¯re normally much better behaved. Like moths to a flame, I suppose. So, who was it then, one of the foxes?¡± ¡°Foxes?¡± ¡°Sorry, which Kami approached you? They are bound by their natures, so if you know their histories you can spot when you¡¯ve been enchanted.¡± ¡°Hm, makes sense,¡± I said, relaxing. This wasn¡¯t chaotic enough for crow-boy. ¡°What do I do if that happens?¡± ¡°You are a completely impossible man. I have no idea what you can do. I¡¯d recommend regular humans to try to appease the Kami until they deign to release them. It isn¡¯t hard once you know more about them.¡± Maki directed me to sit on a nearby bench and put her bag down next to me. She pulled a small glass lotion bottle, the smell of the concoction inside making my eyes water as she uncapped it. ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± I asked. ¡°All they can do is beg?¡± ¡°What can a sailor do when his boat is caught in a sudden storm? We¡¯re standing in the Divine World, James; humans are subject to the whims of the gods here. Though, typically, so long as you¡¯re respectful, you won¡¯t come to any harm. Now, close your eyes.¡± I obliged. Maki dolloped the lotion onto the area between my eyelids and brow and started to gently rub it into my skin. There was an initial burst of sharp prickling when it made contact, but that calmed down with each pass of her thumbs. The smell was a potpourri of various herbs and oils, too layered for me to identify any single scent. ¡°What¡¯s this for?¡± ¡°We¡¯re preparing you to meet the Huntress Spirit and whichever Kami might make an appearance. This will allow you to see them clearer; they don¡¯t always feel like making the effort to be seen.¡± ¡°Not sure this is necessary then.¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to be prepared.¡± ¡°No, you misunderstand me. I mean we probably don¡¯t have to get Elauwit¡¯s blessing. And personally speaking, I¡¯m a little tapped out on interactions with Kami for the night. That shit is stressful.¡± Maki¡¯s fingers froze. ¡°James, which Kami approached you?¡± ¡°Oh, sorry, I forgot. It was Funikugami.¡± Her hands recoiled away from me. ¡°Funikugami!?¡± ¡°Right? That dude is a freak. Why is there a creepy corpse god in your shine anyway? Guy was showing off his bone collection like a complete psycho.¡± ¡°Careful,¡± she hissed in an angry whisper. ¡°I just told you to be respectful! He guards the sections of the lowermost sections of the Shrine, those that intersect with the sewers. The building used to be a water purification facility, there are multiple exits into the sewers, perhaps more than we know. The Shrine owes him a great deal of gratitude.¡± I waved her off. ¡°It¡¯s fine, we¡¯re boys now; we¡¯re allowed to raz each other. I said all this to his face already anyway.¡± ¡°¡®Boys¡¯? Are you insane? No, wait, don¡¯t answer that. Any of your potential responses would be infuriating. How on Earth did you catch Funikugami¡¯s attention?¡± I opened my eyes, blinking away the slight sting. Blue and green motes of light floated around us and all through the hallway like ethereal fireflies, casting a fae glow on Maki¡¯s pale face. She was breathtaking. Spectral light danced down the threads of her Miko dress making the white shine like moonlight, and casting shimmering reflections onto her talismans and earrings. If this was how the Kami saw her, then I could see why the Priests of the shrine commanded their respect. To my enhanced eyes, she was like a video game character come to life. ¡°Wow. You¡¯re beautiful,¡± I said without thinking. ¡°Badass outfit, too. If I was an evil spirit I¡¯d be shaking at the sight of you.¡± She turned red and bristled. ¡°D-don¡¯t try to distract me!¡± ¡°Ha! Sorry. Uhh, I guess my parents conceived me right after they killed some guy or guys ¨C which is not information I ever needed to know ¨C and he¡¯s been watching me ever since or something. I don¡¯t know, I think he thought we would vibe? Pretty friendly too, if I¡¯m being fair to the guy.¡± I wasn¡¯t trying to sound stupid this time, I was just at a loss for how to answer her question. Why did Funikugami care about making a pact with me so much? I knew his stated reasons, but they felt shallow. He was a thousand years old; I wasn¡¯t that special ¨C As far as he should know, at least. My Qi was prodigious, sure, but my mother hadn¡¯t been that much older than me in that memory and could already do an Ultimate move. I didn¡¯t have any Ults. Of course, there was a chance that the Kami was so ancient and alien a being that I couldn¡¯t hope to fathom his motivations¡­ Nah. I was born and raised in Black Harbor, I could smell a hustle a mile away. He was up to something. Maki buried her face in her palms and groaned. ¡°Just¡­just walk me through it from the beginning.¡± I gave her the basic rundown of what happened chronologically, skipping over the gory details of the memories Funikugami showed me. Maki definitely bit back a few comments regarding my childhood, choosing to listen quietly instead. She seemed saddened by my childhood; which was odd, because I¡¯d thought it had come across as quaint, if a little silly, in the retelling. She stood in silence, eyes closed, when I finished, before nodding reluctantly. ¡°I hate to say it, but I think you did the right thing. All I¡¯d talked the Huntress into giving you was a spirit lure, something to throw down once you¡¯d entered the haunted area ¨C we would have had to negotiate for anything close to what Funikugami gave you. A curse which guarantees we¡¯ll meet the Hungry Ghost tonight is no small feat; he¡¯s likely bending Fate to make it happen.¡± ¡°What about the second mystery curse?¡± Maki tilted her head noncommittally. ¡°There were always going to be complications, at least the source of these is friendly to our cause. The Hungry Ghost is a parasite on Funikugami¡¯s domain. He likely wants it dealt with before it can transcend its nature and grow to become an equal. To tell you the truth, I contemplated petitioning him, but we¡¯ve only interacted twice. I wasn¡¯t sure if he would even appear for me.¡± Oh no. ¡°You can eat your way to divinity?¡± Just how thorough were those nutrition rules?! ¡°The paths to godhood are as unique as the gods themselves.¡± I thought back to how helpless I had been in Funikugami¡¯s clutches. ¡°Jeez, add that one to the top of the list of reasons to kick this thing¡¯s ass. We¡­good then?¡± I paused skeptically. As far as I could tell, it appeared that I had accidentally accomplished what he had come here for. Maki took a deep breath to collect herself. And then another, and another. I waited for a while as she went over her mental checklist, but at some point it became clear that she was stuck in her head. ¡°Maki?¡± ¡°Sorry, yes,¡± she said, shaking herself out of it. ¡°We¡¯re ready.¡± I hopped to my feet. ¡°Yes, let¡¯s go! Finally, I want to fight this goddamn ghost already.¡± She opened her mouth to interrupt. ¡°Not literally, I know. God, you¡¯re a buzzkill, you know that?¡± The bickering seemed to calm her, as she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at me. Being mad at the meathead was a much more comfortable place to be than on the precipice of her vengeance. ¡°I was going to ask if you wanted to use the restroom before we go. You consumed a preposterous amount of food and alcohol earlier, if you recall. Just one of the reasons that was a reckless and dangerous decision.¡± I rolled my eyes. ¡°First of all, I¡¯m not a toddler; you don¡¯t need to remind me to use the bathroom. Secondly, pissing and shitting is for the unenlightened ¨C I happen to have perfected my digestive system through Daoist Internal Alchemy. But don¡¯t tell people that, I still want to have it as an excuse to escape from conversations, you know?¡± Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°Excuse me? What¡­¡± I ignored her and made my way to the exit. ¡°I¡¯m giving Huo a call; he made me promise to use him for a ride when adventuring. Unless you¡¯ve got a better idea?¡± Huo took fewer than five minutes to swing the car around to the Shrine. The Black Harbor Police Department could only dream of the cabbie¡¯s response time. He was in his usual outfit, flat cap, square glasses, button up. I could appreciate a man with his own self-imposed uniform. It felt appropriate for adventuring; I¡¯d have to consider doing the same. ¡°Yo, sensei!¡± I said, sliding into the back seat. ¡°Ready to get rowdy?¡± ¡°How did I know you would be up to something tonight, James?¡± He asked with a wry grin. ¡°I hope he¡¯s not dragged you into his bloody business, Maki.¡± ¡°It¡¯s the opposite, sensei,¡± she said. ¡°The bloody business is mine, I¡¯m afraid. And thank you for the ride.¡± ¡°Oho, such surprising depths to you, my dear girl. Well, who am I to judge the youth? Where am I taking you two?¡± Maki shot me a concerned glance, clearly worried about including Huo into the mix. He must have sensed her reticence. ¡°None of that now,¡± he said. ¡°I know what I¡¯m in for. Don¡¯t you worry about me.¡± Not my first time taking this road.¡± Ooh, he was making cabbie-related metaphors too? My man was feeling himself tonight. ¡°Have you?¡± she asked skeptically. ¡°Eh. James is a youxia and you¡¯re a miko ¨C you¡¯re fighting some supernatural evil, obviously.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°Mm, so don¡¯t spare me any details. This is a team of three now, my girl. Tonight, your business is my business.¡± I put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°Yeah, Maki, the real bloody business was the friends we made along the way.¡± She pinched her brow. ¡°Kami-sama. Fine, give him the directions, James.¡± Smog and light pollution mixed to paint the sky above Black Harbor a dim reddish-brown; the canvas upon which was painted a dazzling, rainbow skyline. The image of all those murdered dead in Funikugami¡¯s realm couldn¡¯t spoil the image for me. So, we had over 6000 reported homicides in the city last year; that was only like 120-ish deaths per 100,000. Any city of five million people would have given Funikugami enough bodies to fill his fields over a century. ¡®All its fruits are fertilized with blood.¡¯ ¨C what a drama queen. Like all drivers in our beautiful city, Huo drove like an unhinged madman, racing down empty streets, doing rolling stops through red lights. He wasn¡¯t giving me much time to work with. I meditated, pointing my attention inward, and forced my metabolism to work as fast as it could safely. Huo rolled the windows down for us as I started pumping out heat, the whipping wind vaporizing on contact with my skin. [Meal Bonus!] Add 3 Temporary Health points to your track. Any damage, Murderous or normal, will completely fill one of these boxes. They vanish when filled. Add 1 Guaranteed Success to all Strength and Endurance rolls for 24 hours. Damn, I was hoping for another supercharged Recovery check, but those were pretty great too. What was so different between the first half of the meal and the second though? The alcohol maybe? I could see those buffs being associated with booze. But I¡¯d been drinking slowly throughout the night. The dessert then? What did mochi, fluffy cheesecake, and tiramisu have to do with Strength and Endurance though? God, I hoped one of the others read the nutrition rules. There was no way I had the money or time to reverse engineer them. I slid all the way down in my seat as we neared Chinatown. It was late, but I cut a pretty distinctive figure these days, and I wasn¡¯t risking getting spotted by the Tigers. Maki frowned at me, concern wrinkling her forehead, but didn¡¯t say anything. Huo pulled right up to the bricked-up alley; he¡¯d known right away which one I was talking about when I brought it up. Cab drivers could find just about anything in Black Harbor, he¡¯d boasted. ¡°This is much closer than the canal,¡± said Maki. ¡°Four blocks west, three blocks south. Just five blocks distance if I move in a perfect diagonal,¡± I said, peeking my head up over the windows. Huo noticed what I was doing. ¡°You¡¯re clear.¡± ¡°Nice.¡± I looked to Maki. I¡¯d thought she might be nervous, but she was a vision of steel, no doubt in her expression. ¡°Ready?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll wait here,¡± said Huo. ¡°Good luck, you two.¡± I darted from the car to the shadows in the alley. Maki followed, her sensible tennis shoes pattering on the rain-wet ground. They were the only part of her outfit that weren¡¯t currently glowing with spiritual power. A brick wall had been placed about halfway down the alley, just far enough so the locals could still use it for their trash pickup. The intimidating steel door, reading ¡®No Trespassing¡¯ in bold block letters, swung open for me; had to be going on four years since we¡¯d discovered the lock was broken. Behind the door and at the end of the alley was another that ran parallel to the road. It was one of the oldest in the city, with cobblestones for paving, through which you could see the grooves from where horse-drawn carts had worn them down. The people who still had access to the alley through the backdoors of their buildings had set up chairs and a communal garden. I¡¯d been to a couple of barbeques here. Down a narrow, carved stone stairwell was our destination. The city had the bright idea of installing iron bars to block the entrance, with another heavy metal door built into that framing in the middle. This door¡¯s lock still functioned, but unfortunately for the city, there was a major flaw with the design. I slipped through the bars on the left side of the door. None of the gaps were even, and this one just so happened to be easily shimmied through for most relatively thin guys. Once through, I unlocked the door and let Maki inside. She sighed. ¡°Every time I think I¡¯ve seen it all, the city government finds new ways to astonish.¡± ¡°Clowns, truly.¡± The stairs continued down another ten feet, lit only by the orange of the sparse halogen lights. The sound of rushing water was loud, the flow churning enough to fill the air with a cold, wet breeze. ¡°Good sign,¡± I said. The storm drain was an impressive solution for flooding considering how old it was. It was a vaulted passageway, made of big stone blocks from Pennsylvania quarries, shipped by boat and hauled by horse. I hadn¡¯t been here since it was dry for a while, but if I remembered correctly, the actual drain itself was about seven feet deep at the most. Some skateboarders, those with enough skill to ride the water-worn stones of the drain, liked to use it as a mini-half pipe. Not that you could even tell the drain was curved currently; the water level was up to the top, lapping at the bricks where we stood. It was amazing how much water the city could soak up after a week of off-and-on rain. ¡°This work for you?¡± Maki hugged the wall with her back, swallowing nervously. ¡°More than. No handrails?¡± ¡°It was built a hundred years pre-OSHA. Don¡¯t worry, if you fall in, just make sure your feet or head are pointed downstream. There¡¯s a pipe that empties into the canal. It¡¯s more than wide enough for a human to fit¡­so long as they¡¯re oriented correctly.¡± ¡°And if they aren¡¯t?¡± ¡°The city recovers the body after the drain dries up.¡± She grimaced. ¡°Ah. This is a bit narrower than you promised.¡± I gestured with my head down the way. ¡°There¡¯s nooks. Come on.¡± About fifty yards towards the canal was a large oval-shaped nook, where a worker could sit down with their tools and have a break. There was even a little stone shelf built into the wall. Those old masons were pretty thoughtful. Maki breathed a sigh of relief when we got there. I on the other hand, had forgotten how far it would be from the entrance; that was fifty yards across treacherous footing I¡¯d have to cover with the ghost on my heels. ¡°See,¡± I said, projecting only confidence, ¡°you¡¯ll be fine. Just fall backwards or to the side if anything happens.¡± ¡°Excellent, and the ground is dry enough for my chalk.¡± ¡°Oh shit, didn¡¯t even think about that. Luck is on our side. How long will it take you to get the ritual ready?¡± Maki was already setting her bag down on the shelf and beginning to rummage through it. ¡°Not long, fifteen minutes at most.¡± ¡°Perfect. I¡¯m going to go scout a few potential routes for the roof run. Text me when you¡¯re ready.¡± I turned to leave, but Maki tugged on my sleeve, catching me. ¡°Wait!¡± Maki pulled me into her arms as tight as she could, burying her face in my chest. I returned the hug, savoring the moment of vulnerability from my favorite miko. ¡°Please, be safe.¡± She looked up at me, arms still around my back. ¡°Do not die. If it means we fail, then we fail. But do not die, understood?¡± I smirked. ¡°Sure, yeah. I promise to not die,¡± I lied. She frowned, before leaning up and kissing me on the cheek. ¡°A kiss for good luck. Thank you, James. No matter what happens, you¡¯ve earned my gratitude for life.¡± ¡°Anytime. See you soon.¡± Bell Street Exorcism 3 The rooftops of Chinatown welcomed me back into their cozy embrace. I¡¯d spent over a decade flinging myself across, over, and sometimes into this three-dimensional landscape, earning most of my worst injuries doing so. In exchange for all those cracked ribs and dislocated fingers, I could confidently say that I knew more about the roofs of the neighborhood than the streets of any other. I knew which railings you could jump off and the location of perhaps every patch of grass big enough to dive roll onto. Friends still texted me about freshly repaired walls, and the best lampposts to slide down was a frequent topic in our group chats. I couldn¡¯t have picked a better place for my first monster fight. And on top of that, comparing ten years of parkour memories to what I was doing now was like comparing the Olympics to a nature documentary, or Usain Bolt to a literal cheetah. Tonight, I prowled with a surreal grace that, despite all the danger and terror of the moment, still managed to thrill me. I leaped from an apartment water tower up fifteen feet and over an alley to another building ¨C an impossible jump before tonight - and landed with impossible silence, my feet cupping a fist-sized decorative stone fleur-de-lis, and my fingers crimped into a thin crack in the mortar. I was taking every precaution, which meant maintaining my newest Stance, and slowly peaking my head over ledges. I¡¯d spotted Tiger Triad graffiti all over the ledges I traversed, much newer than the Dragon graffiti they were defacing; oh, how sweet it was to know I was using their own secret technique against them. I was a living shadow with the Crouching Tiger Stance activated; The rippling Qi cloak added half my Aura to my Stealth while moving for a total of seventeen Dice in the pool, making me damn near invisible. Which was great, because as far as I knew, I very well could have been surrounded by Tigers using the same technique. The roof looked empty as I pulled myself up, but I only had an okay Perception and, so far, Funikugami¡¯s gift feat was proving to be less than useless, in that it was actively making things more difficult. It turned out, that in a neighborhood with over a hundred thousand people in it, the ability to detect the desire as opposed to the intention to kill was extremely distracting. People wanted to kill people all the time. I could feel them in the apartments below me, in almost every apartment, someone who wanted to kill their wife, husband, roommates, kids, themselves, the people on the television, the people in the news, etc. Most of them were quick flashes, little bursts that swirled away as fast as they formed, and the rest were low thrums that repeated in a way that told me they were old, constant desires. I was glad that no one in my range had thus far been burning with a need to murder, but the ¡®noise¡¯ was frying my nerves. It had driven me to climb up the hotel I was currently atop. The building was tall and old enough that the top floor was a maintenance area for the elevator mechanics and electricians. Smells Blood only extended about fifteen feet or so with my current Affinity, meaning the empty floor granted me a brief respite while I waited on Maki. The latter half of my routes were clear, the rain and wind chill helping out by keeping the roofs thankfully empty. I didn¡¯t want to get any closer to Bell Street without getting the okay from Maki, but I had a good view from this height. Prepping for parkour like this, i.e. from a distance, at night, with only my eyes, would have been suicidal for most people, but it was what it was. At least the damp footing and handholds were only inflicting a one or two Dice penalty depending on the specific movement currently; I could work with that. With nothing left to do but wait, my mind turned to what the others were up to. We¡¯d have some pretty crazy stories to share when we met back up. Whenever that was. I hoped the others were being a little more cautious than I was, as hypocritical as that might have been. I had the benefit of being a local though; Black Harbor was my home turf ¨C I might have been separated from the Party, but I was hardly on my own here. One of my starting feats was literally: [Minor Feat] Local (Black Harbor) ¨C You¡¯ve spent years here and it shows. Gain one automatic success to navigate in your chosen area and add 1 Die to any attempts to evade pursuit or track people here. I could afford to operate with a higher risk threshold here than Cici could as a ninja in neo-feudal Japan or Mars as a motorcycle bandit in pseudo-Transylvania. I was like Batman in Gotham, except broke, or John Constantine in London, except not an asshole. My phone lit up. Maki was ready. I sent back a confirmation and switched it to silent. ¡°Time to bust some ghosts.¡± Damnit, now I had the Ghostbusters theme song stuck in my head. Almost as soon as I stood up, I felt something lurch in my soul, conjuring up the unforgettable odor of Funikugami¡¯s domain. There was a flash of lightning then a less-than-a-second pause before the deafening roar of thunder followed. The clouds began to roil above me as the rain returned with greater force than seen all day, the droplets so fat and heavy that they stung like pebbles on my scalp, obscuring my vision as the wind picked up. My phone began to buzz as an automated emergency alert blasted through the silent setting. I had to hunch over the screen to read it. ¡°What the fuck is a rain squall?¡± As if in answer, a sudden gust almost succeeded in pushing me over the edge of the building. ¡°Goddamn it, Funikugami!¡± I yelled. I didn¡¯t know what to expect from the Kami, but conjuring a blinding storm felt like a bit much. ¡°Surely there are weather gods who would be upset by this!¡± Shit, I didn¡¯t have time to speculate; Maki was in danger. The storm drain had already been at capacity, much more rain and she¡¯d be washed away. I dropped the Crouching Tiger Stance and leapt across the street, dive-rolling onto a roof and into a sprint towards Bell Street. My crow-headed patron had just put a hard timer on this exorcism. A stride in parkour was pretty self-explanatory, it was a jump from one foot that you did while already at speed. Delivering for Runr had honed mine to a science, but Annie¡¯s Coiled Hamstrings had pushed them into an art form. I crossed the distance to where I¡¯d been attacked on Bell Street in a single uninterrupted sprint like I was running on a track. Even with the insane six Dice penalty the storm was causing, my jump distance was such that all I had to do was leave one flat roof surface and land on another, my familiarity with the neighborhood letting me know where to shoot for with only the little I could make out through the sheets of rain. Maybe forty seconds from the start of the storm later, I was on top of one of the office buildings that had loomed over me the first time I¡¯d encountered the Hungry Ghost, panting a little from the exertion. Despite my newest patron¡¯s promises, it was still annoyingly empty of spirits. ¡°Come on, Funikugami, what do I have to do?¡± Almost as soon as I said the words, I could feel it at the edge of my perception, that same creeping dread that I¡¯d felt the last time. Maki had mentioned that I¡¯d probably earned its attention by escaping like I did, and I could sense at some animal level that she was right. Fear began to pick at my skin like fishhooks again; the first time, after fighting Kuze, it had been fear of the unknown, but now I could think only of the thin woman I¡¯d left in the sewers and how helpless she¡¯d be should the waters wash her away. ¡°HEEEY!¡± I screamed at the top of my lungs. ¡°I know you¡¯re there, you coward! KILL ME ALREADY!¡± If I had to describe the shift in the atmosphere, I¡¯d call it ¡®curious¡¯. But still, nothing actually happened ¨C maybe a different tact then. I slapped myself on the ass. ¡°Ooooh, baby, don¡¯t you want a piece of this?! I¡¯m a tasty, tasty boy! Move your saggy-ass titties over here and slurp me down your ugly gullet, you dead bitch!¡± I dove to the side as a red-hot flare of killing desire sparked to life behind me. To my surprise, a meteor hammer swung by a very human opponent pierced through the space I¡¯d been in with enough force to shear a hole into a rooftop AC unit beyond. A thin, short boy dressed in all black and in a wooden Tiger mask retracted the rope weapon to his side with a sharp yell. He must have been camouflaged into the parapet. ¡°How fucking dare you!?¡± he shouted in a high-pitched voice. Damn, still going through puberty and he was already able to use the Crouching Tiger Stance? The kid was impressive. ¡°You think the Tigers are a joke?!¡± ¡°Wait, what? Who the hell are you?¡± I asked, palms up. ¡°A dead bitch, am I?!¡± He brought the hammer down in an arc aiming for my head, but I slapped it away. The kid was already around Kuze¡¯s skill level, but after fighting Pak this was child¡¯s play. I¡¯d come a long way since that first duel. ¡°Woah! Hey now, that wasn¡¯t directed at you! I promise! I had no idea you¡ª¡± I ducked under another attack. ¡°¡ªwere there in the first place, I swear!¡± The triad spun like a shot-putter and chucked the meteor hammer, rope and all, at me like a net, tangling it as it flew with his back-hand. Again, last week ¨C hell, yesterday, this would have been a great gambit, but we were simply on different tiers of fighting now. The kid followed the distraction with a Tiger¡¯s Pounce, knife drawn and pointed at my belly. I caught his wrist, pulled it down and to my side, and pivoted on my hips, trapping him in a classic joint lock and held him there, so that he could truly understand the gap between our martial arts. ¡°Kid, listen to me! On my mother¡¯s life, I sw¡ª¡± ¡°Kid?! KID?! You don¡¯t remember me, do you? I¡¯m four years older than you, James Li, you fucking clown!¡± ¡°Huh?¡± I took a closer look at the triad. ¡°But then¡­oh, you¡¯re a girl? My bad, I thought you were a teen boy.¡± She growled in response. ¡°I mean, uh, shit ¨C that came out wrong.¡± The triad was upset by my comments, which was fair. They were inappropriate and mean, unintentionally so, but still. Her reaction was a little extreme though. She snapped her elbow in my joint lock fast enough that I couldn¡¯t release her, and spun around to face me, causing the bones in her arm to break through the skin with a sickening sound. Then, lunging with her full body weight, she drove the sharp, broken ends of her bones like a wicked spear into my chest. I could hear her gritting her teeth from behind her mask, choking back the pain. ¡°I¡¯m, hah, going, hah, to kill¡ª¡± It was my turn to interrupt her. I front-kicked her, converting the four extra Successes into a telekinetic blast that sent her crashing into a now completely ruined AC unit. She caved the metal box inwards with her body, steel crumpling around her. Blood was beginning to run down in hot streams from the ugly gash she¡¯d carved in my chest. Her attack had caught me off-guard and blown right through my Force Armor and the temporary Health I¡¯d gained from the meal bonus. And she¡¯d done it all with her own shattered bones ¨C what a goddamn maniac. I absolutely needed to recruit this woman into my school. She even fought with a rope weapon; it was meant to be! That required her to be alive though. The two Murderous Damage she¡¯d dealt me looked bad, but her arm was barely hanging on, and unlike me, who could bleed for days so long as I didn¡¯t force a check against stabilizing, she was losing a dangerous amount of blood to the pouring rain. ¡°That,¡± I said, pointing at her, ¡°was hardcore. I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot here. Maybe we take a quick timeout and talk this out?¡± She hissed in pain as she extricated herself from the wreckage. ¡°You¡¯re¡­dead¡­James Li. The Tigers are gonna piss on your corpse.¡± ¡°Rude. I¡¯m here doing you guys a huge favor! There¡¯s a Hungry Ghost here with us right now; that¡¯s who I was talking to!¡± ¡°Shut up, idiot. I know better than to believe your lies.¡± ¡°You¡¯re kidding, right? Please tell me you can feel it. That oppressive feeling, the sense of impending doom? It¡¯s here with us, I¡¯m telling you!¡± She paused and tilted her head. Good, I wasn¡¯t imagining the sensation then. Indeed, the ominous pressure had ramped up the moment we¡¯d started spilling our blood. The air at the back of my neck had started to warm, as though someone was standing directly behind me, breathing heavily on my skin. I openly turned my back to her. ¡°That¡¯s right, I know you¡¯re here. You little piss baby, you think this girl can possibly do enough damage to me to make your job easier for you? A coward in life and a coward in death ¨C is that all you can do, wait around for weak targets?¡± Gravity seemed to push heavier upon me with each word. Murderous desire poured forth from a spot hovering above the ledge of the building. It was bitter and curdled like rotting milk, an unbelievably pungent and stomach-turning scent of death and bile somehow leagues worse than Funikugami¡¯s realm. His domain had smelled like a charnel house or a killing field, yes, but this was distinctly wrong, like something that should not have existed and could never have been found in the natural world. This was the smell of infection. ¡°What, what are you doing?¡± asked the triad, her panic rising. ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± I stared at the haze emanating hatred at us. ¡°What¡¯s the matter? Can¡¯t fight a man face-to-face? Were you a man in life, or a wretched, stray, starving do¡ªchk!¡± My body seized as fear reached through my chest and back, squeezing my heart and tugging at my spine. I stumbled forward a few steps, narrowly avoiding face-planting. Weaponized dread, as Maki had called it, assaulted each of my senses; the smell of rot, needles under my skin, a black, grainy film over my vision, the ululations of women, all telling, no, demanding that I fall, break, hide. It imposed upon me the childish desire to pull the covers over my head, to cling to my mother¡¯s skirt. As the sensation grew into a crescendo, the system asked me to roll a Willpower check. Thankfully, I had prepped for this. [Minor Feat] Shining Resolve You may call upon your mystic might to resist fear and despair; letting you use your Aura in place of an Attribute or Skill for relevant rolls. Doing so causes your body to shed dim golden light in the material world, and your soul to glow like a second sun for anything with the appropriate senses. In the face of such overwhelming malice, I happily threw 20 EXP towards becoming grossly incandescent. I, and thus Style Maker, had already been forewarned about this kind of spiritual warfare, and I¡¯d come up with Shining Resolve early on when brainstorming solutions, but had needed to really experience the attack to create it. The relief was immediate, the light chasing away both foreign sensations and evil thoughts. ¡°Pathetic,¡± I spat, standing up straight. ¡°Bitch-made in life, bitch-made in death.¡± The shadow hovering in front of me seemed to shiver away from my golden glow. I wiped the rain from my eyes; time was ticking, and the downpour showed no signs of abating. What did I have to do to get this thing to commit to attacking me? If it wasn¡¯t going to take the first step, then it was up to me. I placed my palms on my abdomen and started to gather fire-natured Qi in my belly, stoking it as hot as I could. Sucking in a deep breath, I let the Qi into my lungs. It mixed with the oxygen there in an explosive fury. A twenty-foot-long cone of golden fire burst forth from my mouth, momentarily blinding me with how bright it was against the storm-shadowed darkness of the night. For the first time tonight, I thanked the Carrion God for the heavy rain; on a dry night, I¡¯d have risked burning down the building below and getting a few thousand eyes on me, curious about the noise and light. While I couldn¡¯t see how the flames affected the ghost, I could feel the murderous desires split down the middle in two. I had no idea what that meant or if I had harmed it, but I doubted the latter. Smells Blood was letting me keep an ¡®eye¡¯ on it, and the hatred had done the opposite of diminishing, only growing and swirling all around me. I lowered into a semi-crouch, ready to spring in any direction, but no attacks came. What was it waiting for? Clearly, it didn¡¯t need me to be totally alone, or it wouldn¡¯t have hit both me and the triad with its dread presence. I thought back to what little we¡¯d been able to piece together about the man who had become the Hungry Ghost. Jealousy ¨C he¡¯d been so trapped by envy and unrealized ambitions that they¡¯d literally kept him on Earth after his death. Oh damn, I knew exactly what to do. ¡°Can we hurry this up, man? I¡¯ve got hot guy shit to do! You think I want to be here?¡± I pulled the front of my sweatpants and boxers down, letting my cock and balls hang out. ¡°Look at my huge penis and tell me I want to be here! This is the penis of a man with better things to do, okay? I should be hitting someone¡¯s back walls right now, but I¡¯m here soaked to my bones because your dumb ass didn¡¯t know how to stay dead!¡± There! The killing desires were coalescing in front of me. I tucked my dick away and fell back into a defensive stance. ¡°Argh!¡± The triad shrieked in pain behind me. I spun around to see a ghastly image of death with its fingers buried into the shoulders of the gangster. He hovered over her, his belly, distended and flabby, draped over her head. Pressed against the thin, grey-and-green ¡®skin¡¯ of his stomach were the outlines of hands and legs desperately trying to escape. His head, cartoonishly malformed and stretched out, was stuck in an expression of pained ecstasy, his mouth hanging wide open, bloated tongue lolling out and bloodshot eyes rolled up in a cruel approximation of an ahegao. You could see at the back of his throat fingers trying to claw their way out. Despite his corpulent stomach, his arms and legs were rail thin, giving an appearance of malnourishment ¨C apart from his hands and feet, which were large, distinctly inhuman clawed things. ¡°Gigigigigi¡­¡± Its laugh echoed in my skull and sent shivers up my spine. The triad bucked and tried to writhe out of the thing¡¯s grasp, only causing her wounds to split and grow. Her blood began to flow up the ghost¡¯s arms to be lapped up by its furiously wagging tongue. The tiger mask had fallen from her face, and she shot me a pleading look, stooped underneath the weight of the creature¡¯s belly. She didn¡¯t need to ask twice. I could still feel the murderous desires where they¡¯d been gathering behind me, but I had to assume it had already figured out how to spoof the senses from Smells Blood. Cursing Funikugami in my head for the useless feat, I dashed forward and torqued my hips into a roundhouse directed at her hips. The triad was in no position to resist, and I put every one of the nine Successes from the uncontested roll towards telekinetically blasting her away from the roof. The force was enough to tear her from the ghost¡¯s hold and send her flying across the street, over the next line of roofs, and crashing, from the sounds of it, onto a parked car in the opposite direction of the alleyway I¡¯d be leading the Egui to. ¡°Gigigigigigigi,¡± it laughed, sticking both of its claws into its mouth. I could see it grow a little bigger as it sucked the blood off them. ¡°Yeah, fuck you too, asshole.¡± I lifted a hand to my throat, circulating a small orb of fire-Qi within my neck, and coughed out a much smaller jet of fire at the ghost, squinting to not blind myself this time. The spirit¡¯s chest turned into a black cloud before the fire could make contact, as it opened a hole for the flames to pass through. Christ, if this thing could discorporate fast enough to dodge direct attacks, then Maki was right; fighting it was suicide. Although, it did have to dodge the fire¡­ I shook the thought free from my head, that way led to death. The Hungry Ghost charged me, claws stretched forth, spinning almost whimsically as it did, laughing all the while. Again, it was so much faster than I could believe, crossing the distance between us in an instant. I was ready to dodge and got a healthy six Successes to do so, but it still tagged me across the shoulder as I tried to roll under the attack. Its claws felt solid and real, but they ignored my Force Armor completely. My skin and flesh burst out and around where the digits had pierced me, flaring with red-hot pain. Think positive, James, I said to myself, shunting the agony out of my mind. At least you¡¯ve got its attention now. Right, right ¨C this could be good. If it thought I had an advantage, it might decide to flee and pick an easier target. I turned on my heels to jump across the street but had to stop before I flung myself directly into it. How?! That was outrageous speed ¨C it had somehow circled me faster than I could track with my eyes. Well, I had tricks of my own; literally, in this case. I side-flipped from standing an incredible twenty feet to the next roof over, a move honed through years of tricking with my friends and recently elevated into the superhuman by my copied jumping feat. There was no way to tell if the spirit was surprised ¨C its face held in permanent rictus ¨C but at the very least, it didn¡¯t have an answer. I waited until I could feel its murderous desire pressing against my mind, Funikugami¡¯s worthless feat capable of that much, and then jumped down to the street. The office building across the street was too tall, and the rain was too fierce to try an arm jump to its ledge. Closer, and from the ground, it was easier to arc my jump over the soaking-wet surface and directly onto the gravel of the flat roof. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Aw, shit!¡± I yelled out. I didn¡¯t even realize I¡¯d been struck again until I felt the pain blossom in my back when I rolled to standing on the gravel. When had it hit me? How had it hit me? Whatever, I didn¡¯t have the time to worry. The Hungry Ghost was already upon me. It floated over my head, flying in figure-eights while laughing to itself, licking its fingers, and growing before my eyes. The triad¡¯s blood had granted it a few inches of height, but mine had given it a foot or more. My Aura thrummed as I had to force away a surge of fear, this time coming from within me. If I was being honest, the idea of covering another four blocks like this wasn¡¯t inspiring confidence. It had already pushed me past an Injury Threshold and didn¡¯t appear at all worried about its hunt. At least it was momentarily content to gloat; I used the opportunity to use my Circular Breathing and rolled a super-charged Recovery Check. I¡¯d planned to save that first meal-bonus-enhanced Recovery roll for when I was worse off, but that seemed hopelessly optimistic now. It stopped mid-air as my wounds closed ¨C the act seemed to inspire some kind of frantic anger in the creature. The ghost slammed its claws into its distended stomach and began to howl. I had no idea what was about to happen but knew enough to know that I needed to immediately run. Unfortunately, Funikugami¡¯s feat was playing games with my head, making me pause as I tried to figure out which way to move. I could feel five distinct points around me, other than the Ghost I could see, all of which were practically vibrating with killing desire in my new sense, behind, around, and even below me. The Hungry Ghost started vomiting out a black miasma over the roof, throwing its head back and forth like a sprinkler. Eyes wide, I rolled an Agility + Dodge in a panic, but the rain screwed me. That five-dice penalty the storm was inflicting led me to slip and fall flat onto my chest, the bile-scented shadowy ooze crashing down onto my back before I could react. Suddenly I was elsewhere, trapped in a memory like in the Shrine, except this time I was viewing it from another¡¯s perspective. Unlike Funikugami¡¯s memories, this one was broken and disjointed, mostly just flashes of misery. I was a teen boy in Chinatown at a warehouse party, the clothing and music indicating the early-80¡¯s. There was a fight, I¡¯d danced with the wrong man¡¯s woman, and the next thing I knew I was being stomped on. I curled into a ball, but the kicks didn¡¯t stop until they¡¯d shattered my knee. Someone carried me out and dumped me on the street. My so-called friends were nowhere to be seen, so I ended up trying to limp home. I had barely made it into the alley across from the warehouse before I heard that awful laughter and felt that oppressive hatred bear down upon my shoulders. Then I was James Li again, gritting my teeth and pushing myself back to my feet. A sharp shooting pain informed me that my knee was just as shattered as the boy''s had been. I glanced down to see that same miasma clinging to my leg, intuiting at a look that no recovery check was going to solve that problem. Instinctively, I coughed a jet of flame at my knee, scorching both the cursed substance and my flesh beneath for three Murderous damage. It was worth it though, the pain was a small price to pay for full mobility. That miasma, what I guessed was the solidified anguished last memories of the Ghost¡¯s victims, was all over the roof, making every step dangerous. The next closest building was a warehouse ¨C the warehouse, in fact, from the boy¡¯s memories. It was an older design with a slanted metal roof that would have been dangerous on a dry, sunny day, and a full fifteen feet taller than the office building I was on, but I had no other options. I angled myself so I could still see the Egui in my peripheral vision and leapt for the edge of the warehouse. As it happened, Funikugami¡¯s Smells Blood was not useless, and I probably should have been lending it more credence. My trajectory took me more-or-less through one of those burning points of killing desire, from which shot out a clawed hand reaching for my wrist. I twisted out of the way, but the jump was ruined, and I slammed into the side of the warehouse elbow and ribs first. The alley between the office building and the warehouse was extremely narrow, meaning that when I bounced off the warehouse, I bounced onto the office building¡¯s ledge, and then rolled back into the alley. The special feat I got for having 6 Dice in Agility allowed me to right myself on the very tumultuous fall down the thirty-five feet or so to the ground, but it did nothing for me when my chin clipped a rusted metal bracket that had been left behind from a past renovation. I landed on my feet, ears ringing from the blow, ribs cracked, elbow bleeding, and worst of all, trapped between two tall walls. ¡°Gigigigigigi,¡± came from one side. ¡°Gigigigigigi,¡± came from the other. I turned to look at the two identical Hungry Ghosts boxing me in. Goddamn it, I had even felt the murderous desires split earlier ¨C I should have seen something like this coming. I¡¯d been too quick to disregard the information from Funikugami¡¯s gift, my mistrust of the Carrion God coloring my judgment. I used another Circular Breathing charge, healing most of the fall damage and leaving me with only two of the Murderous damage left over from when I¡¯d burned the curse off my knee. The Hungry Ghosts licked their lips, content to draw this out. I took the opportunity to use another charge and heal myself to full. ¡°Now who¡¯s underestimating who?¡± I shoulder-checked the brick wall of the warehouse, utilizing Lance Pressure to easily blast a James-sized hole through to the other side like I was the Kool-Aid Man. The bricks and rubble I sent flying collided with a metal tank in the building, punching finger-sized holes in it, causing the contents to begin spraying out. Before I could get the dust even settled, I could tell by the smell of the liquid what the warehouse had been converted into. Thankfully, my golden glow cast enough light that I could see inside the dark building, a welcome change from all the rain in my eyes. I leaped up to a metal walkway hanging above the dozen or so massive vats the new owners had installed. Strange, I didn¡¯t know there was a distillery here, but the smell pouring out of the damaged vat was unmistakable. ¡®Three¡¯ Hungry Ghosts phased through the wall, though I was fairly certain it was just one splitting itself into multiple bodies. Maki had told me they could turn to smoke, and I had seen it do as much to avoid my fire, but I hadn¡¯t anticipated its full capabilities would allow this. Avoid my fire¡­I thought, soaking in the smell of the alcohol pouring onto the floor. No, no, surely that¡¯s a terrible idea. Another three ghostly bodies descended from the ceiling, passing through the dirt-encrusted skylights. With those, that should have accounted for all the coagulated murderous desires I¡¯d sensed with Smells Blood. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for what came next; accounting for how fast I¡¯d seen a single body move, there were a few narrow gaps that I could aim for to escape the Ghost¡¯s coverage. As though reading my mind, all six bodies began to laugh in perfect unison. They were soon joined by another six which phased through from above, and six more that came in through the walls. My heart sank as their appearance dropped a guillotine through all my potential exit routes. ¡°Oh God¡­¡± I sighed. I might have bitten off more than I could chew. I¡¯d been warned, by Maki, by my Alan half, by common sense, but I just had to insert myself into the middle of this against all reason. I¡¯d mistaken ignorance for confidence, hubris for courage; now my friends were about to be stranded in a world I¡¯d trapped them in, and my mother wouldn¡¯t even have a body to bury. The heady aroma of pure alcohol washed over me, temporarily pushing aside the horrifying aroma of the Hungry Ghost. It watered my eyes and sent a flash of drunk inspiration through me. The smell tempted me to try my flames again, but if even half these vats were full of alcohol, then I was basically standing in the middle of an enormous bomb. ¡°Gigigigigi!¡± ¡°Ah, fuck it.¡± I jumped down to the floor, standing in the rapidly expanding puddle of pure distillate. If I was dying, I was dying fighting ¨C and I sure as shit wasn¡¯t dying with unspent Experience. I quickly bought two feats, the first a standard option for Elemental Control (Fire), and the other a spontaneous invention from Style Maker. [Major Feat] Fireproof Your connection to the Primordial Flame has almost completely inured you against its destructive effects. Your Aura naturally negates up to 5 damage from heat or fire, from any single source of damage, protecting both you and anyone in very close proximity to you. [Major Feat] Fire-Proof Your vast amount of fire-natured Qi allows you a powerful command over flammable vapors and liquids in your immediate surroundings. You may flood an environment rich in these sorts of flammable substances with your Qi and use them as additional fuel, letting you supplement any Elemental Control (Fire) rolls you make with extra Dice. The upper limits of this feat are only controlled by the amount of fuel in your environment, however, for every extra Die you add to a roll over your total number of Dice in Elemental Control (Fire), you take 1 point of Murderous Damage. I closed my eyes, swept my leg to the side, sloshing booze as I did, and settled into a deep horse stance. Normally, this would have been where I took a deep breath and entered a meditative state, but I didn¡¯t know if breathing in the vaporous cloud of alcohol I was standing in could get me drunk. I was already feeling tipsy, though that may have just been the adrenaline. I stretched my arms out, left palm facing down, right palm up, and began to circulate my Qi into the vapor in the air, the alcohol pooling on the floor, and even through the enormous metal stills into the booze contained within. Hope springs eternal, came an unbidden thought. I clamped down on the rising optimism, however; Ishida Ken had brought a spirit-slaying sword and still lost this fight. That said, holy god, there was a lot of fuel in the warehouse. In theory, I could potentially add so many Dice to an Elemental Control roll that I would instantly turn to ash trying to channel the power, even with the buffer my fire resistance provided. If the ghost had been dodging my fire because it needed to, and not merely as a flex, then I may have just found my equivalent of Ken¡¯s sword. The laughter had stopped. I opened my eyes, surprised to see that the dim light I¡¯d been shedding had risen to the equivalent of an emergency flare, single-handedly illuminating the whole of the warehouse. The Hungry Ghost had circled me overhead with its bodies; it was impossible to read its Halloween mask of a face, but it seemed wary of whatever I was doing. I needed it distracted; even if it had been faking some of its speed with its extra bodies, the demon had proven fast enough to dodge my fire. I¡¯d give this one shot to throw as much raw power at it as I could, and then I¡¯d use the distraction to punch through its net and keep moving towards Maki, regardless of how successful the fire was at hurting it. Ken¡¯s memory demanded that I honor his sacrifice and play it safe. I was making no assumptions. ¡°Confused?¡± I called up at it. ¡°I guess dying with dignity is foreign to you, huh? Hmm, yeah, I bet you died crying and pissing all over yourself.¡± It growled, the sound echoing from all around me. ¡°Sounds like I guessed right. Yep, you died with snot running down your ugly mug, and your little, baby penis all turtled up.¡± The growling grew louder. ¡°Well, take notes, baby-dick, this is how a real man dies ¨C with a smile on his face and a fat cock swinging free in his boxers. Do you know I¡¯m too big for briefs? Yeah, they¡¯re too uncomfortable when you got a ludicrous hog like I do.¡± I chuckled. ¡°I¡¯d make a joke about finding one of your descendants to fuck, but we both know you died a virgin. And I¡¯ve got to assume that all your relatives killed themselves out of embarrassme¡ª" Over half of its bodies began to howl like before, thrusting their claws into their bellies, while the rest hung back, cutting off my exits. Now! I held the image of my dantian in my mind and visualized a spark within it setting off a grand explosion, unleashing the full force of my mystic might and then some. Fireproof and my 3 Dice in Elemental Control (Fire) meant that I could safely add 8 Dice to my roll, but I was at full health and flirting with death anyway, so I rounded up to lucky number 13. I screamed, feeling the intense pain of burning from the inside out, the skin on my hands bubbling and blackening as I channeled my borderline Divine wrath. Fourteen Successes were almost more than I knew what to do with, but I quickly set the power to whirling around me like a tornado, focusing on sending the torrents of flame upwards where they could dissipate harmlessly, as opposed to out and into the rest of the neighborhood. The noise let loose by the inferno was the loudest sound I had ever heard, absolutely deafening. Behind the bone-shakingly deep roar of the flames was the shriek of steel shearing and warping. The amount of air the tornado was sucking in was so great that a metal I-bar almost breached the wall of fire around me before getting picked up and flung out of sight. There was for a moment, an urge to keep my attack going, to let it grow to devour all the fuel it wanted, but I stomped it down and dropped the attack. The warehouse was brick and steel for the most part, and my tornado had vacuumed up the alcohol from around me, but the most distant vats were still fully on fire, belching smoke. Above me was a circular hole melted through the roof of the building; it took a few seconds for the rain to start falling in heavy waves through it. I had punched a small hole in the cloud cover, though it was already rapidly filling back in. [Hidden Quest Completed!] Collateral Damage I ¨C did over $1,000,000 of property damage. Reward: 10XP, Gain item: Base Upgrade Token x 3 [Hidden Quest Completed!] Destroy the Tiger Triad¡¯s Black Harbor counterfeit liquor operation. Reward: 15XP, +2 Investigation Bonus, Extremely high profile: 10XP, +2 Elemental Control (Fire) I swiped the Quest notifications away. Underneath me, about ten feet below the concrete floor, was a huge, pulsing ball of killing desire. I sucked in a quick Circular Breathing charge while I could, clearing two points of Murderous damage. The Hungry Ghost rose slowly through the floor, forcing another Willpower roll on me as it glared unholy hatred at me through a single eye. The other looked like it had boiled and popped in its ghostly skull. There was no question that I had done it serious harm; its skin had charred and still seemed to be smoldering, and half its face had melted down like wax. I had also forced it into a single body ¨C as evidenced by both the lack of pings from Smells Blood and the fact that it was about twelve feet tall now. I turned and sprinted full tilt through the warehouse¡¯s ash-covered brick wall, headbutting my way through with a telekinetic blast from Lance Pressure. Considering the biblical rage I could feel being sent my way, I doubted the Hungry Ghost could do anything but chase after me. I didn¡¯t have to look back to know it was following me. Even without the constant awareness from Funikugami¡¯s gifted feat, its wailing was ceaseless. Luckily for me, it had abandoned strategy altogether for pure, animalistic fury. Where I hurdled over a car, I could hear it shred through the steel out of anger. And as I leaped back up to the roofs, I narrowly avoided being clipped by an awning it tore off the building and threw at me. The few people I could see, bold enough to brave the storm to investigate the explosion and sounds, scattered around us in terror. What this looked like to them, a golden glowing man fleeing from a truck-sized demon, I could scarcely imagine. Now that I could focus entirely on speed, the time it took to arrive back at the closed-off alley was measured in seconds. I thanked past me for remembering to prop open the steel door in the stairwell because I didn¡¯t have the luxury of blasting through it. The ghost was close enough that I¡¯d felt its claws scrape my skin twice, just short of devastating me each time. ¡°MAKIIIIIII!!!¡± I shouted as I ran as fast as I could across the wet surface. ¡°INCOMIIING!¡± The storm drain was past capacity, spilling over onto the walkway. I hardly had time to measure, but it must have been at least two inches deep over the bricks, which considering how fast it was moving, was nightmarish already. I prayed that Maki¡¯s chalk circle was intact enough to work, or I had just doomed us both. ¡°Argh!¡± I screamed, feeling the pain of the claws tearing across my back. Only I was impeded by the flooding; the ghost was now fully fast enough to reach me. Thankfully, I was still quick enough that it could only tag me once more; though between the first and second attack, I took another ten points of Murderous damage, leaving me at death¡¯s door. Moonlight was emanating from the nook I¡¯d left Maki in, and faintly from a circle under the running water. I dove over it to the other side, barely avoiding slipping and falling into the rushing storm drain. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of the kneeling Miko, praying over an urn. The Egui, blinded by hatred, ran straight into the column of moonlight like a fly into a spider¡¯s web. The silver light wrapped around its body in a weave, tugging it back towards the circle and away from me, just stopping it from planting both claws into my legs. It dug into the stones below instead, trying to drag itself towards me with a single-minded drive. I flipped it off, pushing myself to my feet with my other hand. ¡°Gotcha, bitch.¡± It kept trying to claw at me, uncaring of Maki¡¯s spell until it was too late. Its body stretched out, spaghettifying as it kept up its relentless attacks while it fought the pull towards the urn. But as soon as its feet were within the blessed vessel, it changed tact completely, switching from anger to panic in a heartbeat. The Hungry Ghost began reaching for the sky, trying to fly up and away with all its might. While it appeared that Maki had it cooked, I wasn¡¯t so sure and spent all of my Circular Breathing charges to fully heal myself . I was beset by that tip-of-the-tongue feeling that I was forgetting something. Sure enough, when half of the Ghost was in Maki¡¯s urn, I felt that same soul-deep lurch I¡¯d felt when Funikugami had summoned the storm. ¡°I bequeath thee mine sword,¡± boomed a voice in archaic Japanese. ¡°Fetch, mortal.¡± ¡°Aw, shit.¡± I¡¯d forgotten about the second curse. The Egui stopped mid-motion, as though it had a sudden thought. It spun around on Maki and the urn it was currently being dragged into and laughed. Placing both of its claws around its stomach, it started to squeeze down tight, the ¡®flesh¡¯ oozing around its digits, and then, with a great heave, tore itself clean in half. The net of moonlight whipped around the lower half and snapped it into the urn, leaving the upper half free, stomach gaping open, hanging tattered beneath it. ¡°No!¡± shouted Maki, exhaustion evident in her voice. ¡°Gigigigigigi!¡± The ghost spun in the air in triumph, taunting us with its laughter. ¡°Gi¡ª" A pale ghostly limb fell from its torn open stomach, vanishing into motes of light like those I¡¯d seen at the shrine. A few more followed, drawing a grief-stricken scream from the Hungry Ghost. It whirled on Maki, then me, and then back to Maki, as if unsure as to whom it was more upset with. In doing so though, I got a better look at the void that was its stomach; entirely black save for a single, pale, white handle. The Hungry Ghost decided on Maki at last, or rather, the urn in her lap. I acted without thinking, diving at it before it could reach her. My hands passed through its ghostly body as though through smoke, but that wasn¡¯t my target; I¡¯d been aiming for that pale hilt that I¡¯d seen. For the first, and hopefully last time in my life, I heard a ghost yelp. My hands wrapped around the hilt of Ken¡¯s sword, the Hakkotsu no Ha, Bleached Bone Blade, and the next thing I knew I was hanging in mid-air, hands buried into the Egui¡¯s stomach. The ghost, for its part, appeared to be genuinely flummoxed by what had happened and paused its attack on Maki to bogle its eye down at me. ¡°Maki!¡± I yelled as I swung in the air from the sword. ¡°If I live, let¡¯s go on a real date!¡± ¡°What!?¡± ¡°You heard me! Bye!¡± I remembered Maki saying that some inherent property of moving water was linked to the passage of souls from our world into the next. So, without any better ideas, I jerked my entire body violently and pulled both me and the Hungry Ghost into the raging waters of the storm drain. Interlude 1: Annie Makes a Friend, Briefly Interlude #1: Annie Makes a Friend, Briefly? ? A sublime stillness had come upon her master, the telltale sign that his mind was consumed by the martial arts. He sat in a deep horse stance, focused entirely on her phone set up on a tripod, watching the forms they¡¯d developed so far on repeat. Without a physical challenge to distract him, James was forever listless and bored ¨C pleasant and friendly, but not entirely present. It was probably why he could come across as such a himbo; his brain was only half on most of the time. But you only had to take one glance at him now, submerged in the task of inventing a new form, to realize he was a rare genius. Annie could see his mind picking apart the footage, isolating their movements by action and intention, and weaving them into a new cohesive whole, all at a level and pace that defied belief. That was James¡¯ true talent, and what set him apart from the rest: the ability to intuit kinesthetics at a glance. She was taking it on faith that she¡¯d be able to replicate it at all, because she currently had no idea where to begin, and she¡¯d never seen anyone in her long life of semi-professional athletics come close to matching the man. But James was confident she could do it, and she believed in him more than any coach she¡¯d ever had. Annie shook herself out of her stupor, she¡¯d frozen mid sip of water at the sight of her man. If she stared any longer at him, all shirtless and serious like that, she¡¯d spend the rest of the day unfathomably horny. They¡¯d already dual cultivated before this, so she had no easy excuse with which to seduce him. You¡¯re burning daylight, Shine! She yelled at herself in her mind. Now¡¯s the time to put in the work! She nodded. That was right, she might not be able to seduce him today, but that was no reason to give up on the long game. It was time to impress James with some good old-fashioned, down-home, country cooking! Annie had been brushing up on her recipes lately. She¡¯d called her mother for some tips, and had even pushed past an hour of answering questions about James, to actually get them. The older woman had sussed out the reason for the call immediately, having already seen their videos together. Her parents had been big fans of Damon and their relationship; ¡®linebacker dates cheerleader¡¯ was a Middle America Dream come true, and the big lug was a country-boy through and through. After the breakup, they had been polite, but had clearly disapproved, and agreed with Damon on the dangers of ¡®the big city¡¯ for a young woman. They definitely did not approve of James, nor did they believe her when she said it was all platonic. She didn¡¯t know who sent them the video of James fighting the Tiger Gang member, but they¡¯d both seen it, and had ¡°concerns¡±. A lot of the questions she was asked had clearly been the ¡®mom-ified¡¯ versions of her father¡¯s angry complaints, made to be less openly hostile, but no less offensive. It felt like James was the only man who really believed in her these days. Well, Kas too, but the old actor made her believe that she could find success as a stunt woman. James made her feel like she could accomplish anything; he practically took it as a given that she would. That was an indescribable level of support and respect that she would forever be grateful for. Which was why she had to lock him down! There were hot guys aplenty in this world, but a hot guy who also respected you as a woman, was a man worth fighting for. Too bad she wasn¡¯t competing with other women. Frankly, other women had to compete with her. Annie was confident she could be the better baddie. No, unfortunately for her, Annie was competing with the concept of martial arts as a whole. She wanted to occupy the same space in his mind, for him to love her, like he loved fighting. It was a grand ambition, but she might have come upon the answer: fried cheese curds. With considerably more protein than fat, and a modest amount of carbs from the breading and batter, the snack was perfect for their macro requirements. Micronutrient wise, it was obviously terrible, but that was why she¡¯d pre-seasoned some vegetables for steaming alongside some salmon. Finally, she¡¯d finish him with a fruit parfait for dessert, creating a meal that would have him dreaming about her for days after. Hopeful, and feeling exceptionally proud of herself, she paused on the welcome mat just inside the apartment and thought, Hey, maybe today¡¯s the day I figure this out! Annie stared down intensely at her shoelaces. She imagined as vividly as possible bending down and pulling them undone. Her master could pick her up and twirl her around with invisible rivers of force, so surely, she could manage to untie her shoes. Nothing was happening, but she didn¡¯t let that dissuade her. She could do this, she knew it. Maybe another tactic was required. Annie closed her eyes and thought of little tendrils of energy shooting down her legs, through the top of her feet, and into her shoes. She pictured the energy tugging the laces free on its way out, and breathed the way that James had taught her. As she repeated the image in her mind with each breath, it grew more and more vivid, until she could feel a warmth in her core. It was happening! She was doing it! Annie continued her meditation, putting her entire will and mind towards moving the warmth downwards. And it was working! Yes! She opened her eyes, and then opened them wider. Her shoelaces were on fire. ¡°Shit, shit, shit!¡± she shouted, slapping the tiny flames out. Thankfully, only the tips had started to burn. Annie sighed; her expensive, white martial arts sneakers, designed for a combination of grip and speed, weren¡¯t ruined, but they had been marred by conspicuous burn marks. Huh, actually, that was kind of cool. It was like a little character design flare, all puns intended, that gave a hint of her style and current vibe ¨C something for the fans on the forums. Plus, she couldn¡¯t afford to replace the sneakers at the moment. Using her entire paycheck to buy and fix up a van had been a reasonable choice, up until she remembered that she had to pay to get it inspected and registered. Then she¡¯d had to pay for the borough parking permit, and the neighborhood parking permit; both of which had required her to have a New Jersey license, and all of which cost an unreasonable amount of money. Stupid New Jersey, who would have ever thought she¡¯d long for the joys of Pennsylvania, the nation¡¯s strangest state. She already felt at home in James¡¯ kitchen, though it and the rest of the apartment were definitely in a transitionary phase, half way between a stark early-20¡¯s bachelor pad and a thoughtful adult¡¯s home. Annie liked to take credit for the change, deserved or not. Some men needed pussy to motivate them towards doing the bare minimum of interior design. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Once the salmon and the veggies were steaming in the crock pot, she began washing the fruit for the parfait. The cheese curds had already been dried and battered at home, ready to drop into oil once it was time for lunch. She¡¯d woken up an hour earlier just to get everything prepped; she wanted it to appear effortless to James. It was funny, she¡¯d never tried even half as hard to seduce Damon, but then their relationship had been born out of convenience more than desire. Annie paused, as she put a washed strawberry down onto a paper towel. That was odd, she could have sworn that she¡¯d already done five berries before this one. Perhaps she¡¯d been distracted by thoughts of romance. Nope, after rinsing the next berry, there was still only four on the towel. She started to check the floor to see if one had rolled off the counter, but as she had the thought, a veil was lifted from her perception, allowing her to see a patch in front of her that had seemed empty before. An enormously fat rat, rolls spilling over his tiny little arms, was on his back. He had the strawberry she¡¯d just cleaned in his paws, eating it with rapid little nibbles, and stopping every once in a while, to shake his head back and forth and shiver with rapturous pleasure. She gasped, causing the rat to notice his illusion had failed. He froze with terror mid bite. Then, very slowly, as though that would stop her from noticing, he began to shove the remainder of the berry into his mouth, making his cheek bulge outwards. ¡°Eeeeeeeeeeee! Sooooooooo CUTE!¡± Annie began to shake with repressed excitement before snatching the rat off the counter and spinning the both of them around. She clutched the rodent to her chest and bounced up and down on her heels. ¡°Oh my God, oh my God, oh MY GOD! You are too much! I can¡¯t believe James hates you!¡± The rat, for his part, was extremely confused. He chittered anxiously, his nerves rapidly fraying as he squirmed in the woman¡¯s grasp, and stared at the fingers holding him in shocked disbelief. Annie, spotting that the strangely emotive creature was contemplating an escape, hurriedly grabbed a strawberry and shoved it in his face. That did the trick; the rat started to slowly chew on the fruit, though continued to watch her with suspicion. ¡°Om, nom, nom,¡± said Annie, narrating the animal¡¯s bites. ¡°Yay! It¡¯s delicious, right? Locally grown,¡± she bragged. It only took one more hand-fed strawberry for the porcine rodent to relax and go limp in her grasp. She giggled as she squished him delicately, enjoying the way his soft body felt in her hand. He was almost as soft as the Hammo plush on her keychain. Annie placed the rat down in the sink, scratching him behind the ears when he glanced up at her questioningly. It was a shame him and her master had gotten off to such a bad start, but she was sure she could find a way to bury the hatchet between them. ¡°It¡¯s okay, Mr. Squishy,¡± she said to the freshly named rat. ¡°Once I give you a little shower, and tie a ribbon around your neck, there¡¯s no way James will still be upset with you.¡± Mr. Squishy looked up at her skeptically, seemingly capable of understanding her words, but didn¡¯t move. He let her put a few drops of dish detergent onto his back and continued eating while she lathered him up. She was gentle with him, especially as she rubbed each of the tiny digits on his paws between her thumb and forefinger. They felt so delicate that it was hard to believe this was supposedly a dangerous ninjutsu practitioner. It was somewhat distressing to see how much dirt and filth had built up on the rat¡¯s fur. The entire bottom of the sink looked like mud when the water hit him. Before she¡¯d begun bathing him, he had appeared to be a dark, almost black, brown, but with each rinse and re-lather, the fur grew closer to a grey. His face, once she could get him to let her wash it between bites, even had silvery strands around his nose and eyes, a sign of his advanced age. Once he was all clean, save the strawberry red around his mouth ¨C a losing battle, she¡¯d determined ¨C she wrapped and bundled him in a hand towel, tucking it around him like a blanket. James unfortunately had her phone with him, otherwise she¡¯d have immediately posted the little critter on all of her socials. The world had to see him. Her high quality, professional camera was also still outside, and she didn¡¯t want to give the game away to James until she had his nemesis looking properly presentable. Luckily, her Osmo ActionCam mostly lived in her exercise bag. It had a fisheye lens, which would make the video look like she was shooting skate tricks, but it was better than nothing. Annie opened her bag and did a double take. It was a charnel house of sorts, with bits of stuffing strewn about, paper shredded to bits, and plastic shavings littering the bottom. There was little inside that hadn¡¯t been chewed upon, with more than a third of her credit card destroyed, and a large hole made through the side, but she had eyes for only one thing. Annie picked up her Hammo keychain plush, or what was left of it, at least. Half of its anime-hamster head had been eaten. Her eyes were wide and watering as she gave it a squeeze, causing a chunk of stuffing to fall out. ¡°Nooooo, Hammo! Who would do this to such a noble hero?¡± The answer was, of course, obvious. She turned to look at the little rat who froze under her weepy and accusatory look. Despite appearing for all the world like an ordinary animal, it seemed to radiate guilt. Annie turned from the rat to where all her prepped food was in a stack ¨C apart from the berries she¡¯d been washing, they had been left untouched. ¡°But, but, why?¡± she asked, voice shaking. ¡°There¡¯s so much real food. Why eat Hammo?¡± The rat squeaked and scratched its nose, eyes shifting side to side. It pulled the towel over its face, and then vanished, the cloth falling inwards on where it had just been. Fool! She¡¯d been such an absolute, na?ve fool. James had told her what a villain the little monster was, and she hadn¡¯t even hesitated to ignore his words completely. Hammo hadn¡¯t deserved to meet such a fate, but she deserved to see the grim sight. Could she even call herself the senior student of Black City Kung Fu anymore? She had just hand washed their greatest enemy. Thank god, she hadn¡¯t been able to post any pictures of the monster, she never would have lived that one down. James ¨C James could never know she¡¯d done this. She would just have to swallow this shame for the rest of her life, clean up the kitchen, and pretend like nothing had happened. But she wouldn¡¯t forget. She would never forget. Annie clenched her fist and held it to the sky, her other hand holding Hammo tight to her bosom. ¡°I¡¯ll never forgive this, Mr. Squishy! I will avenge Hammo! I¡¯ll wash off this shame with your blood, traitor!¡± Go With the Flow God bless this cold, black water and these subterranean depths. Carry me to safety, or at the very least, send my body floating down the canal back to my mother. Strange were the thoughts, and odd was the peace that found me in this storm drain, though neither unwelcome. I¡¯d have imagined that hurdling towards a very narrow hole in pitch black, freezing water while trying to drown a ghost would be stressful, but here I was, at peace. Oh sure, I was probably going to get knocked unconscious and drown the moment I hit one of the walls the wrong way, but, boy, was it nice to watch this dead asshole suffer. The Hungry Ghost had been at a loss, clearly, when I¡¯d first started dangling off a sword that was partially sticking out of its torn open stomach, but it had reacted with immediate fury once I yanked it into the water. Even after ripping itself in half, it still dwarfed me in size, its torso almost three times as wide as me, and hands larger than my skull. I curled into a ball as it brought its enormous claws down on me, scoring me on the back twice for a total of sixteen Murderous damage. Considering that it was lit only by my own faint gold glow and that I was hanging on by both hands, there was little I could do, blind and bound as I was, to defend myself as it took me down to one point away from death. Thankfully, I didn¡¯t need to. The rushing water stole from its gaping stomach limbs and disparate organs, which poured forth all around and over me, streaming past my face as I hung on. Most turned into motes of light once free, diminishing the Hungry Ghost with their absence. But a few clung onto the ghost, grabbing at its face and arms and trying to drag it down deeper. When it tried to bite me with its chipped and rotting maw, two arms shot out from its throat and pulled its jaws open while a cloud of fingers and toes started to belch out. Time dilated in those filthy waters for me, letting me savor the joy of watching and feeling the ghost dwindle away for what felt like long minutes. It couldn¡¯t have been more than thirty seconds though until there was more mass in the limbs grappling the Egui than remained in the ghost itself. Soon after, the black void that was hungrily holding onto the majority of the blade weakened, and I was able to cut the sword free by twisting my body with a violent jerk. That was the killing blow; the tattered remains of its body went limp and then vanished into a cloud of sickly yellow specks of light. The white wakizashi, a pale shadow in the dark water, radiated a cruel joy at the final destruction of its ghostly prison, and possessive pride towards me, its new wielder. It commanded my fingers to curl around it tighter, circumventing my mental defenses with disquieting ease. [Encounter Complete!] Defeated Hungry Ghost; Jade Fu Reward: 30XP + 8XP = 38 Bonus, First encounter with a Lesser Evil: x2 Total = 38 x 2 = 76 [Hidden Quest Complete!] Exorcise the Hungry Ghost of Bell Street. Reward: 25XP, +1 Agility, Gain Minor Feat One Amongst Many Bonus, Annihilated ghost: 15XP, +1 Elemental Control (Fire) Bonus, Funikugami¡¯s Curses: 20XP Bonus, Jade Fu survived: 5XP, Gain Ally Jade Fu [Minor Feat] One Amongst Many You are as comfortable fighting a dozen men as you are fighting one. Your enemies don''t receive any of the normal situational bonuses from having you surrounded. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Recover the legendary Hakkotsu no Ha. Reward: 10XP, Gain Item Hakkotsu no Ha ¨C Base Damage 3. Gain 1 Permanent Corruption. The cursed blade has claimed you as its wielder; it would be easier to lose your arm than to part with it now. It is best known for its ability to wound spirits, demons, gods, and other such ephemeral entities. If lost, it will return to you in its own bloody way. Almost nothing can destroy it forever. Victory, while sweet, was quickly overshadowed by a need to right myself if I wanted to survive. The pipe which led from the drain into the canal was only two feet wide, if I recalled correctly, leaving little to no room for error. If I collided with the entrance, I¡¯d go unconscious and drown; if I entered it at the wrong angle, I¡¯d get stuck and drown. Worse, this was my first time attempting ¡®The Chute¡¯, as my father¡¯s generation called it, too ¨C I¡¯d previously deemed the water too gross, and the potential death too horrifying to try. Inexperience, my Injury Threshold penalties, the lack of sight, and the severe time crunch combined to cancel out my Athletics and most of my Agility. I was unsurprised when I Whiffed the roll, having come to terms with my impending doom before the dice clattered in my mind. Sorry, boys and girls, I thought to my friends, now trapped in this world. Best of luck. I¡¯ll see you in the next life. Maybe they''ll do a reunion season somewhere on a beach. I braced for the final impact, but it didn¡¯t come. Instead, three hands, one on my shoulder and another two holding my ankles, grabbed and tugged me into position. I had just enough time to see the disembodied arm on my shoulder turn into a cloud of glowing dust before I found myself shooting through the middle of the exit pipe. Holy shit, did Hero¡¯s Honors work on ghosts?! It gave me guaranteed Successes on Social rolls with people I¡¯d rescued, and I had freed them from the Egui¡¯s stomach, but still ¨C ghosts? If that was true, then I was a few select missions away from becoming the world¡¯s chillest necromancer. ¡°Thanks for the help, boy,¡± said a soft whisper in my ear. ¡°I¡¯ll pass on my compliments to your ancestors.¡± ¡°Damn,¡± came another voice with a deep sigh. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t bad enough to get rescued by Johnny¡¯s kid, I had to go and save his life. There¡¯d better be a karmic reward for this.¡± ¡°WOOOOOOOOO! One last Chute, BABYYYYYYY!!¡± I torpedoed out of the pipe and into the canal feet first, hitting the bottom and kicking up enough silt to blind visibility. Strong arms wrapped around me from behind and carried me up to the surface, vanishing the moment my head was above water. The rain had stopped and the winds were still, though the night was filled with the sounds of fire engines racing through the streets. I had a good idea of what their destination was. It was a pain swimming with the wakizashi in my hand, but I rejected the idea of relinquishing it outright. Even if hadn¡¯t been, maybe, forcing me to keep hold of it, I had put in some goddamn work to recover the blade. Luckily, the system didn¡¯t demand a roll from me to weakly float my way to the side of the canal; I wasn¡¯t confident I wouldn¡¯t have whiffed. With great difficulty, I climbed up a rusted emergency ladder and pulled myself onto the hard, concrete ground chest first, crawling forward until I could finally come to a much-needed rest. I was on of one of the wide walking paths that commonly lined the city¡¯s canals, thankfully emptied of people by the earlier storm. Panting and mind-numbingly exhausted, I rolled onto my back. ¡°Ow, fuck!¡± Oh, right, my back had been ripped to shreds by the Egui. I waffled a bit, gritting my teeth as I inadvertently ground some dirt and pebbles into my wounds, and rolled onto my side. It was moderately less painful. ¡°Woah, take it easy now.¡± A man kneeled down and comfortingly slipped his palm under my head, lifting it slightly. I noticed his clothes first, the white onmyoji¡¯s robes and pointy hat extremely distinctive, and his resemblance to Maki second. I tried to push myself to my feet, but he gently directed me to stay still. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, my sister¡¯s on the way. Just lie still; you¡¯re losing a lot of blood.¡± ¡°Bro, I got so much blood in this bitch. You got no idea,¡± I slurred deliriously, waving him off. Agonizingly, I used the wakizashi still locked in my grip to prop myself up, drawing a wince from the onmyoji. I squinted through the pain at the young man; he seemed to be lit by an ethereal pale light that I couldn¡¯t source. ¡°Ishida Ken?¡± He clasped his hands in front of his face and bowed. ¡°That¡¯s right. Thank you for looking after my sister. And for avenging me, of course.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t sweat it. I¡¯m James Li, by the way. Feel like you,¡± I paused, still out of breath from the fight, ¡°ought to be with your sister though.¡± ¡°I am. I¡¯m leading her here now. Time means little to the dead. Well, I say that but,¡± he grimaced, "I can''t hold on much longer. I''ll try to help as much as I can." ¡°Ah.¡± I nodded, reaching for my phone to shoot her a text, before groaning with a realization. ¡°Phones aren¡¯t waterproof yet?¡± asked the ghost. ¡°You¡¯ve been dead for like two years, man. And no, which means I¡¯m back to being broke as shit. Great, less than a week old too.¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s covered by warranty.¡± ¡°Nothing is ever covered by the warranty.¡± I sighed, looking up at the single-digit number of stars that could shine through the pollution above the city. ¡°Down two phones in a week, but at least I got a cursed sword out of this mess.¡± Ken frowned. ¡°An extremely cursed sword. I¡¯m sorry to have burdened you and this city with it. I never should have listened to Funikugami ¨C left that thing in the catacombs where it belonged." He spoke quickly, clearly concerned with communicating as much as he could with what time he had left. "Be careful around him; I can feel his gifted power inside you. You should know, that while he can come across as reasonable, and usually is, there¡¯s nothing he wants more than the death of all things. His sword, similarly, will try to drive you towards sating its bloodlust. I think that¡¯s his rib, by the way, hardened to steel.¡± The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°It¡¯s corrupting me, I know. And I don¡¯t think I could get rid of it if I wanted to either. Any¡­tips?¡± ¡°Huh, I¡¯m surprised you noticed. Well, you¡¯re already a step ahead of me. I didn¡¯t notice it was affecting my decisions until it was too late. I wonder, if I hadn¡¯t rushed to fight the Ghost, would I still be alive?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Guess it doesn¡¯t matter now. My only advice would be to use it as sparingly as possible, and prepare, prepare, prepare for every battle ¨C harder than your instincts are telling you to. Those will be the first to be corrupted.¡± He paused and tilted his head. ¡°They¡¯re almost here. Your cab driver friend is, uh¡ª¡± ¡°Driving like a lunatic?¡± He smiled. ¡°Is treating his task with all the urgency it deserves. I¡¯m glad, but it doesn¡¯t leave me with much time.¡± He bowed again. ¡°James Li, I know it¡¯s crass of me, but I must ask you for a favor.¡± ¡°Sure. Shoot.¡± ¡°Please, join the Shrine as a warrior. With my death, only priests and priestesses remain, no true fighters, and no way to deal with mortal threats.¡± I hesitated, thinking about having to interact with more Kami. After tonight, I was hoping to never have to deal with one again. Their minds were alien, their motives inscrutable, and their powers bullshit. ¡°I don¡¯t know, man, that¡¯s a big ask. I¡¯ve got a lot of shit going on¡­¡± ¡°Please, I beg you! Without an honest fighter, I fear they¡¯ll have to turn to the Yakuza for help! Those dogs lack a selfless bone in their bodies. It would mean a slow infection of all our communal values, the hollowing of our righteous cause. Tens of thousands rely on the Shrine for help! Please, if not for me, then for them.¡± I groaned. If he put it like that, there was no way I could say no ¨C And, he was a ghost? I¡¯d feel like a total asshole turning down his last, selfless request. ¡°Okay, okay, fine. You know, I was hoping you were just going to ask me to look after your sister.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± He clapped his hands in front of him and bowed again. ¡°Please do that too!¡± ¡°Obviously, yes. You¡¯re a very needy ghost, by the way.¡± Ken beamed. A hint of mischief appeared in his eyes. ¡°Wonderful! In that case,¡± he placed a palm on my forehead, ¡°I name you, Ishida Kenji. Welcome to the family, younger brother!¡± A breeze passed through me, making my Qi network shiver. I felt lighter and cleaner, as though a thick layer of dust had been blown off my joints and bones. The night seemed a tad brighter, and a little more comfortable for some indefinable reason. [Boon Granted] Ishida Family Scion +1 Perception, +1 Insight You¡¯ve entered the Ishida Clan by way of adoption and will be treated as a member in good standing by their defenses and in their established agreements with Kami. Additionally, gain 1 guaranteed Success when defending yourself from curses and attacks by spirits. ¡°You¡¯re naming me Ken-Two?¡± I asked in disbelief ¨C the nerve of this guy. ¡°What are you, a narcissist? Shouldn¡¯t it have some deeper meaning?¡± Maki¡¯s deceased brother ¨C and mine, technically ¨C was already beginning to fade into the light, a relieved grin on his face. Whatever he''d done had reduced him to barely more than a silhouette. ¡°Bye, Kenji-kun!¡± His voice grew more distant with every word. ¡°I¡¯ll be waiting for you in the next life¡­¡± ¡°Oi!¡± I shouted at the faint specter. ¡°I don¡¯t approve of that name! You can¡¯t make me go by that!¡± Goddamn it, he was already gone ¡°Is this how Maki feels when I¡¯m being deliberately annoying?¡± I gave it a thought. ¡°No, it¡¯s funnier when I do it.¡± Huo¡¯s taxi hopped the curb and came to a screeching halt in front of me, fully on the walkway. Maki threw open the door and rushed out. She looked like a mess, clothes and hair soaked and sticking to her, talismans still dripping water, but didn¡¯t appear injured. ¡°James¡ª¡± Maki stopped herself as she got closer, breath hitching. ¡°We need to get you to a hospital immediately.¡± I blinked at her face, white sparks momentarily clouding my vision. God, it was hard to do anything with the six Dice, Injury Threshold penalty. ¡°Hey, Maki, guess what I found out?¡± The miko came around to my side, kneeling down and taking me by the elbow. ¡°Can you save this joke for when we¡¯re in the car and moving?¡± ¡°Fine, buzzkill.¡± I let her pull me up and hobbled my way into Huo¡¯s cab and onto his fake leather slipcovers, laying my new sword on my lap. Huo, contrary to Maki, was ecstatic to see me ¨C though he didn¡¯t have a good angle on my back, which may have changed things. ¡°Yo, James! I knew you would survive!¡± I clicked my tongue and shot him a finger gun, or, in his general direction, at least. Sliding down the seats had made my eyes water and scrunch up from pain. ¡°Told ya. Man o¡¯ my word, I am.¡± ¡°I never doubted you! Where to, youxia?¡± I groaned settling into a slightly less painful position. ¡°Take me home, Huo. I¡¯m beat.¡± ¡°Absolutely not,¡± interjected Maki. ¡°Sensei, take us to a hospital. James needs a trauma center immediately.¡± ¡°Nah, I got a way to stabilize the wounds.¡± I yawned. ¡°Way safer than surgery. They¡¯ll want to put me under, and without me controlling my bleeding and manually pumping my heart, they¡¯ll have minutes, maybe seconds, to save me.¡± That was my explanation for why I could only die from blood loss while unconscious, or as a result of an attack or ability. It seemed plausible enough to be true; martial artists did all sorts of wild shit. And it was certainly more believable than explaining to the locals they were background actors on an interdimensional reality show. ¡°Does¡­this involve the same magic you used to bless me in the restaurant?¡± she asked, euphemistically referring to the Erotic Sorcery blessing I¡¯d given her with a kiss. I supposed she didn¡¯t want to reveal that to her calligraphy teacher. I nodded. ¡°Much better solution. I can stay conscious, take it in chunks, almost no danger really. Benefits of magic, huh?¡± ¡°I see.¡± Maki took a deep breath and gathered her resolve, sitting up straighter. ¡°Okay, Huo Sensei, please take us to James¡¯ apartment.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± Oh wow, I must have really been out of it; I hadn¡¯t even considered using Maki. My mind had gone to Marianne. I did want to sleep with the miko, of course ¨C she was beautiful ¨C but I didn¡¯t want to guilt her into it because she thought I was dying. I wanted to seduce her. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to be you. My neighbor¡¯s a nurse and¡ªoh, wait, phone¡¯s broke. I¡¯d have to go knock¡­huh. Well, the women next door are, uh, specialists, I guess you¡¯d call them.¡± ¡°No, it will be me.¡± I opened my mouth to respond but she put her finger to my lips. ¡°Don¡¯t bother, it¡¯s a waste of energy. I¡¯m your partner for this mission, aren¡¯t I? It isn¡¯t finished if you¡¯re still actively dying.¡± I nodded slowly. Maki patted me on the cheek and moved her hand to my elbow. Hey, she didn¡¯t have to try that hard to convince me. As long as she didn¡¯t feel conflicted, I wasn¡¯t going to try and talk her out of it. Plus, I didn¡¯t want to disclose my abilities to one of Papes¡¯ whores; the man was literally an information broker. Nor did I want to risk waking all of Marianne¡¯s kids up looking like this to ask her to do sex magic with me. That would be very unneighborly behavior. Huo drove the car off the sidewalk and back onto the road, the bumps sending lighting shooting through my back. Once we were on the way, I gave Maki a cheeky grin. ¡°Hey, Huo, guess what I found out.¡± ¡°Hm, what¡¯s that?¡± ¡°Busting makes me feel bad.¡± Huo chuckled. ¡°The Ghostbusters lied to us, eh?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll never forgive Ray Parker Jr. for this.¡± A firetruck raced past us in the opposite direction, alarms blaring. They were such background noise for me having grown up in the city, that it wasn¡¯t until they were well past that I remembered the distillery fire. In the warmth and safety of the car, the night seemed almost like a bad dream. Maki looked at me like I was crazy. ¡°Ghostbusters? What are you two talking about?¡± Huo sounded scandalized. ¡°You¡¯ve never seen Ghostbusters? What are they teaching the youth these days?¡± ¡°Yeah, Maki, you spent all those years researching how to fight a ghost and you never watched Ghostbusters?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand. Is it a documentary?¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good question,¡± said Huo. ¡°How accurate was the rest of the movie, James?¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± I stroked my chin for effect. ¡°Pretty dead on, actually.¡± ¡°Ha! No way!¡± ¡°No, it was more or less just straight Ghostbusters down there.¡± ¡°Even the part with the ghost blowjob?¡± ¡°Huo, you¡¯re not going to believe me. It was mostly the ghost blowjob scene.¡± Maki rolled her eyes but didn¡¯t hide her small smile. ¡°Ugh, I knew you were messing with me.¡± Huo and I burst into laughter, the chaos of Chinatown fading behind us. Go With the Flow 2 Maki promised to text Huo updates on how I was doing and helped me out of the car. I was already much more together after the ten minutes it had taken to get here, all things considered; I had my energy back and the pain had faded to a dull throb, my Special feat for 6 Dice in Endurance coming through in a big way. But Maki¡¯s body heat was a welcome comfort in the chill late-night air, so I was happy to lean on her. ¡°You live in Harbor Hill? I suppose you¡¯re less affected than most by the crime rate.¡± ¡°Last place a part-time actor can afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city,¡± I grunted, fumbling with my keys. ¡°I wanted the distance from Chinatown too; new beginnings and all that.¡± ¡°I know the feeling. University City was supposed to be that for me, a clean break away from the Shrine to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but¡­¡± ¡°Life had its own opinions on the matter. Funny how that happens.¡± I stuck the Hakkotsu no Ha in the umbrella stand, kicked my shoes off, and peeled down my soggy socks with a contented sigh. It was good to be home again. Maki blushed as I stripped my shirt and undid my sash but paled at the sight of my back. Damn, I kind of wanted to see what it looked like, but it felt rude to ask her to take a picture for me. She seemed traumatized enough as it was. ¡°Bathroom¡¯s the first door to your right. I¡¯ll go grab you a clean towel and one of my shirts to change into.¡± She shook her head. ¡°We should take care of your injuries first.¡± ¡°Ten minutes more isn¡¯t going to kill me. I promise I won¡¯t do something stupid like closing my eyes for a nap while I wait. We have time for you to freshen up. Besides, unlike me, you actually need to shower ¨C badly, at the moment, no offense.¡± ¡°How is that possible, by the way? From the front, you look like you could have walked off the set of a movie.¡± She gestured with her head at the small puddle under where I¡¯d hung my wet shirt. ¡°Even the water from your clothing seems relatively clear, and I know there should be more blood, well, all over you realistically.¡± ¡°Hey, when you look this good, the universe obliges.¡± She sipped her teeth. ¡°We aren¡¯t done talking about this, but fine. I happen to be unenlightened enough to require the facilities anyway. Please don¡¯t exert yourself while you wait.¡± I set Maki up in the bathroom and then popped into the utility closet. Using an old wrench I¡¯d hung there for this purpose, I manually cranked the heat up on the old steam heater. It was a relic, left untouched by the fire that had destroyed the floors above, and fully capable of turning my apartment into a sauna on full blast. Getting the basement to an actually comfortable temperature with the heater was a delicate balancing act that I fully ignored for tonight. I just wanted to be warm. Maki could crack a few windows if she needed to. While in the closet, I closed the door and pulled out the three Base Upgrade Tokens, rectangular plastic-looking charms I¡¯d been given for causing over a million dollars in collateral damage. These were new to me, but I did remember the game having a way for players to spend Experience upgrading bases. The option hadn¡¯t appeared before now though; evidently, I¡¯d needed to unlock it via quest rewards. I browsed through the menu that had popped up; it was far more detailed than I remembered from the book. At the top was an option to buy more tokens for 50 EXP each, pricey, but worth it considering the sort of things they could do. The cost in tokens for each upgrade was dependent on the existing size, amenities, and defenses of the base in question. My rinky-dink basement apartment, for instance, offered me a huge discount on all options, reducing a number of very strong ones to the minimum cost of one Token. I went immediately to the defenses tab. The warehouse and distillery equipment I¡¯d destroyed may have cost over a million dollars, but I had to imagine the damage I¡¯d done to the Tigers by destroying their counterfeit liquor operation was far greater. If I didn¡¯t want to get firebombed in my sleep, I would need some deterrents. The best options were extremely expensive, even with the discount, balanced around a party of players pooling their resources together. These included things like taking the entire base into a pocket dimension, imposing an inviolable Law preventing all violence, and the creation and binding of a literal Guardian Angel to the property. More affordable, but still out of my range, were a pair of Guardian Lion statues, like those outside of Maki¡¯s shrine, except alive, and imbuing the apartment with a young Kami. Things I could afford but still weren¡¯t options, included a moat, mechanized gun turrets, a minefield, all manner of booby traps, and two living suits of armor, which did momentarily tempt me for use as training dummies. Ultimately, most weren¡¯t very useful for me or would be too hard to explain to others. I went with two options I thought would combo well with each other. The first, reduced to only one Token, was called ¡®Enchantment of Forgetfulness¡¯. The moment someone near, but not on, the base decided to do harm to the residents or property, they would be inflicted by a sudden thought that would draw them away, ¡®I left the stove on!¡¯, for example. It could be bested by a strong Wits roll, but it would hopefully handle most thugs. The second, for two tokens, was called ¡®Fortress from the Lost¡¯. Those who were headed to the apartment with malintent would find themselves chronically lost, regardless of technological aid. It could be beat by a high Willpower check, but what I liked about it the most, was that the threshold for Success increased dramatically depending on how large the group was. The Triads, like most gangs, preferred to roll squad deep. For that reason, it seemed like my best option, and in combination with the first would let me sleep easy tonight. I wistfully scanned through the upgrades from other categories. It took all of my willpower to not drop a hundred Experience on two more tokens. An en suite bathroom with a sauna and a jacuzzi was only one token! Was my continued personal growth really worth going without a personal sauna? Or an invisible servant to help clean? Or an indoor swimming pool? Yes, unfortunately, to all of those. Actually, a perma-stocked meat freezer¡­ No, goddamn it, James, get it together, man. I exited out of the menu before I could be further tempted. I¡¯d nearly died like six times or something tonight; no Experience point could go wasted on frivolities. I plodded through the apartment, trying not to think about how nice it would look with a Zen Garden or an espresso bar, each only a token away. Hopefully, I could get more tokens by doing more property damage, because I could definitely see myself making some less-than-sensible decisions otherwise. I stripped in my room and absolutely ruined a towel drying off. Blood, while not pouring out of me at a normal human rate, was still oozing out of my wounds and caked all over my back. Painfully, I used the remainder of my gauze on hand to wrap my back and torso up tight like a mummy, making a sort of X across my shoulders to cover the full extent of my wounds. Slipping into some boxers, I returned to the living room and knelt down next to my couch to wait for Maki. I was sure I was still bleeding through the wrappings, and I knew myself well enough to know that if even a drop of blood got onto the upholstery there would be no amount of Willpower Dice that could keep me from spending an upgrade token on new self-repairing, self-cleaning furniture. Maki exited the bathroom with only one of my button-up shirts on after about forty minutes, blushing shyly when I turned to look. The improvised shirtdress went only to her mid-thighs revealing her long, beautiful legs, and its collar was too big, hanging slightly off her shoulder. I hadn¡¯t meant to do it when I grabbed the shirt, but the white cloth was also thin enough that you could see the shadows of her nipples through it. Besides looking ravishing, she was also visibly more relaxed, though some of that could be attributed to tiredness. Her eyes were also a little puffy and red, which in combination implied that she¡¯d had a good cathartic cry in the shower. A well-earned one, I should say; we¡¯d avenged her brother tonight, freeing both Ken¡¯s ghost and her future from the Hungry Ghost¡¯s cavernous maw. Maki was unyoked from revenge, free to live life as she pleased ¨C and for as exhausted as she might have looked, I could tell. Anyone could, probably; the Maki I¡¯d met in the shrine had been a haunted and hollowed woman. She¡¯d been zealous and single-minded, a fanatic deliberately holding herself in a pit of despair to push herself onwards and past her limits. That version of her, regardless of her physical prowess, was no less a warrior than I and had earned her place as a peer, one of my fellow defenders of Black Harbor. This Maki, however, was a young woman who was unsure of herself. She was hesitant, rudderless without a mission to guide her. My instincts, born from both my Seduction and Leadership Skills, were screaming at me that she was fruit ripe for the picking and that I should seize her and make her mine, give her a vision to fight for. It was wrong, maybe, for me to step in at her most vulnerable and ply her with my insane Social feats and Skills, but I was in no position to take the high road. I needed a woman like Maki to survive in the Underworld, and sexual urges aside, I wanted her too, if not in my bed, then at my side, in my life. I rolled a Charisma + Seduction ¨C a mostly superfluous action, Hero¡¯s Harem gave me three Guaranteed Successes, but the additional two that I rolled, despite the enormous Injury penalty, would help guide our interactions. For instance, despite how eager I was to feel her skin against mine, it informed me that for the best results I needed to ease her into her first sexual interaction for years, and probably her only with a man. ¡°That¡¯s a good look for you,¡± I said. Maki looked down at the button-up and then back at me suspiciously, as though unsure as to whether I was making fun of her. ¡°I¡¯m serious. You¡¯re effortlessly pretty. Grab your purse, by the way.¡± She brushed a damp strand of hair behind her ear, cheeks pinkening slightly. ¡°Thank you. But to be clear, whatever we¡­might do tonight, it¡¯s purely a medical procedure. I don¡¯t want you to misconstrue my assistance as anything more than what it is.¡± I bowed my head. ¡°Of course. I¡¯m grateful for your help. But, you do know you don¡¯t have to do this? The house next door is a literal brothel. It¡¯s really no trouble at all.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s¡ªsorry, I think my tone¡­¡± She trailed off into a long pause, pursing her lips and frowning as she gathered her thoughts. ¡°I want to help, really, I do. And I¡¯m honored that someone like you would even consider me. It¡¯s just that,¡± she let out a frustrated sigh, ¡°Ugh, I don¡¯t know. Sorry, I¡¯m not used to this. I¡¯m outside of my comfort zone in a lot of ways right now, but I have to help you.¡± ¡°Again,¡± I said, ¡°you literally don¡¯t.¡± I could tell that there was nothing I could say to talk her out of this, nor was I actually trying to. Maki had made up her mind, and no devil or angel could move her now. My protests were meant to help her convince herself into being more comfortable with the idea of being with me. Plus, this was Maki, she was much more open to light confrontation than emotional honesty. ¡°I do though,¡± she said, grabbing her purse off a key hook by the door. Her voice was almost pleading. ¡°James, I have to do this for myself, honestly.¡± ¡°You get that this isn¡¯t just going to be a kiss, right? I¡¯m not trying to hoodwink you. You¡¯re powering my spell with your orgasms.¡± She answered curtly, ¡°I understand how ritualized eroticism works, James. It¡¯s exceedingly common in all forms of magical practice. Unlike you, I had to study for my magic, not all of us can blunder into mystic might. Now, I demand that you stop trying to talk me out of this.¡± Ah, there was the Maki I¡¯d come to know. I¡¯d be upset, but I did literally blunder my way into mystic might. She kneeled in front of me head high and back straight, projecting full certainty in her decisions. My button-up rode up her thighs considerably, making her quickly cover her lap with the purse. I raised an eyebrow at that, but she pointedly refused to acknowledge it. ¡°You could pay for the prostitute, that would still be helping. A lot, honestly; I uh, kind of ruined my phone earlier. If I didn¡¯t have a gig on Friday, I¡¯d be screwed.¡± ¡°Am I ugly, James?¡± ¡°What? God, no. Are you kidding?¡± She crossed her arms and glared. ¡°I¡¯m not your type then? I did ballet as a child for a few years, if that helps.¡± I groaned. ¡°Not you too. There are valid, non-sexual reasons for why I¡¯m following all those ballerinas.¡± Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°Uh huh. Then it¡¯s my personality. You think I¡¯m a shrew, don¡¯t you?¡± she asked, voice cracking a bit. I threw my hands up. ¡°Woah! Jesus, woman, would you relax? That¡¯s not it at all." I paused ¨C Maki¡¯s voice cracked? That seemed out of character for her¡­ ¡°Wait a minute. Are you trying to reason me into a seduction?¡± She ignored me, her cheek twitching slightly. ¡°Well, if it¡¯s not my looks, not your preferences, and not my personality, then what is your problem? Are you trying to make this more uncomfortable for me?¡± She was! Maki was doing the in-universe equivalent of trying to roll a Wits + Seduction on me and doing, frankly, a bad job. If I wasn¡¯t in the middle of seducing her already, there was no way this would have worked on me. Probably. Her attempt at acting was pretty cute. ¡°It¡¯s your preferences, you lunatic! Maki, you¡¯re gay. I¡¯m trying to respect that.¡± Maki grew supremely smug, apparently, I¡¯d walked right into her trap. She held up a finger. ¡°Ah. Don¡¯t worry, I gave it some thought in the shower and decided that it¡¯s irrelevant when it comes to you. Put simply, James, if you consider all the evidence, it becomes quite clear that aren¡¯t really a man at all.¡± I rubbed my brow. ¡°I ¨C okay. By all means, continue.¡± ¡°First of all, you are sublimely beautiful; your face and body possess a perfect symmetry that is eerie. But more than that, they are sexually attractive in a way that defies reason. For example, I quite enjoy women¡¯s breasts. I think we can agree, yes?¡± ¡°You phrased that like a serial killer, but yeah. I like a nice pair of tits.¡± She cleared her throat, momentarily flustered. ¡°Ehm, yes, quite. What I was really saying is that I am sexually attracted to women¡¯s chests over those of men. Even a relatively flat, but soft woman¡¯s chest can elicit a reaction from me, whereas no traditionally masculine man¡¯s chest can.¡± ¡°Yeah, Maki, I get how physical attraction works.¡± ¡°So, then you must realize how strange and off-putting it was for me to then suddenly find your hard, distinctly defined male pectorals so¡­appealing. Especially, considering that in the past I¡¯d associated your body type with that of a thuggish meathead prone to brutish, insecure outbursts should he ever encounter a modicum of rejection.¡± ¡°You understand I didn¡¯t choose to be this ridiculously good-looking, right?¡± She leaned forward with interest. ¡°That¡¯s fascinating. You mean it¡¯s not a result of your deliberate actions?¡± I winced. ¡°It¡¯s complicated. Please go on with your explanation.¡± My response seemed to further confirm a suspicion of hers. Some of the wariness sloughed off her shoulders and she sat up a bit straighter. ¡°It¡¯s directly relevant to where I¡¯m going with this, but very well. I was reconciling and coping with my sudden attraction to a male body in the shower, you see. It¡¯s reassuring to know that you don¡¯t have any control over it because I have to say, it¡¯s unpleasant to suddenly have your personal conception of self upturned with a glance.¡± ¡°At first, I thought, well, James is clearly fairly far down the Path of the Immortal. His body has reached a level of physical perfection that is forcing a physiological reaction from mine.¡± If I could go back in time, I would have done a lot more to obscure how strong I was getting. The same Special feat that had doubled my life expectancy had even warned me about my flesh becoming a sought-after reagent. ¡°It¡¯s that obvious, huh?¡± ¡°Yes. Everyone with even rudimentary spiritual senses for tens of miles will have noticed you becoming a thousand-foot-tall cyclone of fire.¡± ¡°A thousand-foot¡ª¡± I gasped and slapped my forehead. I knew exactly what happened; Maki said I¡¯d become the fire tornado, not created one. Shining Resolve made me glow faintly, but my Qi shine like a second sun. When I had circulated my Qi into the flammable vapors in the warehouse, tying the fuel into my network, it must have appeared to her spiritual senses as though I had grown into an immense towering flame. To hers, and to probably everyone¡¯s in Central Jersey. ¡°Oh god, I¡¯m so boned.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry. You have me now; we¡¯ll navigate the fallout of this together.¡± I wagged my eyebrows, unable to resist despite how touching the sentiment was. ¡°I have you now, do I?¡± ¡°Of course. You can¡¯t be trusted to keep yourself alive,¡± she said, ignoring the double-entendre. ¡°Fair.¡± ¡°Anyway, as I was saying, I thought you were merely close enough to becoming a Xian that it was overcoming my distaste for the male form, but as I considered it further, there were elements that didn¡¯t add up.¡± ¡°Much of what you can do can be attributed to your mastery of the martial arts,¡± she continued. ¡°There are both historical and living examples of men and women who can command the elements, and even laywomen like me can easily identify that you¡¯re a genius of physical intelligence. You dissected Pak Hadiman¡¯s techniques in seconds, and your kinesthetic sense is so great that your movements resemble those of a big cat.¡± ¡°Thanks! That¡¯s the power of my Black City Kung Fu. My style is the ultimate in adaptability!¡± ¡°Perhaps. Yet there¡¯s much about you that can¡¯t be attributed to mortal prowess. When we kissed, I was prepared for your breath to taste of fish and soy sauce, but instead, it smelled like the blooming wisteria trees under which I had my first kiss ¨C that whole night and scene actually. I was hit by the smell of wisteria, the hint of my childhood friend¡¯s shampoo, and the lingering smoke of fireworks wafting through the trees. It was unmistakable.¡± My stomach started to drop as she kept going. Maki had proven herself to be supremely perceptive and insightful the entire night, but I hadn¡¯t quite adjusted my expectations enough for this world. Just like there were superhuman fighters here, there were superhuman geniuses as well; I should have been treating her closer to a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot than anyone on my previous Earth. ¡°And then briefly, I tasted your saliva, only to find it better than anything I¡¯d eaten in my life, a virtually unidentifiable flavor that my mind could only attribute to you. It was alarming, particularly the primal and immediate desire I felt to taste more of it, fully cognizant that there was but one source. My mind rejected the feeling, there was too much else to think about at the time, but I remembered it again in the shower. I remembered too how your words seemed to linger in my mind, how your image kept fighting its way into my idle thoughts, and then I thought about how not even your massive injuries managed to diminish your appeal.¡± ¡°But it was thinking back on what you said in the hallway, that made it all come together. You said, ¡®When you look this good, the universe obliges.¡¯ You were being flippant, but that was an interesting explanation. How else could I explain someone being so beautiful that dirt will not stick to him? I looked down at the water flowing out of my hair, dirty from the few seconds that I had tripped and fallen during my run back to the exit of the storm drain, and then remembered the perfectly clean puddle under where you¡¯d hung your shirt, about how little mud had been on your shoes and socks. I realized that when taken as a whole, yours are not the abilities of a man, nor of someone merely close to attaining Immortality ¨C these are the qualities of a man who has already achieved Divinity. Your powers remind me of Baldr of the Norse Gods, various members of the Tuatha De Danaan, and different Kami.¡± I nodded with understanding. ¡°Ooh, when you say I¡¯m not a man, you mean I¡¯m not a human.¡± ¡°Yes, you aren¡¯t a man, you¡¯re man-shaped. I did a thought experiment, you see. Many divine beings with human forms have others as well or are outright shapeshifters. So, with the reasonable assumption that you might one day gain such an ability, I visualized you in my mind, changing into other genders, races, and body types. It was strange, as long as my brain believed the person I was looking at was you, it could find any, literally any form appealing.¡± There was a long pause as her questions hung in the air between us, unvocalized but asked nonetheless. Maki wanted to know what I was, if she was correct, why she felt the way she did about me, etc. but was too polite to outright say any of that. This was the most deferential she¡¯d ever been with me, and honestly, it was somewhat disconcerting. ¡°Ha. That was a long shower, huh?¡± I said, guiltily rubbing the back of my head. What could I say? At this point, I was positive that Maki would notice any changes to her cognition or emotional processes, both of which were sure to happen if she continued to interact with me. How could I explain them in a way that she could accept? Something told me, in no uncertain terms, that the Producers would not appreciate me revealing the nature of the game to any NPC. But at the same time, could I hide anything from her? Maki shrank a little in the silence. Now that she was no longer explaining her logic and reasoning, she was back to being an inexperienced young woman, nervous about the upcoming intimacy. ¡°Sorry. That was all to say that you don¡¯t need to worry about me, I¡¯m completely sure and comfortable with,¡± she cleared her throat, ¡°anything we need to do. Should we¡­get to it? Although,¡± she added hopefully, ¡°if you need a confidant, I¡¯m here. And of course, the more information I have, the better I can help you. Not that you need to tell me anything.¡± I groaned. ¡°This would be so much easier for me if you just demanded to know.¡± ¡°Oh. Would you like me to?¡± ¡°Ehh.¡± I thought about it. No, no, that would be ridiculous and childish. ¡°Could you maybe threaten to withhold helping to heal me?¡± She paled and shook her head firmly. ¡°Absolutely not, I couldn¡¯t even joke about that.¡± ¡°Gah, fine. But this has to stay crazy secret, okay? This isn¡¯t even a secret technique, this is a personal secret; not even my senior student knows this. Got it?¡± Maki bowed her head. ¡°I would sooner die than break your confidence.¡± I took a deep breath, wincing as it irritated a few fractured bones in my back. ¡°When I was,¡± I did finger quotes, ¡°¡®building¡¯ the ultimate real-life, action movie hero, I accidentally or, some might say, was tricked into discovering a way to cultivate tremendous amounts of power through the shenanigans typical to such a character. So now, anything from performing, to banishing a ghost, to sexual hijinks can bring me all kinds of benefits and rewards, most of which I get little to no say in.¡± ¡°Like the ability to be universally appealing?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m sorry that I¡¯m doing that to you. Like I said¡ª¡± ¡°No,¡± she interrupted, ¡°I¡¯m glad that you are. It will make this easier for both of us, surely. And by sexual hijinks, that means you¡¯ll get stronger from having sex with me to heal yourself?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need to have sex with you to make you orgasm, but yeah, I¡¯ll get power from anything we do. The further we go, the nastier we get, the more power, typically.¡± Maki nodded and closed her eyes. I let the seconds tick by as she thought in silence until nearly a minute had passed while she was up in her mind palace or whatever; being around Maki made me feel like a real himbo. Frankly, it was kind of freeing. It would be nice to have someone I could pass off the big headscratchers to while I was off fucking and fighting my way to godhood. Her eyes snapped open. All hesitation and insecurity had evaporated from her, leaving behind the same zealous, self-assured warrior I¡¯d seen during our exorcism. She held up two fingers. ¡°Right, I¡¯ve decided. There are two things that we will accomplish before I leave your apartment, regardless of how long it takes. One, we will heal you completely from all injuries. Two, we will go as far and,¡± her face grew bright red, and her voice higher in pitch, ¡°get as nasty as you are comfortable with. I have resolved myself to go along with anything you propose.¡± I laughed ¨C she had practically squeaked the last few words. Still, I much appreciated the gesture, even if I didn¡¯t entirely believe her. Maki and I likely had very different concepts of ¡®nasty¡¯. ¡°I won¡¯t ask if you¡¯re sure, I can tell you are, and I know why you want the first. I would also consider it my duty to see you healed fully had you been injured. But where the hell did the second demand come from?¡± Maki fiddled with the zipper on her purse nervously and couldn¡¯t bring herself to make eye contact. ¡°You were right, in the alleyway; the city does need idiots like you, and, like I said, you need an idiot like me to survive. If all I need to do is subject myself to your base urges for a day or two to improve your chances, then it is an onus my pride demands I bear.¡± I threw my head back and laughed. That sounded like a challenge if I¡¯d heard one. Go With the Flow 3 Like a noble samurai, moments before seppuku, Maki held her head high, back straight, and wore a look of grim acceptance. It wasn¡¯t quite what I had in mind with my earlier Seduction roll, but I¡¯d take it. The lesbian was committed fully to anything we might do, and that had been the heart of the matter. ¡®As nasty as you are comfortable with,¡¯ she¡¯d said, though I wouldn¡¯t be so cruel as to so completely ignore her hard limits. On the contrary, I¡¯d be entirely focused on them, my goal being to push, soften, and erase them with every step. ¡°So, how should we start? M-more kissing?¡± she said. It was amazing how quickly composure could leave the woman. ¡°You asked me to grab my purse? I¡¯m sure you know that I don¡¯t keep condoms on me.¡± I had, though if I¡¯d known she¡¯d use it to diligently protect her upper thighs from view, I might have reconsidered. With a small hiss of pain, I moved from kneeling to sitting on my butt and patted the space in front of me. ¡°Not much of a point to them for me unless we''re trying to prevent a mess. I have total control over my fertility and am immune to STDs. No, I was actually after the victory Kit-Kats.¡± Maki shuffled forward, still kneeling but now between my spread legs, close enough to kiss. ¡°Are you sure now is the time? If you need the energy, I can make you something more substantial,¡± she said, pulling the candy out regardless. I took the green tea flavored chocolates from her, snapping a bar off. ¡°I¡¯m a man of my word, Maki. I said we¡¯d celebrate with them after we won, didn¡¯t I?¡± ¡°I would feel much more comfortable celebrating after we¡¯ve stabilized your ongoing blood loss.¡± ¡°They can serve towards that purpose too. Watch. Open your mouth.¡± Maki raised an eyebrow skeptically but followed along. I stuck half the chocolate bar into her mouth and laid it on her tongue. ¡°Now bite down, but not through.¡± Once she¡¯d done so, I leaned forward with a small grin, and then took the other half of the chocolate in my mouth, kissing her lips before snapping through it. Maki reared back and clapped her hand over her mouth, blushing brightly. She chewed down the snack as quickly as she could in order to reprimand me faster. ¡°What are you doing?! That was far too romantic!¡± I laughed at her, making her grow redder with anger and embarrassment. ¡°You were the one who proposed we go as far as we could.¡± ¡°Yes, exactly! So please skip the foreplay!¡± ¡°Oh lord.¡± I placed my hand on her shoulder and called forth the telekinetic limbs of the Three Python Force Technique. They wrapped around her waist and legs with care and turned her around to face the other way, pulling her back to me so that she was resting against my chest, cocooned by my limbs. She squeaked indignantly. ¡°Romance and foreplay are the foundations of good sex, woman. You can as much forget about them when making love, as you can forget about the basement walls when building a house. Really, Maki, what kind of terrible sex have you been having?¡± She elbowed me lightly, turning her head to glare up at me. ¡°As I told you, my assistance in these matters is about healing and strengthening you. I¡¯m not your girlfriend, I¡¯m your partner. We aren¡¯t making love.¡± I slid my arms around her flat belly and rested my head on her shoulder, her still-damp hair tickling my neck and face. ¡°And I¡¯m telling you that the romance is a part of it. However, if you aren¡¯t comfortable with that, we can go in the total opposite direction too. Both work equally well ¨C though the specific Rewards will differ.¡± ¡°That entails?¡± I tightened my grip around her waist, not enough to bruise or even hurt, but causing enough discomfort to inform her exactly what to expect. ¡°A more forceful approach.¡± She took a small, sharp breath, startled, I think, by the feelings evoked by my arms. The system had asked me to roll a Sensuality + Seduction just now, and while I¡¯d only gotten two Successes, I totaled five with Hero¡¯s Harem ¨C more than enough to cast the reserved woman into disarray. ¡°Do,¡± she gulped nervously, ¡°do what you must.¡± I sighed. ¡°I am. There are two paths to our destination ¨C I¡¯m asking which you¡¯d prefer.¡± Maki stiffened, obviously unsure of either. ¡°Or,¡± I added, ¡°you could take charge too. That would also work.¡± She took some time to think about it. I passed the almost minute or so enjoying her warmth and the relative daintiness of her frame. Marianne was a soft, full-figured woman, and Annie¡¯s every inch was that of an athlete, muscular and firm, but Maki was thin and delicate, like a beautiful work of glass. ¡°I think¡­you should just do whatever you like. If we were dating, I would like to¡ªwell, never mind, actually. Just do what you want, James. I know you¡¯re obviously very worried about me, but I¡¯m just as worried about you. I only want you to be strong enough to survive whatever your next harebrained scheme is, or the trouble you¡¯re inevitably going to barrel headfirst into. I want to help ¨C that¡¯s all I can really say.¡± I nuzzled my nose into her neck and breathed out a long, warm exhale as I traced a path up to her ear, causing the thin, small hairs to rise as goosebumps. Mouth close enough that she could feel my lips move when I spoke, I whispered, ¡°And if I¡¯m inclined towards romance tonight?¡± She squirmed a bit and then froze at the sensations that were brought out. Answering in an equal whisper, she said, ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°And if I start ordering you around?¡± ¡°If it means we can get this over with, then please do.¡± I chuffed in amusement. ¡°So eager. You¡¯ll need a safe word.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t. I¡¯m fully committed, like I said.¡± It became less believable every time she said it. ¡°If you¡¯re fully committed, then it won¡¯t make a difference if you have a safe word. Can only be a positive, really.¡± ¡°No! I won¡¯t use it; I don¡¯t need it.¡± I pulled back a little, somewhat alarmed by the vehemence. Maki wilted slightly, before turning to look at me pleadingly. ¡°Sorry. But please don¡¯t insist, please.¡± ¡°O-kay¡­I guess you did say you wanted to get nasty.¡± That brought a small smile to her otherwise crestfallen face. She returned to leaning her back against my chest, a bit more comfortable with doing so than before. Seduction really was a game of inches with Maki, no pun intended. ¡°It¡¯s not that. If I tell you something, will you promise we¡¯ll keep going?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Promise,¡± she demanded. ¡°And that you won¡¯t hold back either. In fact, I want you to promise that in exchange for me telling you about this very vulnerable, closely held secret, you will, in short, completely disregard your overly paternalistic fretting about the quality of my consent and proceed to ravish me like the beast we both know you are fully capable of being.¡± I had to repeat the request a few times in my head to parse it. ¡°You know, Maki,¡± I said slowly, ¡°you might be the most uniquely neurotic woman I¡¯ve ever met in my life.¡± ¡°How rude. I haven¡¯t insulted you at all.¡± I almost exclaimed in response, but her lips quirked up in a way that told me she was joking in her own, adorably annoying way. ¡°Oh my god, yes, fine. I promise.¡± She turned slightly to examine my face. ¡°You promise to¡­¡± I rolled my eyes. ¡°I promise to leave you as a cum-covered mess regardless of whatever you are about to tell me.¡± ¡°Ugh, don¡¯t be gross,¡± she said. Then, at the sight of my mouth dropping, she gave me a genuine, girlish giggle that instantly won me over. ¡°But, good. Anyway, I just thought that I really ought to tell you that I¡¯ve never actually¡­well, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever had a real orgasm. At least, I don¡¯t think I have.¡± She leaped to add, ¡°I didn¡¯t think it mattered because you managed to bless me just fine at the restaurant, but the topic of a safe word made me worry. Everything I¡¯ve read says it¡¯s a matter of psychological inhibitions, and I¡¯m afraid that if you give me the rip cord to make us stop, I¡¯ll be in the wrong headspace to¡­well, you know.¡± ¡°You have total anorgasmia?¡± I asked, shocked. I was of course familiar with the condition, it was fairly common among women on Alan¡¯s Earth, but I thought that surely, in this porn world, the gods would have been kinder to the fairer sex. ¡°N-not total.¡± She turned bright crimson, more embarrassed than I¡¯d seen her yet. ¡°There was once, ah ¨C do you remember those vibrating broomstick toys that were briefly popular when we were younger. I-I borrowed one at recess, we were playing make-believe and ¨C oh Kami-Sama.¡± I couldn¡¯t help myself. ¡°Ahahahaha! You¡¯re kidding. Oh no, Maki, don¡¯t tell me that was the last and only time.¡± She covered her face with her hands. ¡°It was humiliating, and of course no one let me live it down either.¡± Taking her small wrist, I gently peeled her hand off her face and kissed the back of it. ¡°You¡¯ll forget all about it after tonight, or rather, you definitely won¡¯t think of it as your first orgasm. Tonight will be your introduction to pleasure.¡± She frowned but loosened up a bit. ¡°To be clear, I¡¯ve had and enjoyed sex. It¡¯s about the intimacy of holding a woman close for me.¡± I pulled her to me tighter, then laughed, as Maki blushed from my unspoken retort. ¡°Ah, yes, I guess I¡¯m hardly unique.¡± ¡°I know exactly what you mean,¡± I said, eyes twinkling, ¡°but that¡¯s not what I¡¯m talking about. This, on the other hand.¡± My thumb pressed into her palm and began to massage it in circles, while my other fingers began to idly play with hers, lacing them together, and stroking the backs of them softly. I slipped my Qi into her body and began to tease her meridians, sending a pleasant fire across her nervous endings, rolling for Aura + Erotic Sorcery, minus of course, all the Dice from the Injury penalty. It was still a respectable pool, however, and I was lucky enough to roll seven Successes. Maki gave a sudden jerk, twisting in my grasp and gasping out loud. Her back arched, shoulders pushing against my upper chest for support, and I could see her nipples grow to diamonds under the cotton of my button-up. As much as I wanted to revel in the sight, I had to work quickly to begin entangling the slowly rising tide of sexual energy from Maki. This was different from what I had captured at Tamaki Grill. That had been years-aged pent-up psychosexual frustration roaring out of her at last; this was a more physical pleasure, coaxed forth by me with deliberate intent. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Of course, I couldn¡¯t let her cum just yet. I needed to gather much more power to cast the stabilizing spell. It was a simple task, but the nature of my injuries required a great deal more energy. So instead, I kept the palm massage at a steady pace, allowing her to get her own bearings. ¡°Have ¨C ah ¨C we started?¡± she asked breathlessly. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Good,¡± she exhaled with relief, happy to finally be on with it. ¡°What should I do?¡± As much as I might have enjoyed watching her squirm helplessly, I knew this would be easier for her if she had some task to focus on. ¡°You got me curious earlier. Tell me, how do you enjoy your sex with women?¡± While speaking, I began to wrap my invisible force pythons around each of her thighs, pulsating and squeezing them rhythmically, while the other teased up and down her languidly and without a pattern. There was one fewer Die in the pool, but I got even luckier with eight Successes. I breathed a mental sigh of relief, these two rolls in combination would carry this interaction. I was still badly hurt, and while I could push through it like any good action hero, it was affecting me. But these first two checks, while being purely mystical and thus not gaining the benefit of Hero¡¯s Harem, relied on my outrageous Aura. I had been counting on my raw power to brute force the problem. Maki tossed her head back and whimpered. She took a breath to answer me, but it caught in her throat, and she was left momentarily gasping like a goldfish. But she was, as ever, a stubborn woman. She grinned with a sort of bratty playfulness. ¡°Fun-ny - mm! - you ask. I did think in the shower about how I¡¯d go about showing you the advantages of a woman¡¯s body once you learned to shapeshift.¡± She paused, looking up at me to examine my reaction, then pouted in disappointment. Ha! Maki thought she could make me squeamish about sex? That was a gross over- and underestimation of our respective talents for degeneracy. I stopped my palm massage; it was growing too hard to multitask both it and wrangling the growing erotic energy around us. Instead, I grabbed a meaty handful of her lower thigh and squeezed firmly, making her jump in my grasp. ¡°Go on.¡± ¡°Right. Well, f-first of ah!~ all, let¡¯s be honest, you would be incredibly easy to seduce as a woman.¡± ¡°Hey! You practically had to defend a thesis to get me to agree to this!¡± My other hand nimbly undid two of the center buttons of her shirt and slipped in. Palm resting on her diaphragm, I drummed my fingers up a bit, and then down, tantalizing her with the ultimate destination. Her breath quickened, gaze flicking between the heavy hand on her thigh and the one playing mischief beneath her shirt. ¡°All I¡¯d have to do was ask if you wanted to learn a secret lesbian fingering technique, and you would fall over yourself to learn.¡± I scoffed. ¡°As if I¡¯d believe you would know any secret lesbian fingering techniques.¡± It was her turn. ¡°Hey! I¡¯ll have you know I excel at finger play! I¡¯d prove it if you were a woman.¡± I opened my mouth to rebut her but paused, and pursed my lips. ¡°Damn it, that would work on me.¡± The small victory drew out a breathless giggle and helped level her out. She closed her eyes and continued her fantasy. ¡°I¡¯d slip in behind you on the couch, and draw you back in my arms, laying us both down so that you were resting on my chest. A little like this, except not on a hard concrete floor,¡± she added without any real complaint. I got the feeling she knew as much as I did how our little, pointless disagreements could serve to calm her nerves. I began to inch both my hands up, so that the top of one just barely grazed the underside of her breasts, and the other began to dip under the hem of her improvised shirtdress. She tried to shift herself in response ¨C away or towards, I couldn¡¯t tell ¨C but she was helplessly captured by my telekinetic limbs which continued to circle and tease her. After a shuddering breath, she continued. ¡°First, I¡¯d run my hands through your hair and massage your scalp with my fingertips. Then would be your ears, then your neck, and then your shoulders, where I¡¯d stay until you were putty in my arms.¡± She shivered a little at the conjured image. I jumped on that, eager to learn more about what made her tick. ¡°Why?¡± I whispered into her ear, taking a moment to kiss the lobe. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°What about that do you enjoy, the teasing, the foreplay?¡± ¡°Ah.¡± She considered it. ¡°No, I think it¡¯s more that I want my lovers to feel safe. And when a woman relaxes herself completely while I¡¯m holding her, then I know she trusts me completely, that she feels safe with me.¡± She turned her head up and looked at me with curiosity. ¡°What an interesting question. I hadn¡¯t ever thought about it before. Thank you.¡± ¡°Do you feel safe now?¡± Maki¡¯s smile was small and sweet and spoke volumes. She leaned up and gave me a quick peck on the lips. This ''medical procedure'' of hers had certainly grown very intimate. ¡°More than I¡¯ve ever felt in my life.¡± Her body, as if to prove the statement, went totally limp and liquid, like a pleased cat, molding into me. Even as I moved my hand up to cup her breast, she remained just as still and relaxed, though I could sense through my Sorcery that she liked the sensation quite a lot. Funny ¨C it was as if through conversation, we had talked her physiological responses into acquiescing. ¡°And when you were relaxed,¡± she said, closing her eyes and finally allowing herself to do just that and enjoy the ride, ¡°I would slip a hand underneath your shirt and bring it to your breasts. I also like to touch a girl when her shirt is still on. When it rides up and you can see her tummy flexing as you play with her ¨C it¡¯s exquisite, no?¡± My cock, now painfully hard and straining against my boxers, twitched in answer where it rested against her lower back. The feeling made her jump slightly and smile wide in triumph. Before she could get too full of herself, I began to work the soft flesh under my hands. I massaged her breasts gently, able to tell from how she bit her lip when I started that they were exceptionally sensitive. My other hand, now fully under the hem of her shirt, was more forceful in working her inner thigh. I circled her areola with my thumb, occasionally glancing against her hard nipple, but spared her sex even that. She wet her lips, mouth hanging slightly open. I wondered if she could tell how close she was to her first real orgasm, or if she was so ignorant to her own pleasure that it would come as a surprise. With my Qi intermingled with hers and my magic working as fast as it could to gather the erotic power, I had no doubt that she was teetering on the little death. I could have forced it, a little touch of sorcery and a pinch of her nipple, and I could take her there, but I thought it better to let it happen naturally. She continued narrating her fantasy, breathing much shorter and faster. ¡°I¡¯d play with your breasts first, to teach you their superiority to a man¡¯s chest. Their softness, their weight, their sensitive delicate skin, all working towards our mutual pleasure. Like you¡¯re doing now, but a bit harder.¡± I obliged the indirect request, adding just a bit more force. ¡°Ah! Yes! Like that, ex-exactly like that.¡± Her leg kicked out spontaneously and her thighs would have clamped down on my hand were it not for my force pythons. She lolled her head to the side, silent save for her heavy breaths. After a moment, she continued, ¡°When your breath was tight¡ª" ¡°Like yours?¡± Her lips quirked up. ¡°Just like mine. And right before I slipped that first finger into you¡ª¡± ¡°To teach me your secret lesbian fingering techniques,¡± I interrupted with a smile. She laughed. ¡°Yes. Before that, just before, I¡¯d tip your face up, so that I could see your beautiful, entrancing brown eyes.¡± As she narrated, her neck craned up, though her eyes remained closed, fully enraptured by the scene in her mind. ¡°Then I would kiss¡ª¡± I took the obvious hint and stole the rest of her words away, leaning down and kissing her deeply. Her mouth, already open in mid-sentence, welcomed my tongue with all the warmth and passion of a long-lost lover. I cursed the clatter of dice in my mind for interrupting this sweet moment between us. Still, the five Successes, after various bonuses and penalties, objectively enhanced the experience for her, so I forgave the system for now. Maki, for her part, wasn¡¯t a great kisser, but I think my saliva was to blame. Once she had a proper taste, her tongue set about to lapping at mine, and her lips to slurping up what she could. It was a messy, nasty kiss that caused a huge spike in the erotic energy flowing out of her. I followed her directions, slipping my middle finger into her sopping-wet sex and curling it upwards to stroke the top of her walls, my thumb pushing down on her clit. The fingers molesting her breasts pinched and tugged at a nipple, following her nonverbal cues. Together, the sudden sensations sparked an explosion within her. Her muscles tensed as one, before she started to buck in my arms, limbs trembling, head tossing back and forth, whipping me with slightly damp hair. I would have loved to watch it happen, but I had eyes only for the vast amount of erotic energy she released. My Qi vacuumed it from the air around us and pulled it into me through her skin, molding and working it in my dantian towards the purpose of healing me. Thankfully, stabilizing bleeding was as simple as a Medicine roll could be. My only real worry had been that it would require multiple spells since I wasn¡¯t sure how much Maki had in her ¨C it had been a long night for both of us. But the dice gods smiled on me and a lucky critical let me hit the eight Successes I needed to stabilize it all in one go. My wounds began to itch as they started to scab and coagulate. I was still terribly injured, but at least I could close my eyes for the night without worrying about dying in my sleep. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Survive a Hunt with only 1 Health remaining. Reward: 10XP, +1 Endurance, Gain Minor feat Down to the Wire [Ally Quest Complete!] Give Maki her first real orgasm. Reward: 30XP, +1 Wits, +2 Insight [Minor Feat] Down to the Wire When you have only one unmarked Health box, you may ignore all penalties to your rolls. An Afterlife Together 1 We wrapped the comfortable silence around us like a heavy blanket and huddled close as we caught our breaths. Both of us needed the moment, Maki to come down to Earth after her first proper orgasm, and me to wrangle the bestial lust surging in me down to something more presentable. I had stabilized myself using Erotic Sorcery and was now paying the horny tax. Maki had one arm wrapped tightly around my thigh and the other stretched up and behind her around my neck. The position looked uncomfortable, but so did the aftershocks which were making her twitch and tremble, and she was clearly enjoying those. My finger was still inside her, trapped by her legs which were squeezed tight around my hand. I had let my telekinetic hold over her go loose, enjoying the feeling of Maki claiming possession over my limb with her thighs. Primal masculine pride roared inside me for having reduced the proud woman to this state; this was the highest form of flattery a man could receive, or so said my raging libido. It evoked all kinds of urges. I could have kept her here on the knife¡¯s edge of pleasure, pushing her over into ecstasy at my leisure, but first, I needed to think. While my miko recovered, I opened the mental menus of the system. It was almost painful to think about numbers, resources, and any future plans that didn¡¯t include busting a nut as soon as possible. But I had a fair bit of Experience burning a hole in my pocket and some reasons to consider spending it. From worst to best, I had to acknowledge my gradually rising baseline level of stress. There wasn¡¯t a sanity mechanic related to stress in the game so as a Character it was incapable of affecting me, but as a person, it was beginning to chafe. Surprisingly, it was my James half who was the most affected. While the man was accustomed to combat and physical hardship, in many ways he had lived a blissful existence; he was a handsome, charming, genius martial artist with more friends than he could count, a thoughtful mentor in Kas, a promising start to his dream career, and above all else, a community in Black Harbor. I supposed that was what you got when you built a character without starting Complications. But now I was hunted in my own city, unable to walk even the streets of Chinatown openly, and that, to James Li, was an intolerable fate. My Alan half, on the other hand, had not been a handsome, charming, genius of any kind, but he had also never known the safety of Black Harbor, and so was less affected by recent developments. There was plenty to stress Alan, but his shocks had come all at once and that part of me leveled out a little every time I got stronger and thus more likely to survive. Still, some retail therapy could do wonders for the odd couple that made up my psyche. Specifically, I was drawn towards upgrading the apartment with one, or at most two Base Upgrade Tokens. Even a minor but visible improvement to one¡¯s living space could do wonders for mental health, in my experience. The reason for doing so now and not after Maki had left, was that because of the way the discounts worked, the minimum being one Token, it would cost me as much to buy ordinary luxury furniture as it would to buy furniture that would grant various bonuses. While I was worried about what an apartment furnished to give me a bonus to Seduction and Erotic Sorcery would look like, it would be useful while trying to heal myself with a huge penalty. Maki was the next best reason to spend a little Experience. It felt right to invest some power into deepening our relationship; I had done it for both Marianne and Annie before, after all, to great effect each time. It was beginning to feel like tradition. The seduction and sex were going well so far, but who was to say if, in a few days, she didn¡¯t look back at it as a fun but ultimately one-time ¡®medical procedure¡¯, as she¡¯d called it. Maki seemed like a person who rigorously planned out her stress relief, the kind of uptight where you let it all loose for a few days at a music festival every year. If I wanted to be more than something she penciled into her schedule when she had a need, then I had to be more than a good time, I had to be transcendent. Said process of becoming transcendent was the best reason to spend the Experience. It almost always made sense to upgrade Skills and Attributes right before you finished a Quest that would probably Reward you with them; just like I¡¯d done in the restaurant before meeting the Kami. The system did a great job disincentivizing hoarding your EXP, you were only devaluing future Rewards by holding onto it. I had given myself a modest incentive to keep a cache for Style Maker despite that, but I was about to earn more anyway. ¡°It feels angry,¡± said Maki, wiggling her lower back against my painfully hard penis. I hissed, not anticipating how sensitive it would be, and earned myself a pleased hum from Maki. ¡°Yep,¡± I said through gritted teeth. Yikes, this was worse than my first time; a particularly stiff breeze could have made me nut. ¡°The cost of healing yourself through sex magic.¡± ¡°Fortuitous for our purposes. And the healing, how did it go?¡± I withdrew my finger from inside her and wrapped her in a grateful hug. Maki sighed wistfully, missing the digit, I liked to think. ¡°Thanks to you, I¡¯m no longer in any danger of bleeding to death, though I am still quite injured¡­¡± I trailed off as it finally hit me what that meant. ¡°Oh my God, we did it. We actually did the thing!¡± It was touch and go for¡­all of it, honestly. Our plan had been solid, but it was luck that had kept me alive; the dice gods were on my side. If only I could have championed them instead of Funikugami. ¡°Yatta,¡± said Maki tiredly, laughing as she put her fist into the air. ¡°Yatta!¡± I agreed. Maki let out a great exhale, and with the breath went what remained of her anxieties and fears, and whatever stiffness may have remained in her body and expressions. She languidly twisted herself in my arms so that she could see my face better and smiled. At that moment, she looked weightless, like she¡¯d have floated away if I hadn¡¯t held her close. She kissed me chastely on the cheek. I felt myself blush for some reason. ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t mention it,¡± I mumbled, suddenly shy. It was the level of gratitude she was quietly emanating, I told myself. I was momentarily overwhelmed by it, that was all. ¡°So,¡± I said, cheerily changing the subject, ¡°how was the orgasm? Looked fun.¡± Her eyes twinkled, and I could tell that she was letting me off easy. ¡°It was wonderful. I suddenly understand far better the behaviors of so many of my peers. It¡¯s like you¡¯ve unlocked a deeper understanding of people in me.¡± ¡°Oh no, Ishida Maki has become more insightful? I¡¯ve created a monster.¡± She laughed, laying her head against my chest. ¡°I¡¯ve got to keep up with you in my own way, don¡¯t I? You should know, I¡¯m no one¡¯s sidekick. We will be partners, James Li. I¡¯ll keep you alive even if I have to drag you from Death¡¯s arms myself.¡± I felt a heat rise to my cheeks, and without looking up at me, Maki added, ¡°You¡¯re very cute when you blush, by the way.¡± Maki¡¯s borrowed button-up, already big enough to work as a dress, was wrinkled and barely hanging off her. The back of it, where she¡¯d been pressed up against me, was mostly transparent from the sweat. I slid my hand under the shirt and traced a path up her spine; she felt pleasantly cool to my touch. To her, I must have felt like a living space heater ¨C a consequence of my continuing to kindle my fire-natured Qi. ¡°You know I won¡¯t call you in on the gang stuff, right?¡± ¡°Why not? Surely you aren¡¯t so foolish as to believe they don¡¯t have their own spiritualists and practitioners, or at the very least access to contractors. What gang is so tight-pursed that they won¡¯t shell out for magical assistance against the man seen banishing evil with great conflagrations of flame?¡± It sounded stupid, but I genuinely hadn¡¯t considered it. There would be guys with supernatural abilities of course, but I thought they would be like me, martial artists. I¡¯d forgotten that not everyone in this world shared my commitment to the genre. In a movie, I¡¯d run a gauntlet through the Tiger Gang in an ascending order of fights with increasingly stronger, and thus more important, officers. But this wasn¡¯t a movie, and the Tiger Triad weren¡¯t like the sort of gangs you¡¯d see in an action flick. The Tong in Black Harbor was one of many around the world, and together they were a multi-billion-dollar organization. Maki laughed, having evidently read my expression. ¡°The world is so small for you martial artists, it must be nice. If you can¡¯t punch the problem, it may as well not exist. Give me your word that you will at least keep me informed of your adventures, and I will determine if I can be of use or not. If I can¡¯t, then I promise to stay out of your way. That¡¯s perfectly reasonable, I think you¡¯ll admit.¡± I nodded amiably, hardly opposed to the idea of her help. ¡°I suppose so, can¡¯t argue with that. You¡¯ve got my word. I¡¯ll even go a step further and promise that I¡¯ll likewise do my best to stay out of your way with the animist stuff. I¡¯m definitely never making a deal with a Kami again without you present.¡± I pointedly tried not to think about the cursed short sword now resting in my umbrella stand. ¡°Deal,¡± she said, patting my cheek approvingly. ¡°But don¡¯t be so hard on yourself. It worked out for the best in the end. And anyway,¡± she gave me a cheshire grin, and maneuvering a bit, placed her hand on my covered cock, ¡°you have another promise to keep, something about, leaving me a cum-covered mess.¡± I coughed, as though I¡¯d been punched in the gut, and clenched my jaw as I fought back an accidental ejaculation. Maki studied my face with an almost manic intent, biting her lower lip, and emitting a sharp spike of erotic energy. I may have awakened something in her. ¡°Woah, woah, hang on,¡± I rushed out. ¡°I need a sec before we get going.¡± ¡°Hmm, fine, but it¡¯s rude to keep a lady waiting.¡± Shit, I had to spend this Experience before we got going. My attention was already increasingly consumed by the aftereffects of the spell. Impulse control significantly weakened, I bought the Upgrade Token and the magical self-cleaning luxury furniture I¡¯d been eyeing, enhanced to give bonus Dice to Seduction and Erotic Sorcery. I was too horny to care about what that might look like until the instant between buying the upgrade and before it appeared. In a blink, I was sitting on a beautiful, silk Persian rug, woven with an entrancing geometric pattern. The couch next to us was now low and wide, meant for lounging upon. Likewise, the rest of the furniture in the room transformed to fit its 70¡¯s chic aesthetic. There was a strong motif of barely constrained sexuality running through the changes, with an altogether vast variety of surfaces to fuck upon. I now owned a loveseat wide enough for three, a long backless lounge, a bearskin rug, several strong chairs, and there were now sturdy stools installed by the half wall on the other side of the kitchen. All of the little statues and bowls decorating things weren¡¯t explicitly vulgar, but they had a distinct femininity to their curves that managed to subtly call to mind thighs, and butts, and breasts. On the wall were framed posters with sensual art of men with their shirts torn open and women swooning half-dressed from old movies that I recalled enjoying, which was a nice personal touch. Altogether, I could have imagined buying all of it, if only in a shameless pussy-deprived haze. At least it would save time in the future, there was no question what I wanted out of a woman I invited here. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Maki looked all the more beautiful in the perfect, warm lighting. She too was getting a bonus to Seduction while inside the apartment. The miko was also looking around in startled amazement, placing a tentative finger on the couch next to us to check if it was real. ¡°True creation,¡± she muttered to herself. ¡°What on Earth¡­¡± ¡°A large and probably silly permanent investiture of power,¡± I explained. ¡°But I thought about it, and having cum- and blood-stain-proof furniture is going to make life considerably easier.¡± ¡°Kami-sama¡­¡± She was now running her palm on the silk carpet below, staring at the design in fascination. ¡°This is¡­no, it can¡¯t be¡­¡± I took advantage of her stunned state to consider my options. It made the most sense to buy a Skill or Attribute I was likely to earn as high as possible to unlock Style Maker''s greatest potential. Unfortunately, one of them stood above the rest ¨C a most shameful option. With regret, I sank 170 EXP from my remaining 183 into Occultism (Erotic Sorcery) taking it to 10 Dice. I was now as skilled at sex magic as I was the martial arts. And worse, I was probably about to get better. It was humiliating. I was officially lost in the sauce. How could I have sunk so low as to become a dweeb wizard, a finger-waggling nerd? I¡¯m kidding, of course. It was the most useful for healing me and I was already very sick of my Injury Penalty. But jokes aside, it did irk my sense of self and my more artistic sensibilities. I was a roguish action hero, not a sorcerer. And more than that, I was a good Player, damn it, not the type to let optimization get in the way of my character concept. I resolved, then and there, that any more ranks of Erotic Sorcery I received would come with a self-inflicted tax. I could handle being a magically sexy kung fu man, but a kung fu sex magician? No way. From now on, I swore, no matter what my other priorities, if Erotic Sorcery ever outpaced Martial Arts, I¡¯d drop anything to get the latter to level or better. That was both a promise to myself and, if my ephemeral Audience were able to hear my thoughts, then to Them as well. You bastards better remember this when it comes to the next Popularity Poll! Is anyone committing to the bit as hard as that? I bet not! I mentally shouted at the heavens. And then, for good measure, imagined shaking my fist up at them. ¡°I was right,¡± said Maki softly. Then again louder and faster, ¡°I was right. You really aren¡¯t a man at all. Can I make an educated guess, James?¡± ¡°Uh, sure. Although, I should say I¡¯m pretty raring to go here.¡± Indeed, I could barely tell left from right. I¡¯d checked all the boxes off my list like a responsible adult, and could now go buck wild crazy with it, also like a responsible adult. She gave my dick an affectionate pat on the head, drawing a groan from me. ¡°I can tell, don¡¯t worry. Allow me this small delay though. Am I right to assume that you can only do such an act as this,¡± she said, gesturing around her, ¡°here, in your home?¡± I blinked at her. ¡°How¡­could you possibly have deduced that?¡± ¡°Just a guess, like I said. There are many beings known to shape and warp their private spaces, poltergeists most famously with their doors to nowhere and hallways that don¡¯t match the apparent shape of the building, but most Kami as well. I¡¯ll spare you my theorizing for when you¡¯re less distracted, however. The reason I wanted to know, is because this,¡± she said, rapping her knuckles against the couch to our side, ¡°reaffirms my theories about why I don¡¯t need to worry about my sexuality or opinions about human lovers.¡± With a small but very imperious smile, Maki pushed her front against me and slithered her way up my body until her cheek was pressed against mine. I cursed the bandages I was wearing for muting the sensation on my chest; her shirt was of little impediment, already thin and practically transparent at this point, but the coarse gauze barely let me feel a thing. Voice throaty and naked with desire, she said, ¡°That¡¯s lucky for you, my man-shaped hero. Just as we were about to get to a point where my faith in my reasoning might have been shaken, I was thoroughly validated by the most flagrant display of inhuman power I¡¯ve ever seen. That means I can, without shame or inhibitions, treat you like I would treat any beautiful woman in this position.¡± She nuzzled her cheek, refreshingly cool, against mine, and taking a page from my book, leaned close enough to my ear that I could just barely feel her lips as they moved. ¡°Do you know how I like to treat beautiful women, James?¡± I felt her fingertips on my hips, between the gauze and the waistband of my boxers. They started at my sides and were moving slowly to meet beneath my belly button. ¡°I like to make them mewl and squirm, and to steal their breaths and words until all they can do¡­¡± She paused dramatically, sneaking a dainty hand into my boxers. ¡°¡­is moan my name.¡± I slapped the couch next to me, grabbing a fistful of its upholstery as she took a firm hold around the base of my cock. ¡°Tss, Maki!¡± I hissed through my teeth, knowing it was what she wanted to hear. It was like I¡¯d thrown a match on kerosene-soaked charcoal; Her body thrummed and began to emit whirling tendrils of lust energy. They tasted clean and new to my senses and had a sort of frenetic curiosity to them that fit Maki well. ¡°Yes,¡± she exclaimed triumphantly, ¡°just like that! Good boy¨Chm, no that doesn¡¯t fit you. Good¡­man¡ªno. Hero? Better, but you¡¯d become unbearable if I called you that too often. Oh, I know! Yes, that¡¯s perfect.¡± Maki pulled back to look me in the eyes, rubbing the tip of her nose on mine in a shockingly romantic gesture. Then, adopting a mock air of noble severity, said, ¡°Well done, my samurai. You¡¯ve pleased your Lady.¡± I laughed and kissed her. ¡°I¡¯m glad, but I¡¯m no samurai, miko-sama. What will your people say when they learn you¡¯ve run off with a, what did you call me earlier, a homeless vigilante? It¡¯ll be a great scandal.¡± ¡°Oho! You¡¯re mistaken. They will all say, ¡®Have you heard of the great Ishida Maki? She is so wise and fair, that she dragged up a young, wild yokai from the river, taught him manners, and made him her samurai.¡¯ Then, they will see us together and think to themselves, what a remarkable feat to have quelled a beast such as he. Of course, I will be secretly thinking, Kami-sama, I hope they don¡¯t see him eating his dinner.¡± I gave her a toothy grin then dragged my tongue, broad and flat, across her face from chin to ear. Maki blushed bright red, and I reveled in the small victory. ¡°Oh yes, I hope so too. They¡¯d be terrible voyeurs, watching me eat my helpless miko for dinner.¡± ¡°Ugh, you brute,¡± she said laughing. ¡°Making a mess as usual.¡± Giving me, mildly vindictive, bedroom eyes, she pulled her hands out of my boxers, and with a finger, swiped my saliva off her face and wiped it clean on her bottom lip. My cock somehow found a way to grow harder. Maki peeled herself off me, sitting back on her heels, and frowned down at her shirtdress. ¡°Just look at me, you¡¯ve made me completely sweat through this shirt. Take it off for me. Gently,¡± she added quickly, catching a gleam in my eyes, ¡°I¡¯ve decided to keep it as a nightdress. I can, can¡¯t I?¡± She batted her eyes at me, large and doe-like. My heart stirred; even if I¡¯d wanted to, I couldn¡¯t deny her the request now. ¡°Only if you send me pictures of you wearing it.¡± She scoffed, but a grateful smile shadowed her annoyed expression. ¡°If I must.¡± Maki pushed her chest out and held her arms to the side, allowing me to undo the few buttons still holding the shirt closed. I began from the bottom and took my time unwrapping her pale, smooth flesh inch by inch. She ran her fingers through my hair and watched me with a distant half-smile and a vacant gaze. ¡°I¡¯d say I was dreaming, but I haven¡¯t had a good dream since¡­so, I must be alive. How strange, to be alive,¡± she sounded out the word, chewing on it. ¡°I haven¡¯t really been living, I don¡¯t think, whatever that means. I think I died when Ken did ¨C I must have, because suddenly I feel as though I¡¯ve been reborn. Yet it isn¡¯t resurrection, I¡¯m not the same Maki I was before all this, and I¡¯m not the Maki you met, who I¡¯m not sure was me at all. I¡¯ve no idea who I am now, but I know I¡¯m stronger and fuller somehow.¡± She shook her head. ¡°I¡¯m rambling, kiss me.¡± I grinned and obliged her. There were thoughts I could have shared, but it was not the time to discuss them. We shared a slow, passionate kiss, no tongues, just our lips silently communicating our mutual care for one another. ¡°I don¡¯t want to think about anything or anyone but you tonight, James. Kiss me if I start to wax philosophical. Choke me, spank me, slap me, or whatever, but just don¡¯t let me think, and don¡¯t let my mind wander away. Keep me here with you. You can do that, can¡¯t you, my samurai?¡± I undid the last button on her collar, held her cheek in my palm, and kissed her sweetly again. That was all very nice, but I knew her better than that by now. Maki was goal-oriented, even a little one would go a long way to keeping her calm. It would be much easier for both of us, compared to dominating her outright. I leaned back and smirked. ¡°Of course, I¡¯m the greatest lover in the city. I can do that and more. But you¡¯ll have to work very hard amidst all of it if you want me to call you ¡®my Lady¡¯. Listen up,¡± I said, sticking my finger at her, ¡°even in your wildest fantasies, James Li is a proud youxia!¡± The dreamlike air that had come upon her departed and her suave confidence returned. Her eyes shined and her lips curled up with anticipation. Then, she bit my finger. Not hard enough to hurt, of course, but the surprise cut through my bluster. Her teeth retracted, replaced by her lips and tongue as she suckled on the tip. She pulled herself off with an almost comical pop. ¡°Hmph, rude vagabond. Challenge accepted.¡± Interlude 2: Before & After Four Months After the Death of Ishida Ken In her dreams, the hallway to her brother¡¯s home dojo was long and dark. The ceiling was overcast with cobwebs, and the floorboards were half-rotting and roughhewn such that they caught her little feet and sent her falling face-first into the dust, again and again. This was the toll her mind inflicted upon her. If she wanted to see Ken, even in fantasy, then she had to crawl through the darkness, catching splinters in her pudgy hands and ruining the drawing she clung to. The recurring dream was a depressing perversion of an already unpleasant memory. At the far end of the hallway, coming from the partially open, sliding paper door, she could hear the repetitive thwacks of Ken practicing his sword strikes. A familiar sound growing up, but made much worse in the nightmare, with her mind conjuring the sounds of his pained panting and, worst of all, the dripping of his blood onto the floor. Instead of the ticking of a clock, she heard the drop, drop, drop of Ken¡¯s lifeforce running down the hilt of his wooden training sword and hitting the tatami mats below. It took the same amount of time to finally reach the door at the end of the hall as it always did, which was to say, just when panic began to grip her, and she had lost all but the last shred of hope of reaching it, she was there. Ken was exactly as she remembered him that day. He was boyish and shirtless, dripping sweat in front of a bamboo post, legs and arms trembling slightly from exhaustion, a look of total focus on his face. Like in real life, he didn¡¯t acknowledge her entering, so lost in his practice that he couldn¡¯t even notice the blood pouring down his wrists from the torn open callouses. With every hit, crimson droplets splattered him and everything around him in an arc, soiling his torso, pants, floor, and striking dummy. In life, he had only begun to bleed minutes before she¡¯d come, but here, it was a horror show that worsened the longer she looked, like something out of a gory B-movie, covering him almost entirely in heavy red. ¡°Onii-san, I drew us at the festival!¡± she exclaimed as usual, holding her drawing out proudly. She almost repeated the whole script, the cry of shock at his injuries, the attempts to get his attention, breaking down in tears, etc. but the nightmare was all so passe to her by now, having visited her almost nightly. Nothing she could do would stop him, not tugging on his legs, or trying to climb the striking post ¨C Ken would continue his training for as long as the dream would allow. No, instead she let the fear and anxiety fade away and allowed herself to enjoy the sight of her brother standing before her again. He was young, dedicated, and alive; if she focused her mind on those qualities, then she could easily ignore the bloodbath and the leaden weakness slowly sapping at his strength with every strike, making him slower and sloppier, but never taking from him enough to grant him a merciful rest. ¡°Why?¡± she¡¯d always wanted to ask. For the life of her, she couldn¡¯t think of why she never did. There had always felt like there would be some other, more appropriate time to bring it up. ¡°What are you training for? Wh¡ª¡± She was shaken awake. Zelda was looking down at her horrified, and her hand on her shoulder was clinging to her as though it was afraid she would pass from this world if it loosened. ¡°Oh god, Maki, please tell me you haven¡¯t been here since I left.¡± She called her by her name; it had been ¡®baby¡¯, ¡®babe¡¯, or ¡®sweetie¡¯, or some similar epithet for a year now. Maki peeled her face off the borrowed old textbook it had molded itself into and blinked up at her girlfriend ¨C soon to be ex, she was pretty sure. She could see it in her face, hear it in her tone; it was over. ¡°I thought you were presenting a paper in Atlantic City.¡± ¡°It¡¯s Friday, Maki.¡± Again, Zelda used her name. It sounded accusatory in her Southern drawl. Zelda loved cute little nicknames and had one for even her casual acquaintances. ¡°Have you eaten once?¡± She creased her forehead, trying to remember, before discarding it as relatively unimportant. ¡°I¡¯ve been reading into semiotics. You were right, I think it¡¯s the key to¡ª¡± Zelda shook her head forcefully, beautiful, brown ringlets coming free from the loose bun she kept her hair in. ¡°Stop. Don¡¯t¡ªI can¡¯t handle any talk about that right now. I need to know if you¡¯ve eaten in the two days since I¡¯ve seen you!¡± Maki looked around her desk at all the various papers copied from rare books from the library, the borrowed texts, and her diligently categorized notebooks. Hadn¡¯t there been a jar of mixed nuts here? ¡°I snacked,¡± she said. Then, for honesty¡¯s sake, she added, ¡°I think.¡± That was the start of their last fight if it could be called that. Zelda yelled, pleaded, accused, and argued her points, while Maki responded in a short listless monotone. She wasn¡¯t sure why she did even that much, the outcome was set in stone regardless. In the end, it came down to an ultimatum, as she knew it would. Zelda was sitting on her bed, face buried in her hands, thoroughly exhausted emotionally. ¡°I thought that this vendetta of yours was a part of the grieving process ¨C I thought I was helping! But you aren¡¯t grieving, you aren¡¯t feeling anything, you¡¯re barely living. Talking to you now is like talking to a machine. You¡¯re a revenant and you aren¡¯t even dead!¡± Maki stared at her palms. They were soft and uncalloused; she¡¯d never loved the martial arts as her brother did. The pain had always kept her away, and how sweaty everyone was at the end of class had upset her bookish sensibilities. What a silly girl she had been. ¡°I came here, I¡¯ve been coming here, to help, not to watch you kill yourself slowly. And despite myself, I still want to help.¡± She took a deep breath and readied herself to make the demand she¡¯d likely been debating for weeks if not months. ¡°All I¡¯m asking is for you to take a few weeks or a month to rest, recover, and heal, or if not that, then take a day off a week. Just one day off when I can hold you, and we can talk like we used to, one night that I can go to sleep knowing that you¡¯re safe, with me, in my arms. Because I¡¯m sorry, Maki, I can¡¯t do this anymore¡­Are you,¡± she laughed bitterly at the yawning silence between them, ¡°are you even listening?¡± ¡°I will,¡± said Maki, continuing to examine her weak, feeble hands, ¡°make sure to eat every day. I will make sure to wash my clothes, to bathe, to do my makeup, to look presentable ¨C all of those things I can promise you. They will, I¡¯ll admit, be good for me and my cause, especially as the months and years wear on. But I won¡¯t stop, Zelda. I won¡¯t stop.¡± Zelda made a sound like she¡¯d been punched in the gut but said nothing, stopping only to press her copy of the door key into her ex¡¯s palm before she left. Maki didn¡¯t look up, tracking her by sound as she picked up her bags and swept out of the apartment, choking back tears until she made it past the door and into the hallway. The thin plaster walls carried the muffled echoes back at her like knives through her throat. It was unfortunate, but perhaps, she thought, for the best. Zelda had believed her quest to be about vengeance and grief, and Maki could admit that it was, but she failed to consider duty and honor, or simple, neighborly compassion. Certainly, she could take her time, and be as thorough as reasonable caution demanded, but at what cost? Neither her pride nor her humanity would permit her to sacrifice one more brother, or father, or husband to the monster that killed Ken. How many would die just so that Maki could appease the misguided pleas of her loved ones? No, it was best to go this alone. Zelda had access to some minor magic through her matrilinear line, but she was, and would forever be, a mere hobbyist. The woman lacked the tolerance for risk required to work any great spells. She was gold, rare, beautiful, and impossible to tarnish, but soft and delicate, whereas the task required each of them to be like sharpened steel, with hands as calloused and inured to the ways of pain as master swordswomen. Ken had hardened himself, body and mind, through the process of decades, while she had only a few years according to his own research before the Hungry Ghost would haunt the streets of Chinatown again. If, and it was a big if, she was to have any allies in this, then they would need to be like her, driven beyond what most would consider madness. Maki contemplated the key in her hand; she and Zelda had gone together to make a copy for the latter the day Maki had moved into the little studio off-campus. It was just another spare key now, a spare to the spare. She tossed it into the wastepaper basket by her desk. There was no need for two. A few days after the Bell Street Exorcism Her grandfather mussed her hair as he looked over her shoulder. All the love in the world beamed down at her as she looked up at his wrinkled face. ¡°Such a pretty drawing. Go, show it to your brother and let him know that dinner is almost ready.¡± ¡°Okay!¡± She said cheerily. She had been, as she always was, secretly hoping for an excuse to bother Ken. Her little feet pattered on the parquet floors of her family home. When the Ishida Clan had first moved to Black Harbor, they had brought four generations with them and had bought a home accordingly. It was a veritable mansion by today¡¯s standards, and larger all the still as seen through the eyes of a child. She turned the corner and looked down the long, imperious hall that led to the home gym. Twelve worn, wooden torii stood between her and her destination, all adorned in ample charms hanging from long frayed ropes. All of the eaters of the dead lined the hall. Perched atop the torii were crows and vultures and ravens, and in their shadows sat watchful cats and rats, jackals and coyotes. They eyed her impassively and she them, for she and they knew that all of them together loved her brother the same, undyingly and unquestioningly. The water that flowed along the floor towards her was warm and she enjoyed the way that it splashed her shins as she ran. It purified her as it went, washing away all pain and horror as it flowed through her toes and over her feet, and banishing all that was wicked. ¡°Onii-san, I drew us at the festival!¡± she exclaimed as usual, casting the sliding door to the side, holding her drawing out proudly. A shock met her on the other side. There was, as always, a blood-covered warrior practicing his sword strokes on a dummy, but there was no boyish, thirteen-year-old Ken here. Rather, it was James Li, tall, strapping, and very much a grown man. That was strange, she thought, they were basically the same age, so he like her should have only been six. And as she had the thought, she looked down and saw that she, like him, was in her early twenties. Blood poured from James worse than in any of her previous nightmares. His back was as it had been after his fight with the ghost, more wound than flesh. She could see his spine in no less than four locations. Other than those terrifying injuries, he bore all the wounds of his life as though they were fresh. On his front were the gouges she¡¯d seen him receive in that viral fight with the Tiger gang member, and everywhere else were countless cuts and bruises, such that fragments of bones peeked out at her from each of his limbs and many of his ribs. Maki clasped her hands over her mouth, but the dream wouldn¡¯t allow her to turn her head away, as much as she wanted desperately to do so. Thankfully, unlike in past nightmares with Ken, James noticed her entrance immediately and gave her a cheery smirk. He threw his wooden practice sword aside and took a great breath, healing each of his many wounds with an easy effort of will. ¡°Oh god, please don¡¯t call me ¡®Onii-san¡¯. My sister will strangle me if she finds out I do sibling-play,¡± he said, taking a bucket of water from the ground and pouring it over his head. The water instantly cleaned him of all blood, for which she was grateful, but annoyingly also clung to his thin white pants in a way that revealed every inch of his perfect body to her. He was grace and beauty incarnate as he walked up to her, taking the drawing from her weak grasp. ¡°James?¡± she asked, disbelieving. This wasn¡¯t right ¨C Ken was supposed to be waiting in here for her, her beloved brother, not the city¡¯s most infuriating man. ¡°Eh!¡± he said with surprise, looking back and forth from the drawing and her stunned face. ¡°You drew this? Ahahahahahaha! This looks like a baby made it!¡± ¡°Sh-shut up!¡± she said, snatching it away from him. She frowned at the paper; couldn¡¯t her mind have updated it as it had everything else in the dream? ¡°I made it when I was six, you jerk!¡± This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¡°You know Maki,¡± he said, wagging his eyebrows, ¡°if you want my attention, you don¡¯t need any excuses.¡± James placed those leathery, calloused hands of his around her waist and picked her up, pulling her into his grasp as though she were weightless. She found herself wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, clinging to him without meaning to. Their faces were only inches apart and it was a work of willpower to not seize his lips with hers, to carve her name on his tongue with hers. He was oh so beautiful and glowing, like the dawn after a long night. She had to tear her eyes away, lest she embarrass herself by launching into some amateurish ballad. ¡°That¡¯s not it at all! Ken is supposed to be in this dream, not you!¡± ¡°Oho! Maki¡¯s dreaming about me? How flattering.¡± He spun her around and planted a kiss on her cheek. She had to admit to herself that it thrilled her, even as it called uncomfortably to moments when Ken had done the same. ¡°Now, how should I repay the kindness?¡± he mused mockingly. ¡°Ah, I know.¡± He slapped her on the butt and took a firm hold of her cheek. ¡°Why else would my dear, sweet Maki call me to her mind? She¡¯s horny, of course. Awakened something in you, did I?¡± She gasped, jumping in his grasp, but alas, her body wouldn¡¯t dare try to wriggle away as much as her pride may have demanded it to. ¡°You brute! I don¡¯t know why you¡¯re invading my dreams, but that has nothing to do with it.¡± ¡°Hmm, you¡¯re pretty clearly mistaken though.¡± The martial artist tightened his hold on her ass, to just before the threshold of pain. It was a dream after all, and her mind could only conjure so much. She told herself that she hated the feeling; it was like James was announcing his dominion over her body more thoroughly with that gesture than words could ever hope to do. And yet, in the privacy of sleep, some deeper, truer part of her rebutted, ¡®But if you are his, then he is yours in a way. And you want him very much, don¡¯t you?¡¯ ¡°No,¡± she whimpered. But even before the word left her lips, she knew it was a lie. ¡°Ha! Oh, come on, Maki.¡± He lowered his face into the crook of her neck and gave her a hickey, of the sort she always wanted to receive but was too proud to wear in waking life. ¡°You¡¯re dreaming, and you know you¡¯re dreaming, which means you could make me stop with less than a word, and yet¡ª¡± James finished the sentence by grabbing the collar of her kimono and tearing it off her, leaving her hanging off of him completely nude. Through those thin pants of his, she could feel his manhood harden, so, so tempting as it called forth sense memories from their long night together of pure ecstasy. Her sensitive nipples and breasts delighted in the feeling of his hard, male chest pushing into them, those powerful muscles tensing as he hugged her tight. ¡®There¡¯s no shame in the wanting. He wants you more than he can admit to himself, you need only look into his eyes to see that. What gain is there in fighting your mutual attraction, what reason?¡¯ Maki turned her head to face him and there saw all the dozens of looks he¡¯d given her in the short time they¡¯d known each other. There was so much respect and adoration as well as an ember of love that she knew she could tend to and stoke into a roaring bonfire if she should only try. Of course, there was a Ken-like teasing quality there as well, but she¡¯d have it no other way. She kissed him and was rewarded with the impossible taste of his saliva as his lips parted for her. It was disgusting and foul the way she longed for the flavor of that slimy, gross bodily substance of his. She should have been revolted by herself the way that she scooped it into her mouth with her tongue, and with the way that her insane fervor for more caused their mixed spit to drip down her chin and onto her breasts. God, she was like an animal, a graceless beast driven by some sick hunger, for it, for him, and for everything that he could possibly give her. James reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair as tightly as the dream could allow. Yes, oh yes, she loved that. The idea of driving the hardened warrior wild with desire ignited a very primal part of her. And, at a higher level of consciousness, feeling him go as mad for her as she did for him alleviated a great deal of the shame from her own sluttish behavior. He spanked her, making her grunt into his mouth. She tucked her hips up, pressing his barely clothed cock into her very wet sex. Barely clothed? What was she doing? This was a dream; she may as well take advantage. With less than a thought, she made his pants vanish entirely, so that she could revel in the underside of his absurd cock part the lips of her sex and rub sinfully against her clit. ¡®Why not make him yours? All of the whores that orbit him, they could never have him like you could. They may claim his body, but you could take his heart if you wanted.¡¯ No, she was wrong. That was narcissistic pride and girlish infatuation mixing together to tell her pleasant lies. As if in answer, the dream shifted, and she found herself being laid gently down on a bed. Through an open sliding balcony door, she could see a full moon and taste the sweet Japanese air, heavy with wisteria. James loomed over her, moving her by her hips further up the bed and shuffling forward on his knees between her legs. In the absence of his touch, she was met with immediate longing. She wanted him to hold her as he had moments ago, to feel him along each of her limbs and his weight bearing down on her. She even with some dread admitted to herself that she wanted him inside her, to stretch her and fill her completely. Maki outstretched her arms for him, cursing the deliberate slowness with which he was moving into position. James so loved to tease her, the absolute bastard. ¡°So eager,¡± he said with a smirk. ¡°Hurry.¡± ¡°Let a man enjoy the view a bit.¡± He settled back on his legs and ogled her openly, raking his eyes up and down her, licking his lips with hunger at the sight of her bared breasts, her soft thighs, and her wet sex. Were it any other man she would have felt sick to her stomach to be the subject of such lust, but with James it was different. To drive so powerful a man mad with her naked body and refined sexuality made her feel strong and drove an iron spike of desire straight into her core. ¡°Hurry.¡± She wrapped her legs around his waist and tried to pull him down atop her, but even in her dreams, she lacked the strength to move the warrior. He laughed it off and began to lean very slowly down. Maki parted her lips slightly, silently begging for a kiss, but he moved lower to her breasts instead, taking one of her nipples into his mouth. A rough hand took her other breast, rolling its nipple between thumb and forefinger with the perfect amount of force. It wasn¡¯t the kiss she wanted, but she liked this too. ¡°Mmm, ah!¡± She liked it a great deal, now if only he would take her already. His cock was weighing heavy against her sex, burning hot against the sensitive skin and teasing her with its presence. Maki reached down to help it along its journey inside her, but those damned telekinetic limbs of his grabbed hold of her arms and pinned them above her head. ¡°Nooo,¡± she whined, ¡°James! Hurry!¡± He smiled up at her with his eyes from where he was nursing on her breast. She swore he was worse than any fox spirit or trickster from mythology when he wanted to be. With his free hand, he traced with his fingertips a line down her flat tummy, just missing her clit as he finally took hold of his cock and brought its ludicrously large head to the gates of her sex. ¡°Yes!¡± she exclaimed, feeling him drag it up and down her opening. ¡°Hurry! Hurry!¡± A sunbeam fell upon her face, stealing her from sleep back into the waking world. Maki groaned angrily, never more upset with her past depressed self than she was at this moment. How, in the three months that she had lived in this apartment, had the woman failed to buy decent blinds for the windows? The situation could be saved, at least. If she shifted herself up slightly, the sunlight lay a hot line across her neck. She hummed, closing her eyes and sending a hand down to her sex. With the heat of the sun there, she could imagine better the idea of James holding her neck as he rutted into her. Maki made short work of herself, imagining her chiseled, semi-divine lover hammering her insides, shaking the bed, and driving the air from her lungs. The orgasm was a pale imitation of those that James could give her, but it was very nice all the same. She¡¯d have to come up with a sort of thank-you gift for unlocking her ability to climax, chocolates, maybe. She rolled out of her bed and glared at the shadeless window. In her grief and zealotry, the apartment had gone completely undecorated and unadorned. Well, now was the time to right that wrong. James had implored her to take some time off and to recover something of herself after their victory. Hearing the sense in it, she had agreed. ¡°Maki, anything,¡± he had said, ¡°I¡¯m telling you, literally anything. Shit, do nothing at all if that¡¯s what calls to you. But for the love of God, woman, for me, if not for yourself, take a goddamn break. You fought the ghost for two years. I fought it for a day and I¡¯m fucking dying for a vacation, but I¡¯m a stupid asshole with a million stupid asshole enemies, so it''s up to you to take one for the both of us. Got it?¡± She laughed a little at the memory. There was something uniquely funny and interesting about a frantic and/or annoyed James Li that she couldn¡¯t get enough of. After her morning ablutions and a small breakfast, she dug through her closet for the unopened box of decorations that she¡¯d been dragging with her to new apartments for two-plus years now. She pursed her lips at the string lights and the photo collage of her old high school friends. There was a replica series of woodblock prints that she liked, but for the most part, these just¡­weren¡¯t her anymore. Almost without realizing it, she found herself messaging James of all people for advice. ¡®Other than classically Japanese (want something new), what style of decoration and furnishing do I bring to mind when you think of me?¡¯ she wrote. ¡®19th Century Explorer¡¯s Club,¡¯ came an immediate reply. Yes, she could see that. And she had always wanted a nice globe. She¡¯d have to do without the taxidermized animals, but there was room in the aesthetic for allowances. Now it was only a matter of finding all the various antiques for reasonable prices, but that could be a fun hobby in and of itself. She almost messaged James back to ask him if he wanted to go antiquing with her but stopped herself. That was too clingy¡­right? She didn¡¯t want to give the impression that they were dating. Though, he had said to call if she wanted to hang out. And, it wouldn¡¯t be clingy if they weren¡¯t dating, it would be friendly¡­right? No, best not to risk it. She didn¡¯t want to endanger their burgeoning partnership. Not a romantic partnership, she was quick to add in her head, a regular, normal, platonic, teammate partnership, except the kind where you occasionally had sex and were at all times willing to die for one another ¨C if such things existed. Which they must, because that was what she and James had. That didn¡¯t leave many people she could go with though. She hadn¡¯t many close friends before she¡¯d isolated herself from most social interactions for two and a half years. Maki knew who she wanted to ask, but could she? Her finger hovered over the contact in her phone. Oh, what the hell, their relationship couldn¡¯t get much worse than it currently was. Her call went through before the first ring fully sounded. ¡°Maki? Are you okay?¡± It touched her to hear the worry in Zelda¡¯s voice. ¡°Hello, Zelda. I¡¯m very well. Would you like to check out some flea markets with me today?¡± ¡°Wha¡ªI, sure. But, um, did something happen? Are you¡­sure you¡¯re okay? Do you want to talk?¡± She paused to consider that. How could she sum up everything that had happened and was currently happening in her life? Where to start, and how to bring up the topic of James Li who seemed so inextricably a part of it now? It was probably impossible, so she said, ¡°I¡¯m trying to buy a globe for my apartment. Would you like to help me find one?¡± ¡°Oh. Okay.¡± Maki smiled, leaning her chair back so she could feel the sun on her face. ¡°Great. I¡¯m glad.¡± ¡°So am I.¡± Zelda added quickly and nervously, ¡°That you asked me to come, I mean. It¡¯s a good day for it.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said. It sounded like things would be a bit awkward between them, but that was fine. She¡¯d fought a Hungry Ghost and seduced the most beautiful creature in the city on the same night; fearing social rejection was beneath her, frankly. ¡°It¡¯s a great day for it.¡± Interlude 3: Assorted Fire Tornado Witnesses? Sally McNeil; Morhaul, New Jersey Morhaul was quiet as always. There was noise, the ugly baritone of trucks rolling down the I-95 and their higher-pitched chorus of cars, the clatter and drumming of plastic trash bins in the wind, and the whipping of tree branches, but these were what passed as silence in Morhaul. She hated that silence. Sally hugged herself at the kitchen table, sipping from a glass of water with both hands while waiting for her mother to finish making her an herbal tea. Mom told her she didn¡¯t do anything wrong, but she still felt like she was waiting outside the principal¡¯s office. She had always envied the magic of her sister and mother, but now that it was here in her life it felt like just another sad notification on her phone that made her regret checking the time. Magic was supposed to free her, give her the power to not just slowly shuffle down the hallway of life to her death, but instead it had quite literally trapped her in a horrific vision. It had been awful. She had spent what felt like hours stuck in a single moment, suffering with every sense enflamed in the worst way imaginable. Thankfully, the worst of it had faded in the minutes after Mom had shaken her awake, but she doubted she¡¯d ever forget it entirely. The monster, a grotesque abomination somehow both starving and bloated, with long clawed arms and a sack full of limbs for a stomach, was stamped into her memory. The only positive in the dream had been that the monster was on fire, the smell of its grey-green rotted flesh going up in flames still lingering in her nostrils, but that had been a small comfort because she too had been burning. She shuddered. Sally felt nauseous just remembering the pain of her arms being reduced to charred cinders in front of her. There was a loud thud from above as her older brother fell out of his bed. She wondered why it had taken so long for him to be affected by the nightmare, maybe he¡¯d been deeper asleep than Mom and Megan. Another thud signaled that he¡¯d fallen again while rushing for his door. ¡°Oh Lord,¡± her mother said with a sigh. ¡°We need to sign that boy up for yoga.¡± ¡°Fire!¡± came a shout through the walls, followed by a series of slams as Jason tripped down the treacherous steps to his attic bedroom. She and Mom exchanged a series of winces with every bang and clatter. He was panting and clutching his chest when he got to the kitchen. ¡°Fi-ah, hah, hah,¡± he said, shortly after colliding with the closed door. Mom caught him by the shoulder and led him to a chair. ¡°We gotta, hah, we gotta get outta¡ª¡± ¡°There¡¯s no fire, Jason. Sally, flick some water on your brother.¡± She dipped a few fingers in her glass and sent the droplets flying at her brother¡¯s slightly battered face. He shook his head fiercely, then looked from the unbothered face of his mother to her own, more apologetic one. ¡°No fire?¡± ¡°No. Your sister had a nightmare.¡± It took her brother a few breaths to register what was said. ¡°Oh. Jeez. It¡¯s been a while, huh? Where is she anyway? She alright?¡± ¡°Your other sister, Jason. Megan is checking on the neighbors to make sure they¡¯re fine.¡± Jason tensed and gave Sally a look of deep sorrow. It wasn¡¯t that bad, was it? ¡°Ah, fuck, Sal. I was really hoping it woulda skipped over you. Hey, look at it this way, couple years of adjustment issues and you¡¯ll be like Meg, making bank selling card readings online and shit.¡± She reared back ¨C a couple of years? Oh no, she couldn¡¯t handle two years of this. Brian was working on his car to take her on a road trip this summer, and she was supposed to start college next year, once she had a little more money saved up. She didn¡¯t even like Brian anymore, but she didn¡¯t want him to run off and be happy without her. They were only together because most of their friends had left town after graduating, and the fact that Brian was miserable and lonely made her feel better for being the same. So, what, she was supposed to just let him go now? It didn¡¯t feel fair. But then, what would have happened if she had her nightmare while in a dorm and no one woke her up in time, a mass hysteria event? That didn¡¯t feel fair for her hypothetical dormmates either, who would have been traumatized for no reason save that they¡¯d slept in her vicinity. Mom rubbed her back and slid a steaming hot mug of tea in front of her. ¡°Hey, none of that now. I¡¯ve had nine years since Megan came into the Mantle, and she only had me; you¡¯ve got us both. We¡¯re going to make this as painless for you as possible.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± she said, voice small and somewhat disbelieving. Her mother shook her arm and smiled down at her, brushing some of her hair out of her face. ¡°Sally, this is a momentous, historical occasion. Three McNeil women wearing the Mantle at the same time, that¡¯s a proper coven. There hasn¡¯t been a McNeil coven since the 1600¡¯s, Sal. You have no idea what this means for us, the opportunities it opens. New Jersey better watch out.¡± Sally nodded and tried to smile. ¡°Thanks, Mom.¡± That didn¡¯t sound so bad. She much preferred spending time with Megan and Mom over listening to Brian tell her about memes he¡¯d seen, or to the same three Bruce Springsteen albums that lived on repeat in his car. Maybe she¡¯d let him break up with her the next time he tried. She probably should have the last time, but this wicked, hateful urge had come upon her. Before she could even think to stop, Sally was choking him mid-sentence and jerking him off in his pants until he came. Then she¡¯d made him drive them to Sonic and buy her dinner as an apology for wasting her time with still-wet pants. It wasn¡¯t until she was home washing her hands that she¡¯d realized she raped him, before proceeding to vomit in the toilet and call him crying to apologize. Jason scooched his chair over and threw a heavy arm around her shoulders. ¡°You got me too, Sal. Plus, you know what I always thought about it? Yeah, it was scary and creepy a lot of the time for Megs, but now she can protect her friends from all kinds of fucked up shit that they don¡¯t even know about and couldn¡¯t do nothin¡¯ to even if they did. I¡¯m pretty sure Meg would go through it all again and worse just for that.¡± Siobhan McNeil wore a rare look of pride for her middle child. ¡°Wow, Jason, that was surprisingly thoughtful for you.¡± ¡°That¡¯s cause I¡¯m full of thoughts, Ma! I¡¯m fricking brimming with the things!¡± Sally laughed and pulled her brother¡¯s arm around her tighter. ¡°Thanks, Jay. I feel a little better.¡± A tingle shot up her spine and it felt like the room temperature shot up a few degrees, for Sally at least. Mom was having an altogether different reaction. Her eyes were wide and staring at the window to the north. You could normally see the skyline of Black Harbor from it at night, but the dense storm clouds obscured it today. Morhaul was the last stop on the C3 train line, at the very edge of the Green Belt, and just far enough to feel like an ocean between her and her friends who had moved to the city. Mom whistled. ¡°Aurora Jerseyalis. That¡¯s why we stay clear of martial artists, kids; never trust a man who can turn into a fire tornado ¨C sort of power¡¯ll drive him insane. Sally, tell me what you see.¡± She gestured with her head at the window. Sally shrugged. The lights were on in the kitchen, you could barely see anything through the glass. Occasionally, the wind would part the low-lying clouds enough for there to be a rainbow glint from one of the skyscrapers downtown, but it was no light show. The older woman furrowed her brow and turned back to the window, squinting at it. ¡°You mean that isn¡¯t visible at all? Jason, you don¡¯t see anything, I presume.¡± ¡°Nah, can¡¯t see shit.¡± Mom shook her head slowly and took a half step away from the window. ¡°Then, that¡¯s some serious power.¡± She reached a hand out for her daughter. ¡°Come here, this is the perfect opportunity to practice extending your senses.¡± Sally let herself be pulled into her mother¡¯s arms, toned from years of carrying and resetting kegs at the bar. Mom rested her chin on her shoulder and pointed the two of them facing Black Harbor. ¡°Normally, I¡¯d talk you through this slowly, but I¡¯m not sure how long this is going to last. So, if it¡¯s okay with you, I¡¯d like to use a little hypnotism just to get you into the right headspace. It¡¯ll help you relax so you can focus better. That alright? After, it¡¯ll be easier for you to follow along to my directions.¡± Sally nodded. Mom leaned closer to her ear and said¡­something. The words had no language, and the sounds disturbed no air, traveling from Siobhan McNeil¡¯s lips directly into her daughter¡¯s skull. All her stress and anxieties about the past and future drained away, and Sally had the distinct feeling of falling without the fear of hitting the ground. Except for the fact that it was the opposite in every way, it was almost like flying. She was in a great black void, standing atop of black cracked earth looking at a great black horizon with black roiling clouds above. Everything was dark save for a towering, golden pillar of spinning fire, so bright that it stole away her ability to see anything else. Sally was entirely naked, which wouldn¡¯t have bothered her normally; her mother had accustomed her to nudity, and she knew she was pretty with nothing to feel self-conscious about, or so she had thought. But all the beauty in the world was nothing compared to the perfect column of flame, and her nakedness only made her feel smaller and less worthy in front of it. Sally had the thought to run closer to the golden vortex and then suddenly she was there, close enough that the heat was beginning to bring her pain. She knew at some animal level that any closer and she would begin to burn into nothing, but despite that, she wanted to move anyway. Survival instinct, unfortunately, kept her feet planted where they were. In the occasional quick gaps of the flame, she saw flashes of a man, or maybe a god with the form of one. No, definitely a god, she thought as she got a better look at him. And yet he seemed oddly familiar, like someone she¡¯d seen while scrolling through videos online, but surely God didn¡¯t have a JinJin account. In horror, she noticed his hands were burning, turning to black cinders as her own had been in her vision; the memory of which made her turn away from him for a second, and sure enough, in front of him, being torn at by the flames, was the monster she¡¯d seen as well. Her heart fell. Then, that man was feeling the same pain she had felt, but probably worse for hers had been just a dream. He was in agony, fighting for his life ¨C he needed help, he needed her! He needed her, she thought with a start! She was his Moses! Yes, this was her burning bush, that was her God, and Sally was his prophet! It was all so clear. She had to stomach the pain and push forward so she could help him because he needed her. The newest McNeil witch forced herself to take a step forward, the heat bringing tears to her eyes. A crow swooped down upon her, making her stumble backward. More joined their brethren to push her further and further away from her God. She cursed at them. They weren¡¯t stopping her from burning herself, though they may have inadvertently, they were instead jealously guarding Him, she knew, preventing her from interfering. Sally took another step forward, but more and more birds came down upon her. They seemed endless in number, and looking up, she saw with dawning terror that what she had thought were clouds were actually flocks of more, a murder of crows so immense that it eclipsed the sky. And there, in the midst of them was a terrible shape, a vulturous Thing that¡ª A hand clapped over her eyes from behind her. ¡°Nope. Pro-tip, never look up.¡± Megan spun her around and hugged her to her naked chest. ¡°Eeeeeee! Sally, oh my god, I¡¯m so proud of you!¡± She beamed down at her, black hair wild and untamed, looking entirely at ease in their bizarre environment. ¡°It took me years to learn how to Project like this. You¡¯re a total natural! But, Silly,¡± she said, using her old affectionate nickname for her, ¡°it¡¯s time to wake up.¡± Damon Jennings; Princeton, New Jersey A warm breeze from the balcony woke Damon Jennings up with a start. His eyes snapped open. It wasn¡¯t a strong wind, but it was unmistakably there on the back of his neck. Jessica was deep asleep in his arms, but maybe, he thought hopefully, she had cracked the door open before getting back in bed. He turned slowly, like a child afraid, and confirmed his dread suspicion. The balcony door was shut, and the floor-to-ceiling curtains were drawn, completely unmoved by the draft. That damned balcony was the only thing wrong with this house. Damon had two prerequisites for a home when he¡¯d been on the market, it had to have a yard big enough for him to ride an ATV around, and it had to be new construction, truly new construction, as in he wanted the dirt to have been fully compacted before excavation. It absolutely could not be built on top of any other building at all, no matter the reason. He¡¯d even given sizeable donations to the local historical and Native American preservationist societies to verify before purchase that it hadn¡¯t been built on sanctified land. This house, on the most suburban edge of Princeton, had seemed perfect until his first night alone. The balcony to an otherwise ideal master bedroom faced that awful city so far away with such precision, that the sliding glass doors may as well have been a picture frame around Black Harbor. It had kept him up for hours, looming over him like it did. He¡¯d been too stubborn to sleep in another room. No one else could see Black Harbor, there were woods and hills and entire cities between the house and it, but he could, and it was his bedroom. It was the master bedroom; how would he possibly explain to other people why he wasn¡¯t sleeping in it? He¡¯d chosen to endure it like a man ought to instead. And now there was a warm breeze coming from Black Harbor through his closed balcony door. That was doubly impossible to ignore because it was never warm in Black Harbor. Reciting a prayer under his breath, Damon extracted himself from his not-quite-girlfriend, slipped into some fuzzy moccasins, and snuck out onto the balcony. Light in the dark, how could it be? Warmth and now light? Impossible. It was always cold in Black Harbor. It had been chilly and overcast the first day he¡¯d ever visited and that had been on a bright, summer day with temperatures in the upper 80¡¯s. It was always cold, and it was always dark in Black Harbor, no matter what the devil might want you to believe. Damon closed his eyes and watched closely the red and black of the back of his eyelids. This was the best way to observe the light-that-wasn¡¯t-there, as he¡¯d called it since he was a boy. In the fuzzy shifting shapes, he could see a rough shadow-play. Evil things so loved to cast their silhouettes in God¡¯s light, like how they would wait outside his door when he was young, showing him the shadows of their feet standing there, menacing him for hours. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. He had never told anyone not in the clergy about his ability to see like this, least of all his ex-girlfriend Annie, even when he was trying to convince her not to move into the city. It would have only encouraged her, he¡¯d thought. Annie was prone to little obsessions; she¡¯d have never let it go if he told her what he had to suffer through. She wouldn¡¯t understand that anytime he learned anything through his Sixth Sense, it was always bad. Except now. This was a first. Black Harbor was warm and bright; that made it a triple first. And the little horrors he could see in the light seemed to be burning away. That was a¡ª No, he shook his head and opened his eyes. That last he just couldn¡¯t allow himself to believe. It must have been a delusion born of hope. His career was going well, he was finally over his breakup, and he¡¯d made some real friends recently. This was his brain trying to convince him that it was okay, that he could grow to tolerate the Black City after a while if he only tried. Its evil could be dispelled. It didn¡¯t have to be so cursed all the time. Things could even get better one day. All very unlikely, he thought, but still, nice thoughts to fall asleep to. He could thank God for that. He''d have to discuss this with the chaplain. Monty could see the light-that-wasn¡¯t-there like he could, Damon suspected, or at the very least, was able to speak on Damon¡¯s experiences. Maybe he could shed some light on the topic. Damon smiled to himself. Shed some light, that was a pun he¡¯d just made, wasn¡¯t it? Ha, and Annie said he didn¡¯t have a sense of humor. Showed her. He slipped back into bed, strangely hopeful for the first time about driving into the city tomorrow. What might be changing in Black Harbor? Paul Occam; His Penthouse Roof, Canal District, Black Harbor Miss Aggie ruffled with annoyance as she considered his question. She was a tough old bird, having lived to her overripe age due to the work of diligent caretakers, and didn¡¯t tolerate fools lightly. Paul waited for her answer, even though he could tell by her body language that she had nothing for him. Gentry translated her speech into English, casting his voice into a high-pitched Victorian Lady¡¯s affectation. The old man must have been quite fond of Aggie since he gave few others such a posh accent. ¡°I dare say sah, what are you accusing me of?¡± said Miss Aggie by way of Gentry. ¡°Like any proper lady, I was well asleep at that hour of night.¡± Paul held out an almond for Miss Aggie and said apologetically, ¡°Of course, miss, I meant nothing by it. It¡¯s for work, you know, I have to ask these questions. But I don¡¯t suppose, Miss Aggie, that you might know someone who was in the vicinity, perhaps nesting nearby who might have been disturbed from their sleep by the happenings?¡± Aggie scarfed down the almond greedily, lacking any of the grace that Gentry injected into her voice. ¡°Oh well, if it¡¯s for your occupation then I suppose I ought to help how I can. I wouldn¡¯t want to be a burden on your hospitality, not with you so graciously providing me such a well-appointed home. Shall I ask around for you, Mr. Occam?¡± ¡°I would be delighted if you would.¡± Miss Aggie bobbed her head agreeably and took off into the sky with a flap of her wings. He hoped she would return; there had been cats crawling all over Chinatown this morning, more than happy to make a meal of the pigeon, he imagined. Gentry hopped his way up to Paul¡¯s shoulder, his preferred resting spot ever since Paul was old enough to carry him. He was the family pet, an African grey parrot of about 130 years of age that had been awakened by a great uncle with a ritual no one had bothered writing down. That sort of disorganization had plagued the family for a few centuries now, the curse of being moneyed, comfortable, and without any surviving enemies. Being a pretty shit wizard himself, Paul was almost entirely reliant on the bird for most of his more delicate workings, including the more important half of the Speak with Animals spell. On his own, Paul could only Speak to Animals ¨C not nearly so useful. ¡°That¡¯s that, I¡¯m afraid, my boy. We¡¯ll need to beat feet if we want to learn any more about the case. Aggie¡¯s a terrible gossip but the storm will have kept the doves to their stoops. Shall we make haste to this burnt-down warehouse?¡± Paul dropped his remaining pocket almonds into the pigeon cages, treats for them when they returned from their missions. ¡°I¡¯ve already been. There won¡¯t be much more I can learn from Chinatown, not without attracting more attention than I did this morning.¡± ¡°What?! Why didn¡¯t you bring me? You don¡¯t speak a single dialect of Chinese!¡± ¡°I could hardly wait until full daylight to break into a crime scene, Gentry. Besides, you should be glad I didn¡¯t. Every familiar in the city was out snooping, most of them¡ª¡± ¡°Cats,¡± said Gentry distastefully, ¡°yes. Never understood why women so adore the filthy little terrors. Well then, to the study! I want to know everything about everything, forthwith!¡± They made their way down into the penthouse, which was in its usual state of disarray. He really ought to just shell out for a cleaning service, but Aunt Edna had been promising to send him a custom mannikin-maid since last Christmas and she¡¯d be so dismayed if she heard about it. Then he¡¯d never get the maid, or get it twenty years late, and he had always wanted one. Paul closed and bolted the door into the master bedroom, and then closed and bolted the door into what had been meant to be the walk-in closet, now converted into one of the most secure locations in Black Harbor. He¡¯d sunk a year¡¯s allowance from his trust on the privacy charms and wards for the room the moment he¡¯d secured his first Harbor Moon contract. Journalism was a dangerous business in a city like this. He settled into his favorite armchair and poured out a little glass of brandy for himself. It was still early, but he¡¯d been awake since his Eye had alerted him to the ¡®Incident on Bell Street¡¯, as he was calling it in his write-up. Gentry was kind enough to allow him a few long sips before he got impatient. ¡°Come now, I¡¯m all in a frenzy to know more!¡± Paul yawned, and tapped a key on his desktop, waking the screen up. ¡°Apologies, old man, it¡¯s been a long night. I cracked the case pretty quickly, enough to write my article certainly, but the Order will want to know more. Lord Watt has turned his attention to Black Harbor for some unknowable reason.¡± ¡°Pah, Watt¡¯s in for a rude awakening if he thinks he can claw Black Harbor out of the Jersey Devil¡¯s hands. These American billionaires are like the Pharaohs of old but twice as paranoid. Still, the Order¡¯s money spends all the same, and you would do well to start making your name in High Society. Show me what you¡¯ve got and let¡¯s see if my wizened beak can crack this nut open for you.¡± The case of last night was easily laid out; the man at the center of it was perhaps the least discrete actor in the city¡¯s Underworld. It began as such, James Li was seen out on the town with the Shinto Shrine¡¯s older miko, Ishida Maki. ¡°He puts on a public show of strength in Ito Square,¡± explained Paul, ¡°then while dining at a Yakuza establishment, puts on a private show of strength, unshackling the limiters on his Qi in a display of force that was felt across the city. What occurred at Tamaki Grill to so antagonize him is unknown to me but of great interest to the Order.¡± Gentry used a talon to scratch under his beak thoughtfully. ¡°I see, so they were serious about finally opening a club in the States. That¡¯ll do wonders for your marriage chances, lad. The Occam¡¯s were once highly regarded amongst the Roses. Before my time, of course, that would have been Quincy¡ª¡± Paul cleared his throat to interrupt the tangent. ¡°Ah, yes, sorry. Well, I bet Watt wants to know who to hitch his wagons to. That man never had the spine to stand alone; that¡¯s what happens when you let a youngest son take over an estate. There are customs for a reason, that¡¯s what I always say.¡± Paul took a long sip of cognac. It was true, Gentry did always say that. ¡°Undoubtedly. And he¡¯s paying special attention to the Yakuza, though why eludes me. You¡¯d think he¡¯d utilize his North Sea connections.¡± ¡°Anyway, according to the Shrine¡¯s younger miko, who appears to have been quite infatuated with the man, Li met Ishida for the first time that day at a calligraphy class. I have my doubts, but what is clear is that after their dinner, the two make their way to the Shinto Shrine and are then seen entering a cab together. This you and I uncovered from the doves.¡± ¡°What happens after they arrive in Chinatown is of course well known to everyone with even a cracked Third Eye by now. Li picks a fight with some evil spirit haunting Bell Street. Their fight is suitably epic, with Li either calling forth or becoming a living vortex of fire so tall it punches a hole through the clouds above. They fight a line through the neighborhood, leaving wreckage in their wake until the man manages to lead the demon into the depths of the city. After that, I don¡¯t know, but according to his social media, James Li is alive, and therefore I assume was victorious.¡± Gentry flapped his wings and puffed his feathers in that way that meant he¡¯d just realized something. ¡°I see, I see. He leads the spirit to where his ally is waiting below. Why, there must be some sewer drain down there! Rushing water, that¡¯s it!¡± ¡°Er, I confess I don¡¯t follow.¡± ¡°My boy, sometimes I wonder if you are a wizard at all. Together they called upon the River Styx and sent the spirit to Hades where it belonged. I am sure of it! Was that what you were stuck upon?¡± ¡°Ah, no, I hadn¡¯t really concerned myself with that.¡± Paul opened his file on the case, pulling up an image of a beautiful Asian woman with venomous eyes and crossed arms being questioned by police on the street in the early 1990s. ¡°Li is the son of Lily Li, sometimes called the Golden Eagle.¡± ¡°Of the Hunan Li-family Eagle School? I¡¯ve always liked those queer little Chinamen ¨C it¡¯s the bird connection, you see.¡± ¡°Er, yes. She¡¯s been inactive in the Underworld since well before we arrived in the States, but last week, in response to a sudden provocation at her school, she took some minor retribution upon the Tiger Gang.¡± He clicked to the next image, an underground parking garage in total ruin. ¡°The elder Li located one of the Tiger¡¯s fleets of armored vehicles, tore them to pieces, and maimed a few guards before, I¡¯m told, stopping for a manicure at a friend¡¯s. You may be thinking, what does this have to do with last night? Take a look at what I found in the ruins of that warehouse.¡± Gentry hopped down off his arm and examined the screen more closely, putting one of his eyes right up to the images, flapping a wing when he wanted to see the next or return to the last. ¡°Distillery clearly¡­moonshining? Little old-fashioned, isn¡¯t it? Oh, I see. Is this from below the warehouse?¡± Gentry had paused on an image of a cramped bottling facility, crates of empties stacked to the ceiling. ¡°A cellar in the alleyway behind the warehouse.¡± ¡°Ahhh, counterfeiters, eh? Not the cheap stuff either; that¡¯s Hors 40-year, and that¡¯s Mendolsohn¡¯s, and Gilt de V¡¯. Heavens, the average cost of these bottles must have been close to 500 pounds. Which gang was running this still?¡± ¡°Tigers.¡± The parrot laughed and flew back to Paul¡¯s shoulder. ¡°That¡¯s a wrinkle, yes. You think, like mother like son? This James fellow found some reason to be fighting in the area, maybe made a pact with some Kami at the Shrine for a sudden storm just so he could plausibly burn down their operation?¡± He frowned. ¡°Hm, Maybe, but he¡¯s, well, he¡¯s a bit of an idiot by all reckoning, the sort of man who gets horny and then follows over 400 ballerinas in a single night. James Li either does it loudly, or he doesn¡¯t do it at all.¡± Gentry slapped him in the back of his head with his wing and made deafening sounds of disapproval. ¡°Appearances are misleading, boy! What have I always told you? Martial artists take to intrigue like snakes to grass! What did the great Freud tell us about human psychology? A cigar is never a cigar, it is always a penis!¡± ¡°Ow, stop that! And the great Ms. Marple told us that any good explanation must account for at least one coincidence!¡± That did the trick; Gentry was always fond of Agatha Christie. ¡°I suppose, yes. Regardless, if this event presages a gang war in Chinatown, then we must act quickly to determine the players involved and their true motives. I assume you¡¯ve reached out to James Li, sent an electronic mail?¡± ¡°I was actually hoping for your help with devising a surveillance net around him. He seems like an affable sort, but volatile, and I¡¯d like to avoid having my skull punched off my neck.¡± Gentry said skeptically, ¡°And to avoid this fate, you are proposing we go source the dangerous reagents required to surveil a powerful martial artist, then attempt to spy on him illicitly with the hope that your magical talents beat out the scion of the famously Eagle-eyed Li Family?¡± ¡°Ehm, when you put it like that¡­¡± ¡°Why not hire him to help you write your report to the Order of the Red Rose? He¡¯s an outsider to the gangs with a vested interest in the matter himself. Time-honored tradition too, to keep a strong arm around you, and in my experience, these martial types tend to be easily amused by even the simplest of magic.¡± ¡°That does sound more sensible.¡± ¡°Or,¡± said Gentry, rolling the ¡®r¡¯, ¡°he¡¯s clearly motivated by a pretty young face. Did you know your Great Uncle happened to love playing ¡®Auntie¡¯ at the docks when he needed a quick source of fuel? Said it reminded him of boarding school. He¡¯d come back as ¡®she¡¯ in a few days with a wide smile on his face, dripping with enough life force to raise a large hill out of stone; Earth magic is quite receptive to the use of semen as fuel, it¡¯s a man¡¯s seed you see¡ª¡± ¡°Thank you, Gentry! That¡¯s quite alright, I think. I¡¯ll start by sending him a message and see how that shakes out first.¡± ¡°Such a stick in the mud, Paul! This is why you¡¯ve stagnated, my boy, this is why.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make do, Gentry.¡± The parrot stole a sip of his cognac before he snatched it away. ¡°Oi!¡± ¡°Bah, you¡¯re an intractable gentleman, Paul. I hope for your sake that this James Li is not. You could use a shake-up, my boy.¡± He sighed the long sigh of a man who had heard it before many, many times. ¡°We shall see, Gentry. We shall see.¡± An Afterlife Together 2, 3, & 4 Maki''s shirt was open but still hanging off her shoulders. She pinched her shoulder blades together, pushing her chest out further and making the sweat-soaked cloth come free of where it had been caught on her hard nipples, baring herself to me. Her breasts were full and round, just big enough that they might have been able to wrap around my enhanced girth, and the pale skin above them was flushed with excitement. The miko''s smug expression told me that she too thought quite highly of them. She opened her legs slightly, drawing my attention to her pretty pink pussy, cleanly shaven save for a nicely groomed patch above it. "I borrowed your scissors and razor. I trust you don''t mind." Ah, I had thought she felt smooth to the touch earlier but was still unsure as to where the hentai physics of this world began and ended. "On the contrary, I appreciate it, very thoughtful." She preened and without a hint of irony said, "Yes, I''m an exceptionally thoughtful lover." "Hahaha! Nice. Shameless confidence is sexy on you, Maki. Honestly, I figured you did it for your own comfort and confidence, feels good to look good and all that." Maki coughed, chagrinned. "In this instance you are correct. I was speaking in general terms, unrelated to the matter." I burst into laughter. She continued, red-faced, over me, "Besides, it had been twenty-five minutes in the shower at that point and I thought that I may as well take the extra time to make myself¡­presentable." She spread her knees a bit more to emphasize the last word. The vision of her pale flesh glistening from her arousal cut through my laughter, as she''d intended. I swallowed. I was salivating at the thought of kissing my way up her thighs. "No need to justify yourself to me. I''d fight a dozen ghosts if it meant that this is what was waiting to nurse me back to health." "Thank you," she said earnestly. "Now, finish undressing me so I may complete my inspection of this ridiculous male body you''ve tractioned to." "Before that, there are some spells I can work that should make this easier for both of us in a way, but I''d like your permission before continuing." She opened her mouth to object. "Not like that, I''m not being ''paternalistic'' or whatever, I''m taking you seriously. It''s just that I enjoy a fair competition, on occasion at least. I don''t want to use my magic stuff if you can''t use yours." Maki threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, James, what am I going to do with you? My dear samurai, I have been trained from birth to withstand spiritual and psychological attacks from gods and demons. You may use all of your abilities without worrying about besmirching your honor." She held her arms slightly to the side and leaned towards me. "Go on then." I confess, her absolute self-certainty had piqued my curiosity as well as something slightly more mischievous. Being able to defend against terror was an altogether different skill set from being able to endure pleasure. Even if they did train the latter in this porn world, I doubted Maki had undergone any such training. But she seemed sure and that was worth investigating. My knowledge and application of Erotic Sorcery had gone from skilled but inexperienced to sublime, but still inexperienced. The upper limits of what was possible were open to me and I was sure that with time I could replicate a wide variety of other mystical abilities using sexual rituals, but that would take research and experimentation like any other magic. But what I could do was freely modify the simplest enchantments with incredible finesse and without fear of mishap. I spat into my palm and rubbed my hands together, working my Qi and intention into them. Bodily fluids, mine specifically, were particularly adroit at carrying lust magic, though it was mostly symbolic here. I saw Maki shiver at the display and grinned. For all the injustices put upon me by the Producers, there was something uniquely mollifying about rolling huge amounts of Dice. My spell was as simple as Erotic Sorcery could be; anywhere I touched would become an erogenous zone for the next hour or so. If Maki hadn''t been so cavalier, I may have picked a set sensitivity to ensure I didn''t push her too far, but I was too intrigued to hold back. The sensitivity of the affected area, I decided, would be left up to however many Successes over two that I got, with no upper limits. Show me what you''ve got, I thought as the Dice clattered. The geometric patterns of the silk rug below seemed to shimmer in my peripheral vision, lending me an additional two. All told, between bonuses and penalties, Aura + Seduction was a pool of eighteen Dice and yielded nine Successes. "Get ready." Maki licked her lips with anticipation. She closed her eyes, breath hitching as I laid my hands on her shoulders. I pushed the shirt off her right, running my hand down her arm as I peeled the oversized sleeve off. My fingers could touch my thumb when grabbing even the thickest part of her biceps, ensuring that her arm from clavicle to her fingertips was affected. Her hand grabbed onto mine as it started to pull away, the only outward sign she gave of being unprepared. I brought it to my face and kissed her knuckles before placing her palm on my cheek. "Oh," she said, opening her eyes. Her eyes dilated slightly, lips parting. She experimented with stroking my cheek and chin, clearly fascinated with the sensations, and then, trembling, trailed her fingers up and through my hair. "Ah!" Maki gasped and had to stop a second before continuing. "Very considerate, James, thank you. It''s perfect." "To help you better enjoy what you already wanted to do," I explained. "I wanted to let you spoil me like one of your hot babes, but I do need to harvest your orgasms." She giggled at ''hot babe''. Taking a fistful of my hair relatively gently, she said slowly, "I can definitely see this accomplishing that goal," and leaned forward for a kiss. I stopped her. "Glad you''re enjoying it, but I''m not finished." I did the same routine for her other arm, finally ridding her of all her clothing. She was itching to get me as naked as her though, so I didn''t pause to take in the view. I put my two hands around her right knee, wrapped her thigh between my spread fingers, and dragged the magic all the way up to where her leg met her hips. Because I wasn''t a sadist, I only grazed the area around her mons, not wanting to put her in orgasm hell later. I repeated the same for the other leg, savoring the way my hands could so totally envelop her thin thighs. Maki could have stood to gain a few pounds, frankly, but there was something to be said about the delicate fragility of her frame. She was like a porcelain doll, especially with her pale unblemished skin. I leaned forward and slapped her ass, grabbing a hold of her bare cheeks. At least here, there was some meat to her. She jumped and slapped my shoulder. "You brute!" she complained with a proud smile. I brought my hands up to her lower back, traced a quick, finger-thin line up her spine, and moved to her sides and front. My thumbs met under her belly button, hands and fingers spread and splayed out as far as they could stretch. I felt her ribs under a thin layer of fat as I turned the entire front of her abdomen into an erogenous zone. Had she not been so bold earlier, I may have skipped her breasts, just touching the underside before going around. Maki was already very sensitive there, to the point where my skilled hands didn''t need any assistance in the area. But she had, so I palmed them on the way up. Her nipples cut into my palms, sending fireworks through her, and making her curl in over herself. I made a quick detour to caress her armpits before wrapping her neck as though I was about to begin strangling her. Very gently since she was already beginning to twitch and jerk, I finished running either my fingers or palms over her face and scalp, paying special attention to her lips and ears. Finally, I held her by the back of the neck firmly and brought my fingers to her lips. Maki''s eyes went wide, but she allowed me into her mouth without issue. I swiped a finger under each lip and across her gums, rubbed the roof of her mouth, and thoroughly stroked all around her tongue. Then, I pushed further. "Ghk!" Maki gagged and coughed as a finger hit the back of her throat. She grabbed my wrist as tightly as she could but didn''t slap at me or push away. Her body continued to cough as I let the fingers and magic linger there, but her eyes were resolved even as the tears began to flow. The spit she was swallowing down brought my magic into her throat, and as it spilled out the front layered the enchantment more strongly where it landed on her lips, chin, and the tops of her breasts. She broke into a fit of coughs as I extracted the hand. I pulled her in for a hug and made sure to finish covering the entirety of her back before letting the spell cease. Maki held herself as still as possible and steadied her breathing. "Too much?" I asked. She bristled at my tone and pulled away, wiping away a few tears. "Not at all. This is still within the realm of my expectations. Are you finished with your sorcery?" "For now. I''m going to get started on the healing spell." "My turn then?" I nodded. Maki, for once, looked her age. That is to say, a sort of anticipatory horniness settled onto her features that could only be found in the desperate wanting of someone in their teens or early twenties. She was a college coed kneeling nude in front of a lover, and quite pleased about it, judging from her expression. The young woman rose to her feet and gestured for me to do the same. I let her move me onto my new couch, and she settled in next to me, breasts pushed into my side. "Up," she ordered, wasting no time in pulling my boxers off my legs. My cock sprang out as she tugged the band down, grateful to be free of its prison. A dollop of pre-cum was drooling down the tip, soon joined by another as my libido went into overdrive. "Ugh, Kami-sama, you''re grotesque," she said with a bizarre mix of disgust, wonder, and academic fascination. She took hold of the base and slapped the head down onto her other palm. "It''s absurd, look at this. You have a fertility icon for a penis ¨C it doesn''t even look real, like it belongs on a giant. And these," she said, cradling my testicles in her hand, "unbelievable." I would have voiced a complaint but was too busy holding back a premature ejaculation. Just because I had the stamina to go all night didn''t mean I didn''t still have my pride. I wanted to last a little longer than this at least. "They''re fat and wrinkled, and ridiculously heavy. The thought of them swinging, sweaty and wet, slapping into my thighs or chin while you rut me like a mad bull should make me want to vomit." Her voice got throaty and she pulled my arm so that it was sandwiched between her breasts as she leaned her weight against me. "Should and would if¡­" she dragged her lower lip up the side of my neck to my ear, "if it wasn''t you. But because it''s you, my samurai, I love these testes of yours." She cupped them tenderly. Her other hand slowly stroked its way up my shaft. "Because it''s you, I love this penis. I love it because it is yours, my samurai''s penis, and therefore mine. A disgusting example of throbbing, angry masculinity transformed into an icon of impossible, ascendant beauty which surpasses the constraints of mortal sex and gender, what but a Divine could create such a work of art." The lesbian burst into a fit of giggles, shaking with sudden glee. The laughs merged with and were interrupted by moans as the movement caused her nipples to brush across my arm. "Mm, I used to fantasize about sleeping with a Kami, you know? I think we all did, all of us who grew up in the Shrine. At least, I''ve heard others mention similar fantasies in passing ¨C it''s only human, I suspect. You''re so lucky that I have that experience. What will other, ordinary women think of you as you transcend your mortality? How will they react as you become transhuman and alien? Because I will be thrilled, James. I will be scintillated and excited to have all my dirty, pubescent fantasies fulfilled by my very own immortal retainer." Maki had the absolute strangest idea of dirty talk I''d ever heard, but damn if it wasn''t working. My head was resting on the back of the couch, eyes closed, mouth occasionally gasping for air. If I didn''t have the spell to focus on, I may have already cum just from her bizarre foreplay. She rested her cheek on my shoulder briefly before pulling away and frowning down at the gauze still covering most of my torso. "We really must get to healing you and getting these awful things out of the way. They are denying me the privilege of feeling your delectably soft, silk skin against me. Will any of my ancestors forgive me if I reach the afterlife without having felt your bare chest underneath me?" Maki kicked her legs back along the couch and laid herself down across my lap, face resting on one thigh, her breasts lying along the inside of the other. She draped my cock onto her cheek, holding it down to keep it from popping up, and smiled up at me. "Ah, much better! Softer than silk, probably." She rubbed the shaft back and forth across her cheek and hummed. The little streak of pre-cum on the bottom painted a glistening stripe on her face. Maki paused, curious, and turned her head so that her nose was buried between the base of it and my balls and took a long sniff. A thick, sticky strand connected the tip of her nose and the little pool of pre-ejaculate there as she pulled back to look up at me. "What a delightful scent, you should find a way to bottle this. You''ll rub some in under my shirt before I leave, won''t you?" I slapped the back of the couch, my other hand along her back, gripping her side for dear life. "Maki ¨C fuck!" She gasped. "Are you close? Oh darling, don''t fight it. Cum for me." Maki took me by both her tiny hands, maneuvering herself a bit back so that the head of my dick was pointed at her face. She started to twist her hands in opposite directions; it was amateurish, but I didn''t need much at the moment. I could feel every hot word and breath as she continued. "Cum. Cum. Lose yourself and c¡ª" My first shot partially sailed over her prone face, mostly landing on the silk rug beyond, with some leaving a line from her ear to the corner of her mouth. She hurriedly planted her lips over the end and, as the second shot burst out, covered my tip with her tongue. Her eyes dilated as wide as if she''d taken a tab of acid and sucked the rest of my cum out with a fervor that seemed at odds with her normal demeanor. My orgasm was longer and more productive than I''d anticipated, such that she had to cup her palm under her lips to catch the spillage from her overfull mouth. She nursed and suckled until I was done, and once finished, clapped a hand over her face to keep from losing her snack and took a big gulp. There was a shock of erotic energy from the miko and her back arched violently as she started to twitch. Had I not been tapped into her pleasure through my sorcery, I may have thought it was a reciprocal orgasm, but it seemed to be something else entirely. Still, whatever the source, her reaction was strong enough that I had to hold her down to keep her from rolling off me and the couch. [Ally Quest Complete!] Get a handjob from Maki. Reward: 20XP, +1 Finesse, +2 Craft (Calligraphy) Bonus, She swallowed the cum: 20XP, Gain Minor Feat Fuel for Thought (Semen) [Minor Feat] Fuel for Thought (Semen Upgrade) Other people who have consumed your semen gain a temporary +1 to Wits and Finesse for as long as it is in their system. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have 6 Dice in Finesse. Reward: Gain Special Feat Touch to Speak [Special Feat] Touch to Speak You have learned to make your hands and fingers sing and dance for you. This grace is most commonly and easiest seen through your artistic creations, which you may now take an additional Die in while making, but is best experienced through handshakes, massages, and even spars through which you may communicate complex ideas with even untrained laymen. When making any Social roll that primarily involves your hands, you gain a Guaranteed Success. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Get someone to drink your cum unprompted. Reward: 25XP, Gain Minor Feat Cum Overflowing [Minor Feat] Cum Overflowing You produce an amount of seminal fluid with every orgasm equal to your number of Dice in Endurance times what would normally be produced. "Oh no, no," she said, between great heaving breaths before licking her palm clean. Maki eyed my cock with caution and semi-terror. "James, you must never let a practitioner you don''t implicitly trust ever drink, or even touch, your semen. Promise me." "What? Don''t be silly. I can''t do that." "I''m entirely serious. It''s for your safety!" "Maki, asking me to not let women I barely know suck me off is like asking you to not read books." "That''s insane!" "Yeah, exactly." (Part 3)? It was impossible to take Maki too seriously, her request was absurd and so was she, having wiped the streak of cum off her face just to play with it between her fingers. The image of the reserved, bookish woman studying my sticky semen with reverent solemnity was at once so hot and so surreal that I felt like I was high out of my mind. Existential incredulity, I''d call it; I simply couldn''t believe this was happening. What had my life become? How did I come to this moment? "I know you''re ignorant of the more mystical aspects of the world, so I will explain this as plainly as I can. Behold, your seed," said Maki, holding her fingers up to me. "For obvious reasons, I have never pursued the use of male vitality as a source of power. I know that it can be done in many ways, though all the ones I''ve heard of require rituals, items, or in the case of an aunt, a tsukumogami. Now, with that in mind, watch." The thimbleful of cum on Maki''s fingers began to glow blue slowly, resembling a fuzzy cloud covering the meeting point of her thumb, fore, and middle finger. Then, a shimmering, small blue moth appeared, took two flaps of its wings, and disappeared, though Maki''s eyes continued tracking its erratic flight for a while longer. "Cool," I said sincerely. "Never going to get tired of seeing real magic." "Thank you. It was a messenger to the Divine World, to let the Shrine know that Ken has been avenged and that I''m safe. Normally, that would have taken me twenty minutes of meditation or a prepared talisman, but with your semen, I could do it on a whim while naked. Do you realize what this means?" I pumped my fist. "Hell yeah, my cum is a force multiplier for your spellcasting. That''s sick." She nodded slowly with a look of withering condescension. "For me and for everyone else." "You''re right, I should recruit more witches." Maki groaned, slapping her forehead with my cock in apparent frustration. Again, I wondered if I hadn''t maybe lost my mind; she had treated it as no different from slamming your head against the wall out of frustration without any apparent irony, a Stooges-esque moment of unintentional comedy from the profoundly weird woman. "No, that is the opposite of what I''m saying. James, I am a priestess with a vested interest in the public good, and so perhaps you think that because I am a well-adjusted woman, other practitioners are the same, but this is far from the case." That statement struck me as so odd that it nearly knocked me unconscious. "Maki," I said, ears practically ringing, "you''re the strangest person I''ve ever met." "As if you are in any position to judge, James Li. And anyway, good, that''s even more to my point. Magic has a way of perverting its users with time. It''s a slow process, but the oldest and most powerful practitioners are as fickle and particular as any spirit or fairy tale legend. James, I''m telling you, these women measure their plots in decades. One tryst in a nightclub bathroom and you''ll end up hunted by a coven for years, is that what you want?" Her concern was touching but tiresome. I was already basically a sex god, of course I would have to seduce my way out of problems in the future, it was a given. "Look, woman, I''m altogether incapable of being reasonable about this topic, so you''ll just have to resolve yourself to having to rescue me." "When that inevitably happens?" she asked incredulously. "Yes." "You''re admitting that it will happen?!" "Mhm." I nodded. "Kidnapping? Got to happen eventually, I figure." She squinted at me for a beat, before sighing. "At least I won''t have to worry about keeping busy. You''re lucky you''re so pretty." Maki stroked my cock with perfect pressure, her own palms matching me for sensitivity. The touch made her shiver, and the calm repetitions helped her relax. "I suppose if I''m being generous, asking you to avoid using your sexuality in the field is like asking me to no longer prepare talismans. Do use your head though, the bigger one." I brushed some of her hair behind her ear. "I promise not to be a total dipshit with my magic cum. Unless, of course, I''m doing it as some sort of elaborate gambit." "Fairly regularly then?" "Probably. But speaking of magic cum, we''ve got more pressing business than future hypotheticals." "It''s true, I apologize for getting distracted. By the way, should I be timing my climaxes to yours? I know very little about lust magic, but that was my assumption." "Huh? Oh, don''t worry about it, just enjoy yourself. No, I was actually referring to a great idea I just had. We should do tests! See if you can still use my cum if I''ve already enchanted it, and what happens when you swallow a spell that''s meant to be spread on your skin or vice versa, and that sort of thing. You''ve probably got more ideas than I do!" Maki''s face was a play of emotions. She quirked her head, furrowed her brow, and stared off into the middle distance for a good while before giving me a look of pleasant surprise. "That''s¡­an extremely sensible suggestion, James. Apart from the shameless depravity of it all, I can''t think of any reason not to at least try. It would be irresponsible to leave your abilities uncatalogued." I tapped my temple. "As the city''s greatest lover, I knew that you would find sexual science to be both intellectually and physically stimulating." She smiled, but her voice was hesitant, overwrought with repressed curiosity. "Yes, very astute. I do probably have more ideas than you do. Are you sure it won''t interfere with your healing?" "As much as I hate to admit it, I''m actually insanely good at magic. It''ll still have to be a simple blessing, but I should be fine. Those little spells are thoughtless, like muscle memory." A switch flipped inside the woman, and a coil of intense interest seemed to unwind into her body language. The idea had been given permission to enter her mind, and I could see it bouncing around her pretty head. Her genius intellect was beginning to whir on in front of me. "Then I''d be thrilled to research your bodily fluids and sex magic! It''s honestly an opportunity of a lifetime. You have no idea what you''re offering, you can''t, you''re a martial artist. You''re always bubbling with Qi. But your seed inside my belly, I can feel it hot with potential. It''s unlike anything I''ve ever experienced, the ability to throw my power around without calling on another or preparing it ahead of time. Beyond that, there''s also a clean stimulant effect that I quite enjoy." Maki''s unnerving stare made me feel like I was a mysterious icon of ancient power recently unearthed by a slightly insane professor. She was studying, I remembered, anthropology with a focus on East Asian archeology. That made her prime for a future role as either a swashbuckling Indiana Jones-type adventurer or your archetypical Lovecraft protagonist. The thought made me queasy and uncomfortable, so I stopped thinking it, and observed instead that underneath the slightly manic eyes was an expression of honest joy. The woman was genuinely thrilled at the prospect of studying my cum and delving deeper into its magical properties. I wondered if she''d had the opportunity to really dig into any non-vengeance-related topic since Ken''s death. That thought was wholesome enough to absolve her of any eccentricities as far as I was concerned. Her eyes moved from my face to my dick, growing no less intense as they did. "I was reticent to agree at first since I''d long considered ritualized eroticism to be too dangerous to pursue in my own studies ¨C compromising your ethics is easier if it''s pleasurable after all. But somehow with you involved, the risks feel more like challenges than dangers. And it will undoubtedly be mutually beneficial to your long-term survival." My heart skipped a beat at the implication. "Sorry, are you saying you''ll continue to keep helping me research¡­" "Oh! Did you just want to play around for tonight?" She asked, doing a poor job hiding her dismay. "No! I''d be honored. I just didn''t want to assume." "Well, it would naturally take a great deal of time to explore your abilities alone, let alone how they can interplay with mine." She bit her lip worriedly. "It might be years realistically, or ideally I should say. If you enter a relationship with someone and no longer feel comfortable, then I will obviously understand, but¡­" I laughed. "Maki, read my face. You''re offering to do a PhD thesis on my cock ¨C I''m beyond ecstatic." "Great!" She beamed. [Ally Quest Complete (Ishida Maki)] Establish a long-term sexual relationship with Maki. Reward: 50 XP, +1 Sensuality, Maki gains +2 Endurance Bonus, Used no Skill or Attribute checks: Upgrade Special Feat Infused. Congratulations on upgrading your first Special Feat! Continue to find creative and interesting uses for the others to upgrade them as well! [Special Feat] Infused (Upgraded 1): While the Mountain of Heaven still stretches on before you, the mortal realm looks small from this distance. The wellspring of Qi in your core has begun to make the metaphysical physical. This greatly enhances previous benefits and grants new ones, esoteric and not, most notable of which are: your aging is slowed, your natural lifespan is multiplied fivefold, and your base Health and Willpower tracks are increased by 3. The raw crystallized essence in your every cell is of such potency that long-term exposure has positive transmutive effects on your environment and companions. Your soul glows only slightly brighter than before, but the ''light'' it casts now shines like the grandest of diamonds. The Producers were trolling me. Were they upset that I''d done it without rolling any Dice? After Maki''s dire warning, I couldn''t really savor the Reward, and I was never beating the ''You''re a god'' allegations after this. Maki was frozen, her smile having warped fully into the domain of insanity. I appeared to have broken her, temporarily I hoped. I started awkwardly, "You probably have questions¡­" She shook herself out of her stupor. "No." "No?" "No, I''ve decided to make you cum until you cry." "Oh." Maki went cross-eyed as she examined the head of my cock then stretched out her jaw and tried to take it into her mouth. There was an immediate panic and embarrassment that came upon her as she struggled to pick an angle of attack. She was mostly giving me a lot of the roof of her mouth. Even a bad blowjob is a blowjob though, and Force Armor completely negated any of the discomfort of her failed attempts to keep her teeth out of the way. I did appreciate that she was trying and tried to communicate that by rubbing her shoulder. She shivered at the stimulation but pulled off me with a pout regardless. "Don''t patronize me." "Sorry. You were so confident earlier, I felt bad." "I meant what I said! There''s just a learning curve I need to get past." "I have complete faith in you. That said, for my own sake, I must insist on giving you a hint. I know what you''re thinking, but it''s literally not too big." Maki scoffed. "Don''t make your hints so obvious, you''re still patronizing me." She gave my member an appraising look. "So, I need to take it on faith that it''s literally not too big¡­" She shifted herself and hunched over my cock, visibly irritated at having to lift her breasts off my thigh. After a few steady breaths, she opened her mouth and let her lips get around my bulbous head as best as they could. With one last glance up at me from the corner of her eyes, she pushed herself down slowly. She coughed as I hit the back of her throat, sending a splatter of spit onto my balls and thighs, and stopped. I felt her pleasure spike sharply and saw her squeeze her thighs shut, fighting it back as best she could. I slapped a hand down on her actively flexing ass, using a Seduction roll and Touch to Speak to let her know just how much I liked it. "Enjoy yourself, woman!" A sharp glare told me she had too much pride to climax halfway through the task. She backed off and fell into a fit of coughs. "A good blowjob doesn''t need to go deep, you know?" I offered helpfully with a grin, knowing it would annoy her. "Shut up, samurai. Your lady doesn''t need advice on lovemaking from a wild beast. I''ll make you regret looking down on me, James Li." I leaned back and rolled my shoulders with smug satisfaction. "God, I can''t wait to make you cum from eating your pussy. I am going to be so insufferably pleased with myself, you have no idea." The thin priestess growled, swiping some of her hair out of her face angrily. Then, with a look of inspiration, she grabbed my wrist and placed my hand on top of her head. I ran my fingernails across her scalp as I brushed her hair out of the way for her. Maki laid her tongue out over her lower lip and teeth and took my head into her mouth once more. She bobbed her head lower but stopped before it could touch her throat and started moving her tongue. The feeling of the wet flat of her tongue stroking broad circles under and around my tip made me involuntarily grip a fistful of her hair. She shined with preening victory at me from the corner of her eyes and arched her back up. Her butt pressed up into my hand and wiggled enticingly. My fingers slipped like a knife over her ass, making her jump at the touch, and down through her thighs. They were still squeezed shut but the path was well lubricated by her natural juices and I could easily overpower her anemic hip adductors. I let my fingers rub across her folds, avoiding both her clit and making entry, happy to tease her along. Once more, my new Finesse Special Feat helped me play her like a fiddle. Maki didn''t want to come just yet and I wasn''t going to force it out of her, but that didn''t mean I''d make it easy for the girl. My partner in crime and/or fighting it was a fast learner. She used a combination of feedback from my hand on her sensitive scalp and brief glances at my face to quickly study what worked best to please me. Soon she was bobbing up and down on the first few inches of my dick while twisting her neck and head to treat it to a comprehensive tongue bath. Once or twice she let my cock come to wrest at the entrance to her throat before pulling back. The problem, as far as I could tell from monitoring the erotic energy gathering around us, was not that she didn''t think she could take more of my dick, but rather that the sensation of coughing on top of it would drive her into a rapid orgasm. I began to circle power into my testes, a mere act of will to transmute some of the energy already starting to pool there into a blessing. Like I''d said, a good blowjob doesn''t need to go deep, and this was certainly a good blowjob. I''d be popping off soon and saw no reason not to give the woman her duly earned reward by fighting it back. Maki paused her ministrations, clearly capable of sensing what I was doing. "Are you preparing the blessing? Can I make a request?" "Yes, although we''ll need another baseline later." "Another base¡­" she trailed off into a frown. There was a flash of ethereal blue in her eyes before she groaned loudly. "Are you serious? You''ve already made yourself more obnoxiously mystical? I don''t understand, are you trying to get kidnapped?" "Not actively," I said semi-indignantly. I didn''t want to get kidnapped, but there would probably be some insane Quest Rewards for getting turned into a sex slave if I could arrange an appropriate escape or rescue ahead of time. "I couldn''t help it, it just happened at the same time you became more durable." "I see¡­I always assumed Kami entered partnerships with mortals to enact their wills better outside of the Divine World, but perhaps there''s more to it than that. Well anyway, I wanted to ask if you would give me the same blessing you gave me at Tamaki Grill. We didn''t get to talk about it, but I tapped into that well of energy you gave me to survive running back through the rushing water to the exit. I may have drowned without it. I know I''d feel much surer of myself having it on me, and I think tapping into it for frivolous sexual reasons would have a therapeutic preventative effect against trauma since my natural instinct will be to horde it for some feared later emergency." "Of course, that one''s as simple as it gets. It''ll probably stick around a lot longer if I use my cum to do it too." She flashed me a grateful smile. "Lovely, thank you. It will be interesting to see if I can still call on the power for spellcraft if it''s already serving a purpose in my body." Newly resolved and with some confirmation of my impending orgasm, Maki renewed her blowjob with fervor. The frothy spit leaking out past the seal her lips wer forming on my shaft was dripping down, making a mess around the base and over her hand which was tightly grasped there. It was an entrancing sight, but my mind was focused on constructing the two imminent spells. I could feel her barely holding back her own climax and intended to use our mutual release to heal my wounds. Maki lowered her mouth to where I could feel her throat beginning to massage the tip, opening and closing around it in a mix of panic and anticipation. She patted the back of the hand that was still atop her head holding her hair out of the way. "Want some help?" "Mhm," came her muffled answer. I took a calming breath and made sure that the spells were ready to go, then without further ado, began to push down. The force was steady, slow, and far beyond anything she could hope to fight against. Not that she was trying to; her eyes were closed, and while she was still gagging, she had enough control over her autonomic responses to keep from trying to push herself off me. I knew that she would have preferred if I''d just thrust her all the way down, but I couldn''t resist dragging it out. She was whimpering and mewling by the time we''d reached the halfway point. With only two inches remaining, her legs began to twitch and kick at the couch. At an inch remaining, I slipped two fingers inside her burning pussy and curled the knuckles against her g-spot. Her eyes shot open at that, and we made eye contact as I drove her down the last inch to the base at the same time my thumb pushed past her puckering asshole so that I was now violating all three of her holes at once. Maki came explosively and I joined her, possessing just enough sense to pull her head back far enough so that she could actually taste my cum on her tongue. The blessing was a modest five Successes imparting her a small Dice pool to use as she saw fit, but the healing spell was a raucous seventeen, a previously unthinkable result. I had cast a true healing spell, not just something that would have allowed for a Recovery check, but magic actually capable of mending the injuries in an instant. It was difficult magic, clearly meant to be cast with a partner or two to pool your Dice with, and required five Successes to heal even one point of Murderous Damage. I had been ambitious trying it, but I was, shamefully, a real motherfucking Merlin when it came to sex magic. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Seven of my remaining sixteen points of Damage mended themselves at once, the bones and flesh knitting themselves together. The horrifying nerve damage and almost heart-stopping inflammation came down to what I considered a manageable level, relieving me of the insane Injury Penalty I''d been working with. Maki pulled herself off with a pop before collapsing onto my thighs. She buried her face into the base of my dick and made incoherent noises as her entire body fought through the convulsions of pleasure. Without the additional Endurance she''d received earlier, I had to imagine she would have blacked out. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Receive a blowjob from a lesbian. Rewards: 45XP, +1 Seduction, Gain Major Feat Special Sauce (Semen Upgrade) Bonus, Included deep throat: 30XP, Gain Minor Feat Snap My Choker [Major Feat] Special Sauce (Semen Upgrade) The flavor of your sexual fluids is universally delicious, surpassing what could be experienced in any mundane kitchen around the world. You receive a three Dice bonus to convince anyone who has tasted it before to do so again. However, the real power of this ability is to enhance the properties of your Meals by one step, acting as the ideal companion to any dish. [Minor Feat] Snap My Choker Throat fucking is just better when you are involved. Some may even grow to prefer it over alternatives. This both bestows temporary, extremely sensitive erogenous zones to the receiver, an ability to stretch to accommodate any insertion and ensures there is no lasting pain or damage beyond what they would consider to be a pleasant reminder. [Ally Quest Complete! (Ishida Maki)] Receive a blowjob from Maki. Reward: 40XP, +1 Affinity, +1 Investigation Bonus, Consensual throat fuck: 30XP, +2 Linguistics (Japanese) She was covered in sweat when she came to a stop. I started to remove my fingers from inside her, but she squeezed her walls and legs shut, making her feelings quite clear even as she remained nonverbal. My cock was once more painfully, painfully erect. Pre-cum was flowing out of the tip in a steady, pulsing stream, making its way down onto the shell-shocked face of Ishida Maki. As much as I wanted to continue healing myself, if I didn''t let myself cum normally we''d be up all night ¨C or at least I would, Maki was clearly struggling to hold onto consciousness already. I started pumping the two fingers inside her slowly, making her shift restlessly. "I need to nut without pouring lust magic into my Qi network or else I''m going to lose my mind. Got another round in you?" (Part 4) ? Maki''s previously boneless body snapped into rigidity. Both hands reached behind her to clutch at my wrist, knuckles whitening from the effort. I let her hold my wrist still and switched from pumping my fingers to flexing them back and forth, stroking the bottom walls and rubbing the tops with my knuckles. My thumb remained in her ass but moved in a slow circle to the same rhythm so that she could feel it not only stretching her sensitive asshole but through into her cunt. The unprepared woman choked on a sharp inhale and coughed spit and whatever remnants of my cum were still coating her mouth onto my leg. "Ahm! Wait!" She whimpered as she tried to catch her breath. I slowed down but didn''t stop. "Wait for what?" "Need¡­to think. Semen," she added quickly. "Hmm. Believe you told me not to let you think." "James!" she whined. "I let you rest." "Fine, fine." I chuckled and withdrew my hand, leaving her empty, and wiped my fingers on her butt before giving it a hearty slap. My thumb was of course, completely clean, subject as it was to the reality-warping porn physics that governed the world in a very localized cloud around me. Maki gave me a half-hearted glare. "I didn''t say pull them out." I barked a laugh in reply. "Hmph. Until we can get set up to record our sessions, it''s imperative we discuss our observations immediately after climax." "Maki, I''m so horny that I''m seeing pink. I''m going caveman mode. James think no so good. Maki too pretty. Maki want fuck?" She nodded seriously and observed my throbbing cock with a look of concern and, at noticing the stream of pre-cum, a slight hint of greed. "Don''t worry, I''ll be quick, it does look¡­volcanic. You seem to be in more of a state than earlier when you stabilized your bleeding. Am I correct?" "Yes, dumping a truckload of sex magic into my body has had consequences, as you can see." I pointed to my penis helpfully. "And the sensitivity, has that increased?" The corner of her mouth curled up in a cruel smirk as she ran her thumb up the thick line of pre-cum. She popped it into her mouth and froze while sucking her thumb. "The taste!" I switched to Japanese, which had gone from passable fluency to indistinguishable from a native speaker to the level of a native-born scholar of the language, all in one night. "Got better, yeah. Sometimes the gains are directly related, like the taste and volume of my cum, and sometimes they''re indirectly related¡ª" "Like getting better at Japanese from having oral sex with a speaker," she completed with excitement just barely bordering on the safe side of unhinged. "You utter bastard, that''s so unfair. At least it''s going to be fun learning how to keep up with you. Your semen when already imbued with your magic, for the record, is either easier to call upon or is the same. I won''t know until I get to experience the new baseline." "Perfect, let''s knock that out, shall we?" "Ah! Wait¡ª" I stood and swept Maki into a bridal carry in one clean motion. She would have been light enough to throw around without issue regardless, but doing so without the distracting pain of my Injury Penalty was invigorating. The woman flailed at first like a startled cat before getting her arms around my neck. I doubted she''d been carried like this before or ever expected to be. By now I''d learned to read her fairly well; she was silently afflicted by some emotional turmoil, bothered by the connotations of being held like this. With those in mind, I turned towards my bedroom instead of the bearskin rug I''d initially intended to move to. Symbolically carrying Maki across the threshold of my room inflamed some romantic impulse within me. And, I had been curious about the changes to the furniture. "Oh, come on, a ceiling mirror, really?" I groaned at what the bedroom had been turned into. The majority of the space was dominated by an outrageously large bed equipped with a nine-foot by nine-foot (2.74m) mattress. Its posts and headboard were covered with elaborate arcane carvings, a motif matched by the large silk rug below. The walls were thankfully tastefully decorated with Late Imperial Chinese love poems beside beautiful ink paintings of women in elaborate dresses. They had been made in defiance of Qing-era censorship and smuggled out by Mughal merchants, their history coming unbidden to my mind. The only obnoxious parts were the two full-length mirrors, one facing the bottom of the bed and the other on the side wall, and the aforementioned huge ceiling mirror looking down over the entirety of 81 square feet of mattress. Only in my most depraved, libidinous fugue would I have thought to install a ceiling mirror. That said, I was already thinking of ways to tease Maki with her reflections, so maybe the Producers had the right idea after all. Speaking of, I tossed Maki onto the fluffy comforter and silk sheets, savoring the way she blushed at herself in the mirror above. Her pale skin was flushed and covered in sweat, her hair in disarray, and her nipples hard and pointed to the sky. Thighs, chin, and breasts were sticky with spilled sex, and through and over it all was an aura of lust and desire. I hopped onto the bed and straddled her chest so that my cock fell between her breasts and lowered some of my weight down to trap her there. "This way we can keep discussing our observations," I explained, slapping the head of my cock onto her nipple, anointing the stiff peak with my ample pre-cum. "Sp-speak for yourself!" stuttered Maki, tossing her head back. I leaned back slightly to ensure that she could see her own desperate expression. "If you recall, you¡ªah! You bastard!" I swiped her other nipple. "You made me extremely sensitive." I held the base of my cock, where a fresh fountain of pre-cum was washing away the remnants of Maki''s spit, down onto her right breast. From there I painted a slimy wide and long brush stroke across the valley between and onto her left breast. Maki whimpered and clasped her hands over her mouth as I began to deliver light whaps with my heavy rod. The slaps were just hard enough to sting and splashed the pre-cum over her chest, neck, and chin. "Surely, the iron-willed miko of the Black Harbor Shrine can''t be so easily defeated. I, on the other hand, have been so driven mad with lust that this is the least disruptive I can be." "You''re an ogre, James," she said with a sharp look, though all of the bite in her words was diminished by the way she''d begun to run her hands along my outer thighs. Reaching behind me, she slapped my ass with both hands. "Very well, rut away, samurai. I am quite eager to get a taste of the new baseline." I bucked a little in surprise, poking her below the chin with my dick. "Gladly." Pushing her boobs together, I forced my cock into their velvety embrace with a slow, slightly downward thrust so that she could feel its meaty heft. Maki and I shared a simultaneous satisfied exhale at the sensations. She lifted her head and bathed my member as it poked through, cooing at the flavor. I let my Force Pythons wrap around her breasts and reached up for one of the many pillows, using it to prop up her neck for her comfort. Maki applied some greedy suction as I pulled back, stretching her lips over my angry, red head. "Thank you. Though you could grab and force me into position too if you want." I raised an eyebrow at her. "Like it rough?" She shook her head. "I like watching you lose control. I like feeling you give in to your lust. It''s flattering, you know? I know I''m a good-looking woman, but you are, well, whatever you are. Even if your current state is the result of your magic, it''s still empowering to be the object of your bestial affections." Her words were getting faster, her voice throatier. "The most beautiful creature in the city, you could have anyone with a few words and a flash of your heavenly penis, but you''re here with me. I''ll be a legend amongst practitioners once they learn I seduced you into bed. They may approach me ¨C actually, they will definitely approach me to get to you, but don''t worry, I''ll carefully curate whom I allow access." I felt like she was rewriting history about who seduced whom, but I wasn''t going to correct her. "Fuck, Maki, you got the weirdest dirty-talk game in the city, but goddamn do I love it." My complement had a strong effect on the woman. She pushed her chest up into me, momentarily stealing her own breath away. "Yesss. Show me how much you love it. You''re right, I could resist this pleasure if I wanted, but I don''t. You''ve got me so worked up, James, that I don''t care about our research, I just want to watch you cum for me. I want you to cum for me, James. I want you to fuck my tits," she said, emphasizing the vulgarities, "until we cum together." I groaned and shuddered. Hearing Maki of all people say ''fuck my tits'' had nearly pushed me over the edge. I sent a telekinetic limb to hold her legs together, then used another to fuck her thighs in time with my cock, forcefully rubbing the tendril against her clit, cunt, and ass. If we were dropping the pretext of this being to facilitate a discussion, then there was no reason to hold back. Maki moaned loudly, not holding her voice back at all, truly giving in to the moment. "Yes, that''s it. Fuck my chest and fill my mouth with your cum. Give me your lifeforce, I want that too. I''m going to become the most powerful spiritualist in the city using it, James." I groped her chest aggressively, rolling each nipple between my thumb and forefinger. "Mph! You like that thought, don''t you? Like me, you love the idea of a strong, powerful woman moaning your name. James, oh, James, cum for me darling, cum for me and make me a queen. Anoint me with your holy oil, elevate me! Yes! A belly full of your precious seed is going to make me a living legend." "Jesus Christ," I gasped and had to slow down to avoid busting. Damn, I really did like that thought. She sipped her teeth in disappointment, but she''d inspired me with that last sentence, and I was far too impulsive in my current frenzy to even consider an alternative. Prior to her statement, actually spending Experience to lean into this magic semen stuff would have been ridiculous to me. I needed to focus on my glaring weaknesses, not spend my limited resources on something that would only make me more likely to be kidnapped. She dug her nails into my thighs. "Harder, faster," she demanded. "I want to feel your sweat drip on me." But investing in my semen was investing in Maki, in a way. I could dual cultivate with and train Annie, but I was relying on the priestess to carve her own path to power. I looked down at the beauty beneath me, hair splayed out like a black halo, eyes staring back up at me with naked, possessive desire. A vision of Maki in the future, smiting a Hungry Ghost with casual ease filled my mind ¨C I had to help make it a reality. Fuck it, I thought. I''ve been rewarded for all of these impulsive buys thus far anyway. I bought the upgrade for Cum Overflowing, then engaged Style Maker to come up with a good custom companion feat to go with the growing suite of semen feats. I had high enough related Attributes and Skills as well as several prior feats to build off of, so the real difficulty came in powering through my lust-crazed haze to creatively come up with something. [Major Feat] Cum Overflowing You produce an amount of seminal fluid with every orgasm equal to your number of Dice in Endurance squared times what you would normally produce. [Major Feat] Mr. Fresh & Clean Your bodily fluids carry with them some of the inexplicable aura of physical purity that you possess. They will stay as fresh and as hot as they were when they exited your body and will leave whatever they come into contact with cleaner than before. Unless deliberately placed into a vessel, they will harmlessly vanish without stains when unobserved for a period of time. While these are inexplicable effects, they are very noticeable. Oh, hey, that was going to be amazing for keeping my blood off crime scenes too, nice. Already satisfied that I''d made a decent call, I decided to go the additional step and buy another 2 Dice of Endurance. Those were always useful, still left me with 93 Experience, and, most importantly to my erotic-energy-ridden pre-frontal cortex, meant I would produce eighty-one times as much cum as normal. With that, all higher thinking left my brain. I placed a hand on top of her head and seized hold, keeping her head at the proper angle to catch my cock. Maki rolled out her tongue and stretched her jaw wide, squinting an eye-smile at me. I shuffled up on my knees so that my enormous head was fully occupying her mouth when thrust forward, and began. Counting on my Porn Physics to keep her safe and happy, I began to properly fuck her tits as hard as I could while still maintaining a rhythm that I could match with my Force Pythons through her thighs. I could have gone faster, but even in my most bestial, I had my principles, one of which was that the woman either came before or with me. Poor Maki, iron-will or no, she stood no chance. It wouldn''t have surprised me if she could have potentially withstood the absurd fifteen Successes I got from a Sensuality + Seduction check, but it was never going to be easy. Her eyes were locked onto mine the entire time, and I could see the exact moment when she decided to not bother fighting the feelings and give in. The room was filled with the noise of wet slaps, the sound of my thighs and balls hitting jiggling breasts, and heavy breathing. Between the steam heater, my ridiculous body heat, and her sweat, the air in the room was like a thick blanket wrapped around us, comfy for me but perhaps somewhat oppressive for her. Not that I think she minded, if anything it was adding to the experience for her. Maki, once she''d decided to yield to pleasure, had done a glute bridge as best as she could manage with my telekinesis pinning her thighs together. Despite the position notably shortening her breaths, she was clearly craving the pressure from the weight. Her first orgasm came when I made a minor shift in weight; thus far I''d been avoiding putting enough down to interfere with her breathing, but sensing she wanted it, I took her just past where it would have ordinarily been comfortable. Maki''s eyes, which had been unblinkingly burning me into her memory, rolled up as she came. She slapped and clawed at the sheets as she spasmed helplessly, but impressively didn''t stop moving her tongue. There was a large and growing wreath of white, frothy cum and spit atop her breasts, rolling down over her neck and chin that she continued to fervently lap up even in the throes of her orgasm. I was close as well, but I couldn''t give this up just yet, especially after seeing the look of loving gratitude that came upon her once she regained some semblance of lucidity post-climax. For both of us, this was much more than physical. We saw one another as grand conquests, living testaments to our sexual and romantic prowesses. A narrow two Successes on an Endurance + Willpower check let me titty-fuck another orgasm out of her. This one, built on top of the last, caused her to arch her body up as hard as she could and then collapse bonelessly beneath me. I gave one last thrust and began to cum into her mouth. Cum Overflowing applied a multiplicative effect to what I would have normally produced. Now, this was the third time I''d cum tonight which meant that it would have been on the smaller side, however, there was an ungodly amount of Erotic Sorcery pumping through my body which was already increased my production. Maki, still mid-orgasm herself, was unprepared for the force or the volume of the first two shots which hit the back and roof of her mouth, and began coughing, covering the top of her breasts with my pearly white seed. I was nearly bowled over by the sensation myself. It felt not unlike a gut punch, and I ended up covering her face with another three insanely powerful jets before I could shuffle back and take aim. Eighty-one times the normal volume of cum would have been more than enough to completely bukkake Maki. This was not the normal volume. I covered her breasts, neck, and much of her shoulders in a heavy glaze, my semen being unusually thick and pearlescent; she was quick to recover and lolled out her tongue in a silent request halfway through my climax that I happily obliged. Quite a bit missed her mouth and ended up on her face instead. I winced when she took a shot directly to the eye, but it seemed to cause her no pain nor even enough discomfort to make her blink. The exhaustion of the day once more returned with prejudice after I finished. I flopped over onto my back beside her. Maki lay arms to her side, panting for breath ¨C I knew she was tired because she made no move to clean herself. Her chest heaved and glistened in the soft mood lighting, the only kind in my upgraded apartment. "See? Cum covered mess. Man o'' my word, I am." [Hidden Quest Complete!] Do a one-man bukkake. Reward: 30XP, +1 Endurance, +1 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery), Gain a random Semen Upgrade feat (Natural Anabolic) [Minor Feat] Nature''s Anabolic (Semen Upgrade) Other people who have consumed your semen gain a temporary +1 to their Strength and Agility for as long as it remains in their system. [Ally Quest Complete!] Tit-fuck Maki. Reward: 30XP, +1 Empathy, Gain Warding Charm x5 ¨C these wooden charms, when hung over a door or window will prevent entry from most hostile spirits and can provide meaningful resistance to stronger ones. Bonus, Introduced her to and satisfied a new fantasy: 20XP, +1 Charisma, Gain Minor Feat (Fountain of Holy (Semen Upgrade)) [Minor Feat] Fountain of Holy (Semen Upgrade) Your sexual fluids can be used in place of holy water for rituals and will prevent most possession attempts, and mind-altering effects placed on those who have been anointed with them. They will not, however, share the same destructive capability as actual holy water does upon Evils. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Consensually tit-fuck a lesbian. Reward: 50XP, +1 Persuasion [Hidden Quest Complete!] Seduce an NPC teammate after a successful mission. Reward: 50XP, +1 Lowest Attribute (Attunement), +3 Random Skill (Lockpicking) [Recurring Quest Complete] Have a notable sex scene. Reward: 5XP, +1 Random Skill (Biology) Bonus, Elaborate and extended: 15XP [Producer Reward] Congratulations on your first major mission! What a day you''ve had! We at Skindimensional Media would like to show our appreciation for your continued commitment to both play-testing our system and to performing for the Audience. Your proactive method of ensuring future content by putting your life on the line is admirable and worth incentivizing. We as Producers no longer feel the need to subject you to having to pay rent on your housing; you create more than enough problems for yourself when left to your own devices. Deed: You are the legal owner of your Base, its Upgrades, and any future Bases and Upgrades purchased through the use of Tokens and Vouchers. The taxes and utilities are handled, and you will have the legal permits to operate any businesses that would suit the facilities. Furthermore, most people will not acknowledge changes made to your Bases via upgrades, and those that do won''t investigate how you could have possibly acquired or accomplished them. In short, feel free to purchase Upgrades without having to worry about breaking the Fourth Wall. (There would still be consequences for the results of your defenses, it''s just that the police will be less interested in how you attained mechanized turrets versus the circumstances that resulted in them gunning down a crowd of attackers.) Additionally, please select from the following categories for a Viewer Selected Reward: Weapons, Gear, Vehicles, Feats, Base Upgrades, and Followers. I selected Base Upgrade immediately. While I was curious about the rest, particularly Followers, I''d been too recently tantalized by the Base Upgrade catalog to pick anything else. A second or two at most passed between my selecting the category and the result appearing; I took it as evidence that the Audience and Producers perceived time differently than I did. [Viewer Selected Base Upgrade] Meditation Chamber: Your Base has been equipped with something akin to an indoor Zen Garden perfect for both stationary and moving meditations. This provides a natural bonus to several related Skills, including any attempts to manage, cultivate, or transmute your internal energies, and has whatever altars, shrines, or circles are required for you to communicate with any beings to whom you have made Pacts, or Deals with. Oh, joy, a private line to Funikugami, I grumbled in my mind. Still, it would be useful for figuring out what was happening to Annie''s Qi, and for that, I was genuinely grateful. Though, I''d continue to grumble about it regardless. "The volume of fluid increased dramatically every time," said Maki. She had wiped about half of her face off and was holding her palm up to her face, somewhat reverently watching my cum begin to drip back down in stick strands. "Your doing, or your power''s?" "The latter at first and then I went a little nutty with it." I sighed, covering my eyes with my forearm. I could see Maki licking her hand clean in the ceiling mirror and didn''t want the distraction. In the crystal post-nut clarity, passive observations were beginning to fall into place. "I think¡­it would be unwise to rely on Erotic Sorcery for healing." "Surprisingly sensible for a homeless vigilante." "Guess you sucked the stupid out of me." I took stock of my decisions since initially stabilizing my wounds with that first spell; it was not a flattering inventory. Ken had warned me about the corruptive effects of the sword, that my inhibitions would be the first to be affected ¨C I wondered if there wasn''t something similar happening to me outside of my perception when I used magic. Immediately after the first spell, I''d purchased furniture that would look too on-the-nose in the Playboy Manor. I''d dumped a shitload of Experience into Erotic Sorcery, my most embarrassing Skill. And then, to my now horror, made a loud mental proclamation to the Audience and Producers that I would match every Die in Erotic Sorcery with an equivalent in Martial Arts. That was fucked, no getting around it either. I''d be living with that self-imposed tax for the remainder of the campaign. And then, despite just telling myself that I didn''t want to become a sex wizard, I entered into a long-term standing agreement to research the subject with Maki. What the hell was I thinking? I was going to have to be such a himbo fucking idiot to counteract all the magic I was going to be learning now. There was no way that Maki wasn''t going to go insanely deep into ritualized eroticism, and I was sure to keep earning Erotic Sorcery Dice from her efforts. The inevitable cost of all the semi-mandatory Martial Arts Dice I''d have to buy to keep up would become extortionary if I wasn''t careful. After the second spell, I''d fully taken leave of my senses. I''d bought not one but two ludicrous cum-feats after being emphatically warned about how dangerous my semen would make casual sex in the city. I might as well have walked into a witch''s hut, sat down in the cauldron, and started snacking on the carrots while she made stew because I sure as hell wasn''t going to stop having casual sex. At least the throwaway Endurance purchases had paid off. It had all kind of paid off, I guess, and none of it was terribly out of character for me. I could have seen myself making some of those decisions, but all of them, one after another? No, there had to be an explanation. The more lust magic inside me, the more erratic I''d behaved. I thought back to the line from the Producer Reward, ''your continued commitment to both play-testing our system and to performing for the Audience''. It sat uneasy with me. This wasn''t just a game or a playtest, in fact, it wasn''t really either of those, this was a show, those were just the genre and the twist respectively. I wasn''t actually a Player, I was a cast member at best, a guinea pig or subject, really. There would, of course, be hidden mechanics. What if there was a Sanity mechanic in the game, but I wasn''t privy to it? There was surely information hidden from me, and information hidden from the Audience ¨C the only real question was, what if anything was hidden from the Producers? Ah well, tonight had worked out for the best despite my own unhinged behavior. I only had the one mandatory Die of Martial Arts to buy, and I''d earned both Maki''s respect and her commitment to our continued relationship. Lady Luck had my back today, and in the future, I''d be more cognizant of the mind-altering effects of magic. I sat up and smiled at Maki. "Want some water?" "Yesh, pleash," she said through a mouthful of cum. There was an additional door in my living room that I ignored. Tomorrow, I told myself. It had been a long, but ultimately great day. If I opened that door and saw Funikugami there, my good mood would have been ruined. After chugging a few glasses of water, I grabbed Maki''s phone from her purse on the way back to my bedroom. "Thanks," said Maki as I put a glass of ice water down for her on the closest end table. It was far out of reach from where she was currently lying on the Alaskan King mattress. "Hey, no pictures!" "Relax," I said with a laugh, "it''s your phone. You can delete them if you''d like." "Or, let me guess, I could send them to you?" "Your words, not mine." Maki rolled her eyes but allowed me to continue taking pictures of her licking the cum off her fingers and palm, even posing seductively for me once she got over her camera-shyness. "Oh, I forgot to mention, it''ll stay fresh and hot indefinitely if stored." She paused, clearly torn between continuing to enjoy herself or if she should do the responsible thing and save the rest in a jar. "I can make more tomorrow, Maki. Have your snack. It''s your night." She nodded. "True. I am celebrating. I avenged my brother and seduced the city''s greatest lover tonight, you know?" "Ha! Nice, very impressive." "Yes, I think so too." Once she was mostly clean, I crawled into bed beside her. We took a few selfies of us cuddled up together, and she let me log into my social media to make a post about having broken my phone. Then, finally, with my new partner in my arms, I passed into peaceful oblivion. Funikugami was sitting on the side of the pool, kicking his feet in the water, splashing a floating beach ball my way. "Fuck!" I said, jumping in fright at the sight of the crow-headed child. I tried to pull the hot blonde I''d been chatting with behind me, but she had disappeared. "Goddamn it, you''re like a living jumpscare, you freak. And what happened to the babes?" "My apologies," said the death god, "your mind dismissed them when I entered. I do not fit into this dream very well." "Oh." I looked around at the community pool. It was a perfect summer day, sun high overhead, and temperatures in the upper 80s (~30¡ãC). "Right, I''m dreaming." "Yes, I came to complete our deal, however, when I found your mind it was under heavy scrutiny from curious mortal practitioners, so I decided to stay and keep watch." I groaned and conjured a Mai Tai in my hand. "How could I forget, our ''deal''." He bobbed his head apologetically. "You are understandably upset that I lied to you. Then, you will be pleased to learn that I am bound to tell you only the truth now that you have become a member of the Ishida Clan. Ishida Ken found a way to protect you even in death ¨C he was a remarkable man, was he not? I am sure his sister and family are glad that he is no longer trapped within the Egui''s dark stomach." I narrowed my eyes. "He also warned me not to trust you. How do I know you can''t lie to me?" "It will be easily verified once you speak to your adopted family." "Fair enough." I summoned a cigar to go with my everful Mai Tai. The taste of tobacco was ordinarily unpleasant for me, but this was my dream so I made it taste like bubblegum instead. "But don''t you dare take credit for freeing Ken from the Egui." "I meant to take nothing from your heroic achievement, but alas, it was the second curse that I placed on you that ensured my sword would be freed. The release of the languishing souls of the ghost''s victims was a happy happenstance." "So that thing about me dying if you told me what it did¡­" "I am not privy to the future with such certainty, James Li. That is the realm of a very select few. Though, from what I could see, the second curse only increased the likelihood of your death. Indeed, I did not expect you to survive. Well done, my champion." [Endowment Received] Champion of Funikugami, Carrion King Gain 1 Permanent Point of Corruption. Your Lord grants you the following four abilities. They are yours for as long as you live: I [Death''s Hand] ¨C Death will not readily claim his Champion. Convert the first four points of Murderous Damage you take in any scene into regular Damage instead. II [Oppressive Soul] ¨C Your battle aura is denser than most and is choking to be near. All other characters nearby when you are fighting suffer a 1 Die Penalty to all actions. Your allies can learn to tolerate this with repeated exposure. You can also learn to control this with some experimentation, though it will require conscious control at first. III [Black Dog of the Fens] ¨C Gain 3 Temporary Points of Corruption to surround yourself with a cloak of palpable dread. Once activated, you may convert additional Successes on melee attack rolls into Temporary Willpower damage instead for the remainder of the fight scene. IV [Curse: Certain Death] ¨C Gain 1 Temporary Point of Corruption. The next time you touch a creature, convert all Damage they have taken into Murderous Damage. For the next 24 hours, all Damage they would receive is Murderous Damage instead. Only supernatural beings have a chance of resisting this Curse, mortals cannot try. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Become the Champion of a Divine Entity. Reward: 50XP, +1 Affinity Bonus, Funikugami: +2 Stealth, +2 Perception Funikugami''s wretched black power nearly caused me to lose consciousness as it forcibly entangled itself with my soul and Qi network. Thankfully, it was a quick process, and by its end, whatever he had done to or given me felt as native to me as any of my other abilities. We were on a beach when I came to, both of us reclining on chairs, though the Kami was entirely shaded by an umbrella. Tragically, I was forced to admit it was extremely cute seeing his crow-headed boy form so out of place in this paradise resort. "So, it was all about that sword of yours? Ken told me it was you who told him where he could find it in the first place." "Yes," said the Kami, "Fate has tried to keep my blade hidden away since I first created it. Always has there been some circumstance that has intervened to see it lost once more each time I''ve had it found. I thought that I had finally been defeated when it was swallowed by the Egui; if the Ishida or the Sunada were to seal the creature away, then I would have been bound by my oaths to protect its prison, and thus, prevent anyone from retrieving the Hakkotsu no Ha, which would have been doubly trapped." "And then Maki left my dumbass alone in the Shrine." "I had to act quickly. I hope you can understand." I shrugged. "It''s whatever, man. Ken and them other souls are free, that''s what''s important. Shitty way to get there, and I don''t appreciate being tricked, but it is what it is. I knew you were lying to me anyway and I still agreed to the thing, so, can''t put all the blame on you. What now?" "You are wise, champion. Now you do as you please. Need will force you to use my sword in battle, its power is too great to ignore. If you wish though¡ª" "I don''t." He continued, "I can trade you more power in exchange for Hunting other Evils in the city. Many in Black Harbor cling to life past when I would have preferred them to die. I can empower¡ª" "Not interested." "¡ªwhat I''ve already given you. Or I can show you memories of great fights that I''ve seen, so that you may add the dead''s talents to your own." I opened my mouth to rebut him but stopped. Could I really turn that down as the Grandmaster of Black City Kung Fu? Was there any better way to use Style Maker? That was kind of my whole steez, and I was already the death god''s champion. I may as well take advantage of the situation. "I''ll¡­think about it." "That''s all I ask." Interlude 4: Jade It was a hot, late summer day the first time she met James Li. One of those days when the ocean decided to spit back at the city, a black mar on an otherwise pleasant coastline, and smother it in vicious humidity. It was muggy, intolerably so, not even nine and her shirt was already sticking to her skin. She was going to drown if they didn''t get inside soon. If only the others would just switch to vapes already, but that was a lost cause, no one ever listened to her. They were all addicted to spending thirty bucks a week to look cool in front of a bunch of people who didn''t give a shit. Jade was a born loser. She came from loser blood; her friends did too, but they were still afraid to admit it to themselves. Her mother was a Tiger widow. Her late father had his head blown off by private security while trying to knock off an armored bank van. He''d died like he lived, as an idiot. Philip, Dubs, Evie, and Caroline were in similar situations to her, though not all for the same reasons. The Tigers were helping out their families with groceries and rent with the tacit understanding it would be paid for in favors later. All four of them were planning on joining just like her once they''d graduated. Then there was Gweilo. He was a spaz they let hang out with them. She wasn''t sure why, probably because it would have been too much effort to make him stop. "It''s only two bucks, Phillip. Don''t be a dick, I''m fucking starving." "Actually, Jade, it''s not only two bucks. History shows that it''s two bucks, once to twice a week for the rest of the school year. No way, I''m not doing it this year." They were posted up by the exterior wall of the gym, everyone but her and Evie smoking cigarettes. Evie was graciously letting her hit her strawberry vape because she was a generous friend and not a penny-pinching pill like Phillip. If he was serious about becoming a captain one day, then he would do well to learn that the best way to keep your subordinates happy and loyal was to throw money at them. "It''s two dollars, Phillip." "Closer to a hundred twenty-ish a year, by my reckoning." "You''re going to let your friend go hungry over two dollars?" Phillip looked to the rest of the group for help. "Why am I always the guy buying Jade breakfast?" Dubs and Caroline busied themselves taking long drags of their cigs and shrugged. Evie rolled her eyes. "You''re the one with the cushy sales job, hot shot." Gweilo grinned at Jade. "I''ll give you five bucks right now if you call me Gus for once." "Ew, no." Phillip held his arms out affronted. "Are you serious?" "Would you do it?" she asked petulantly. "No, but I''m not the one who forgot to eat breakfast." Caroline crossed her arms and gave him an icy look. "Wow, I gave you a blowjob last week and you won''t even give my best friend two dollars for vending machine breakfast. Hm. Pretty shitty of you, Phil." The taller boy''s jaw dropped. Dubs and Evie started cracking up, the former choking on his smoke as he did. Jade gave Caroline a grateful look and mouthed ''Thank you'', receiving a blown kiss in return. Phillip began grumbling as he started to take out his wallet. "Christ, Caroline, if I''d known¡ª" he paused mid-gripe, spotting a group of three freshmen headed their way with their gym bags. Checking out what the facilities looked like at their new school, she imagined. "Oh shit, look at that. Hey, Jade, want to make some money?" She was immediately suspicious. "Why and how?" He gestured with his head at one of the boys, noticeably more cut than his friends, walking with the telltale swagger of a young martial artist. "I''ll give you twenty bucks to start a fight with that kid." "Why? Who is he?" "You want the money or not?" "Do I look fucking stupid to you, Phillip?" He sighed and did his best to look put upon. "That''s Lily Li''s kid, alright? I want to see him in action." "For twenty dollars? Are you out of your mind?" "Call it fifty." "Call it a hundred, asshole. All I wanted was a goddamn pop tart. Why don''t you go fight him? Oh, that''s right, because you want to look all mysterious and cool leaning against the wall, smoking your twenty-five-dollar cigarettes, and playing pretend gangster." He brushed off her acerbic tone and pointed insult with a chuckle. Phillip was good at brushing her off. Everyone was, but he excelled at it. It was because she looked like a boy, a little boy to be exact. Jade was short and slender, and all the weapons work she''d done had given her well-developed shoulders that made what curves she did have look nonexistent at first glance. Caroline and Evie had tried to help with her wardrobe, but while skirts and blouses could keep people from misgendering her, they made her look even younger than normal. "No, it''s because you''re the strongest one here and I''m pretty sure that kid could beat my ass. But, fine, a hundred it is." Phillip tried to look chagrined. Great, he was taking the high road. Now she was the asshole even though he was the one who tried to lowball and trick her into fighting the Eagle School brat. The jerk thought he was so clever because he could sell life insurance in three languages. She''d eat her shirt if ever he made captain. There were two things she knew for certain, one, that if Phillip could become a captain then so could she, and two, she sure as shit couldn''t become a captain. Jade scoffed. God, what did Caroline see in this asshole, other than the good looks, that was. "Thanks for the cash, I guess. I don''t know what the fuck you think you''re going to get out of this, Phil. Neither of us are even in the top twenty strongest in the school, dumbass, and we don''t have any real connections. You think you''re going to make a few wry observations and suddenly be running ops? You''re delusional. People like us don''t climb ladders, Phillip, we stay on the ground and hold them for others so they don''t fall from the top." He peeled off five twenties from his wallet and held them out to her with an easy smile. "Have a little faith in yourself, Jade. I believe in you. Shit-talk me all you like, but I don''t like hearing my friends get bad-mouthed." She snatched the money out of his hand and stuffed it down her mostly pointless bra. "You''re fucking insufferable, you know that?" The boys were close enough that she could hear their nonsensical chatter now. They were arguing about Jarritos flavors from the sound of it. Only one of the three appeared worried about passing so close to their large group of senior delinquents, but one look at his two friends quieted his uneasiness. The Li kid hadn''t noticed them at all, seemingly too taken up with defending the superiority of Jarritos''s guava flavor versus their tamarind. Unlike the other two, he had no bag on him at all, neither gym nor school; that implied he had no extracurricular sports and no particular interest in academics either, very much your typical kid from a martial arts family then. "This is so stupid," she grumbled to herself, stepping out in front of him. All three freshmen were already taller than her. She hated that. "Hey kid, what''s your name?" "Me?" He asked, pointing to himself. There was a light dusting of pink on his cheeks that she found equal parts cute and annoying. "I''m James Li. The lanky guy''s Hugh and the ginger is¡ª" "I don''t care. Give me your money." "Why?" "Tch. Because I''m telling you to, you little shit." He laughed. "My bad, I meant to say, if you want to fight, you can just ask. We don''t really need the pretext, do we? There''re two things I love," he proclaimed, holding up two fingers in a peace sign, "cute girls and fighting. That''s two reasons I wouldn''t turn down a fight with you!" The fourteen-year-old gave her a cheesy smile that may have been charming on an older man. She couldn''t tell if he was making fun of her or not. His taller friend groaned and covered his face with his hand. "We''re sorry, he''s, uh, just like this...all the time." The ginger gave her an apologetic look. "Yeah, you''re a tomboy who''s bullying him, so you''re kind of like his ideal woman." "Hey! That''s slander, O''Reilly." "Where''s the lie, James?" Li had turned almost completely away from her to glare at his friend. She''d make him pay for that mistake. Jade may not have been in the running for strongest in the school, but she could hold her own, and she''d been trained by hardened criminals. The boy was four years younger than her and had grown up in the cozy little bubble that his mother provided for him, what did he know about the streets? Evidently, not enough to know not to look away right before a fight. She circled into his blindside as best she could with his other friend standing there and reached to grab the back of his neck to go for a sweep. A little ground and pound would do wonders for her bad mood and his smug attitude. Then, she was on one knee, grimacing in pain as he held her in a joint lock. It had happened faster than she could rightfully track. "Knew you''d fall for that," said Li, holding her arm behind her, putting quite a bit of stress on her elbow and wrist. "One day I''ll meet a thug who doesn''t immediately try to attack once they think I''m not looking at them, and then I''ll be really fucked." He paused, running a finger down a scar on her forearm. "Jeez, is this from tonfa training?" She felt his finger trail along the mess of callouses on her hands. "Man, you sure love weapons. Who''s letting you train like this? Your knuckles are way underdeveloped compared to your palms." Her eyes watered, from the humiliation as much as from the pain. Not only had she effectively lost the fight before it had started, but now the child she''d lost it to was dissecting her martial arts like he was remarking on the weather. The truth was that no one was ''letting'' her train like she did because no one was really ''training'' her to begin with. She''d been forced to rely on her father''s old friends to teach her what they could, and they only made time for her once every few weeks. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. He let her go, but not before kicking her in the back of the leg and giving her a push towards the wall, making her fall to her hands and knees in front of it. Jade pushed herself up to her feet. "I''m too hungry for this bullshit." Li put his hands up and took a step back. "Woah, wait, if you need the money for breakfast that''s totally different. I''d love to get breakfast with a girl like you!" She rushed him, going for a tackle, but missed when he side-flipped over her and hit the grass instead, completely ruining her new white blouse. It had been thrifted, but still, it was new to her. He was smiling, hands in his pockets, and rocking on his heels when she stood back up. "This is going to sound patronizing, but you''ve got a lot of potential, you know. There''s a lot of power and speed in your small frame. With a proper diet and good instruction, you''d be a real problem." "Quit enjoying this, you little fuck." He frowned. "Of course, I''m enjoying this! I love spending time with sexy older women!" His friends groaned in unison. "Oh my god, bro," said the taller one, "we cannot take you anywhere." Modern Day "Anyway, it went on like that for another minute or so before a teacher came by and broke it up. Jade kept trying and Li kept shutting her down while flirting. It was pretty cute honestly. Sorry, Jade. I don''t think we ever really interacted with him again, did we?" Jade shook her head. She''d have responded verbally but she was busy biting down on the stick Madame Wang had given her. The little, old medicine woman''s moxibustion had to be the most painful in the neighborhood, but it worked well enough that they were able to avoid hospitals for all but the most serious injuries. "There, done," said Madame Wang, snubbing out her lit incense. Jade took that as permission to collapse jellyfish-like onto the bed. The hunched elderly healer pointed a demanding finger at Pastel. "Absolutely no strain on the arm for at least one week." "Got it. Thank you, Madame Wang. I''ll have the cash sent over to your granddaughters'' place. Caroline, you''re on Jade duty. Jade, if I hear you left your apartment for any reason other than to relax or eat, I''m docking your pay." Madame Wang bowed, neatly packed her belongings away, and exited without another word. That left the three alone in the apartment she and Caroline shared, just the two of them and their captain. Jade spat out the bite-stick. "I don''t need a babysitter." "Too bad, you''re getting one." "Awwww," said Caroline, hugging Jade''s head to her chest. "I can''t wait to pamper you for a whole week." Pastel opened the window wide and sat on the sill, hanging a leg out of the building. She lit up a cigarette and closed her eyes in thought. "God, I hate the smell of Madame Wang''s incense, reminds me of all my worst injuries." Shelley ''Pastel'' Chan was the only person in the world allowed to smoke inside their apartment. That was half because she was their boss, and half because she had never asked for permission before lighting up. Jade knew it was a power move, and if anyone else tried it she''d have been pissed, but she didn''t mind when it was Pastel. The older triad was everything she''d ever wanted from a captain, a badass bitch who she could genuinely trust to look after her, not the sort of person who would throw away her subordinates without good cause. "James Li, what am I going to do with you¡­" said Pastel to herself. Jade gave Caroline a questioning glance. She knew some things had been kept from her while Madame Wang had been working. Shocks to the system could cause ''catastrophic Qi cascades'', or so said the healer. "He burned down Junior''s counterfeit liquor operation," explained Caroline. "What?" Jade sat up, wincing as the movement disturbed her cast and bandages. "Not on purpose though. There''s no way he came there to fight a ghost and burn down a warehouse." Her captain flicked some ash out the window. "Won''t mean much to Junior." "Fuck Junior. That New York asshole''s the reason the Li''s are mad at us in the first place." Pastel only smiled in response. Jade knew she was as angry as anyone that Guangzhou had sent someone from New York to replace Boss Gao after his death. "How¡­burned down are we talking?" "Just enough left over for the DA to put together a pretty strong counterfeiting case once they get a name they can attach it to." "Thousand-foot fire tornado burned down," added Caroline. That idiot, what was he thinking? Junior would be forced to respond to such an overt display of defiance. Great, just fucking great. "This sucks." Cap and Caroline shared an amused look. "You''ve got it bad, don''t you, girl?" asked Pastel. "When did he win you over, when he flashed his dick at a ghost, or when he kicked you through an A/C unit?" When he saved her life, probably. "Oh, shut up. He''s a privileged, pretty boy, dumbass, wannabe influencer, arrogant dickhead. I can''t stand guys like him." Maybe if she said it a few more times she''d start to believe it, she thought sardonically. What a sad joke, falling for a guy she''d met twice and got her ass kicked by both times. She was such a loser. What was she even hoping for, what was the best-case scenario in her mind? A whirlwind romance, her own Romeo and Juliet story except with a happy ending ¨C God, she really was a fucking idiot, wasn''t she. Fuck! Why couldn''t Caroline or Pastel have told her about the warehouse before she''d spent six hours lying still for Madame Wang? And why had Jade let herself get her hopes up in the first place? So stupid¡­she really couldn''t think of why she thought she had a chance with him to begin with. She saw one man, shining, golden, fighting a ghost, and her idiot brain started believing that heroes were real. His stupid, beautiful eyes must have tricked her into thinking that they could be together, that he wanted her. Caroline, predictably, saw right through her bluster. "Aw, Jade, don''t be like that. Pastel, there has to be something you can do for him. It''s not like Junior can just assassinate James, right? I mean, a lot of the younger generation like him, and everyone knows it''s Junior''s fault to begin with. If he didn''t want all of our armored cars or his counterfeit operation to get wrecked then he shouldn''t have sent Tanaka to poke the hornets'' nest." Pastel sighed. "He did want that, maybe not specifically, but he wanted the chaos. Junior wants to put his mark on Black Harbor, and he can''t do that by maintaining the status quo. Lily Li always responds when provoked. He knew what would happen, probably disappointed by the lack of bodies." "But there would be riots in Chinatown if James Li was murdered by a Triad." "And Junior would love that." "So, that''s it? We''re just going to let that greasy nepo-baby kill the man who saved Jade''s life, Chinatown''s beloved son?" "Forget it, Caroline. It''s whatever." Jade pulled the pillow over her head. She just wanted to forget all this and move on. Jade felt Pastel walk up to her bed. The older Tiger was silent, her clothes didn''t rustle and her footsteps didn''t make a sound, but Jade had learned to recognize the dime-sized faint static buzz just underneath the skin on the back of her neck as Pastel''s Qi signature. Her captain grabbed the pillow off her face and tossed it aside. She held Jade''s chin with her thumb and forefinger, expression carefully neutral. "Jade. How long you worked for me? Eight years?" "Almost." "Other than training, you ever ask for anything? Vacation in Cabo? Help paying for a car?" "No, ma''am." "That''s annoying," she said flatly. "I like when my subordinates ask me for things. I want them to know I''m the sort of person who can get them what they want. What do you want, Jade?" "I¡­" Pastel tightened her grip on Jade''s chin ever so slightly. "I don''t know. This job is all I ever wanted." Pastel rolled her eyes. "No, this job is the only thing you want that you believe you can get. I''m asking you what you want that you believe I can get. And think carefully, ''cause I''m prone to take it as an insult if you underestimate me." "I guess, I...don''t want him to die, if you can swing it. He did save me and all." "That''s what you don''t want, dumbass." Caroline interjected, "She wants¡ª" "I want to hear her say it." There was a long silence. Jade knew what Pastel was waiting to hear her say, but it felt¡­wrong to even think about. Just like she didn''t let herself fantasize about going to Disneyworld when she was a kid, or fantasize about dating the hot guys that hung around Caroline ¨C these things weren''t ever going to happen, so why bother torturing herself wanting them to? Pastel started leaking a bit of her fighting spirit, not enough to wither the flowers in the room, but enough that the both of them definitely felt it. The assassin and Triad Captain had a particularly corrosive fighting spirit. "You aren''t doubting me, are you, girl?" The words sprang out from her, from where she couldn''t say. "I want him." Jade froze. Why had she said that? "You want the Li scion? You want James Li?" "Y-yes." No, no, no, what was she doing? This was going to end badly; she just knew it. Pastel patted her on the cheek. "Okay, I can make that happen." Session Zero 1 The problem with reflexes was that by definition they happened before conscious thought. I was moving by the time my brain acknowledged that I was awake, at the door to my bedroom by the time I realized the noises I''d heard hadn''t been from fighting, and out in the living room by the time I remembered that I was buck naked apart from the bandages on my chest. I skidded to a halt in front of four familiar women, dick swinging in the breeze. The bang of my door being thrown open drew their startled attention. Maki''s mother and cousin were in my apartment, here, judging from her new outfit and the smell of egg fried rice, to drop off clothes and supplies. Maki herself had been in the middle of scolding her younger cousin, Susy Sunada, who had knocked over a decorative bronze bowl off the half-wall countertop next to the kitchen. The bowl had been filled with jade Ben Wa eggs and golden balls, now rolling across the floor noisily; the hollows of the toys were filled with ball bearings meant to roll around and stimulate a woman as she moved, making them not dissimilar to a bell. The apartment reverberated with the sounds. Having sex toys for decorations was embarrassing but not surprising. What was embarrassing and surprising, was the presence of Marianne Greene in her nurse scrubs. The single mother of three, with her reasonable job and reasonable problems grounded firmly in the ordinary struggles of ordinary human beings, was a living reminder of how deeply absurd my own life had become. I gave her a stiff nod but her gaze was elsewhere. There was a mix of reactions to me bursting onto the scene in the buff. Maki was embarrassed and smoothing her eyebrows to cover her face. One look told me that she''d lied about how platonic our interactions had been last night. Ishida Ai, her mother, was the image of class, eyes locked onto my face exclusively, pretending for all the world like I was fully clothed. Susy meanwhile had turned a worrying shade of apoplectic purple and entered a state of pre-death rigor mortis, stuck staring at my dick like it was a basilisk. Marianne was too horrified by my bandages to react to the nudity, which reminded me. "Hey!" I said with a wave. "I''m uhhhh, gonna put on some pants." I shot the room double finger guns, regretting it instantly, and darted back into my bedroom for a pair of boxers. While there I started my Circular Breathing, hoping to repeat some of the fire rolls I''d gotten when fighting the Hungry Ghost. It was one Success to heal two points of normal Damage, two Successes to convert Murderous Damage to normal, and you always healed at least two points of normal Damage on a Recovery check, regardless of what you got. The game had clearly been going for anime recovery times, the kind where a character could have every bone in his body broken and only be waylaid in traction for a few weeks at most. As someone committed to living the anime lifestyle, I appreciated it. Lady Luck had enough of my bullshit it seemed, because it took eight of my potential ten Circular Breathing charges to heal my remaining nine Murderous Damage. Perhaps it was her way of telling me to pump the brakes on said lifestyle. "Woo!" I shouted, returning to the living room, chest bare. I''d slashed myself free of the wraps with my Eagle''s Talon. Balling up the soiled gauze, I threw it from behind my back into the kitchen trash bin. "Kobe! Check it out ladies, I''m back," I said, turning around to emphasize the word, "in action! How''s the new scars? Sexy, scary, scary sexy, or sexy scary?" I flexed and pointed with both thumbs at my back. Maki gifted me an exasperated sigh at the display. "Good God, y''all were not lying¡­A ghost did those?" Marianne said, half-stunned. "You didn''t have those scars last Friday so¡ª" She looked nauseous, but it passed quickly, replaced by stoic acceptance of the new reality. "Ghosts are real, and they have claws. Well, shit." "Oh, cool, you guys filled her in? Nice. What''s up, Marianne? How you holding up?" "You know me, living the dream." She broke into a little manic giggle. "Oh, fuck me, ghosts are real. Sorry, sorry, I might, I might need a minute. Am I going to have to start taking the kids to church? There goes my Sundays¡­" Ai rubbed the nurse''s back comfortingly and gently guided her to a stool. "Bring them to the Shrine, dear, much more fun. Hello, James. Thank you for looking after my daughter. I knew from the second you walked through our doors that I could count on you." "No problem! Sorry for conspiring with her to exorcise a ghost against your wishes." Ishida Ai practically floated across the room to me. The plump, middle-aged woman still had the same serene grace I''d seen from her at the Shrine, but seemed lighter, as though a warm breeze was carrying her along. Her smile, like the little priestess herself, was small and subtle but shown on me like a spotlight. She took both my hands in hers and held them together over her heart. They were cold in comparison to mine, and it brought me a special joy to warm them with my body heat. "Don''t apologize. You have blessed me a thousand times over with your defiance. I was being a frightened, foolish old hen by trying to keep Maki from her righteous cause. There was a veil of grief, I think, blinding me to our mutual suffering." I laughed. "Get out of here, are you kidding? You were totally in the right. I nearly died like five or six times, maybe more, and Maki at least twice. I threw a fire tornado at that thing and all it did was piss it off and embroil me deeeeeeep into a gang war." Maki rubbed the back of her neck. "Yes, sorry, okaasan. I''ve been very unfair to you and to everyone at the Shrine these past few years." "Hush, both of you. All has been made right." Ai twinkled her eyes at me. "Tell me, James ¨C or, should I say, Kenji, have you told your sister the good news." "Kenji?" asked Maki, confused. "Huh? Wait, Maki, Ken didn''t tell you his plan?" She looked at me blankly, brow furrowed. I groaned. "Oh my god, of course he didn''t. Your brother might own the record for posthumous pranks played on me, right up there with my paternal granddad." I paused. "Our brother, I guess." "What?" Ai''s laughs were like little chimes. "He did say your face would be funny when you learned of it, Maki. I communed with Ken''s spirit when I heard the news of your success, dear. He had much to say." "Great," I cut in, "that means you can explain while I eat breakfast." "Of course, my son. Eat, eat." "What?" repeated a confused Maki. Her mother led her to the couch and they began a quiet conversation in Japanese. I made myself a bowl of fried rice and settled in between Marianne and Susy, giving my neighbor a friendly shoulder bump. Susy had put almost all of the jade eggs she''d knocked over back into the bronze bowl they''d sat in, but my arrival made her freeze with the last two in each hand. "Weird morning?" I asked Marianne. "You could say that. Love what you''ve done with the place, by the way." "You do?" I asked skeptically. I was neutral at best now that I wasn''t overwhelmingly horny anymore. "It''s not what I would have done, but it''s a hell of an improvement. Honestly, it looks like you hired a very expensive interior designer who was trying to fuck you." Fuck with me, more like, I mentally grumbled towards the Producers. "Thanks. Not that I''m not glad to see you, but what made you stop by?" She chuckled. "I woke up this morning and saw your post, ''Broke my new phone lol, totally chill, swing by if we had plans, I guess.'' And I thought, James broke his phone at three thirty in the morning on a Wednesday; what are the chances he got himself into trouble? Lo and behold." "Yeah, well, what are you going to do, right? Couldn''t let a ghost menace the old neighborhood." "Yeah¡­" Marianne sighed and shook her head. "God, some days I just want to lock the kids inside and never let them out. Makes me think back to the last messages I got from my ex-husband before he died. I thought he was going mad talking about witches and devils." I bumped her elbow. "Don''t beat yourself up about it; I don''t think it''s a coincidence that no one believes in magic despite seeing martial artists do wild shit all the time. Something''s up with that ¨C I can practically taste the conspiracy. Plus, I mean, what would you have done differently if you believed him? You didn''t know me back then, and it doesn''t sound like you had anyone else to turn to either." "Started saving up to move to the suburbs, probably." She quirked her head and raised an eyebrow at me. "Wait, you would have stepped up for my ex-husband if I asked you to?" "Of course. Come on, I''m James Li, badass youxia hero. I''m like, contractually obligated to help single mothers with their problems." Marianne fluttered her eyelashes dramatically and rested her chin on her palm. "And here I thought was special." I spun on my stool towards her, conveniently blocking Susy''s view, and put my hand on her inner thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Just ''cause I''m a staunch defender of moms, doesn''t mean you aren''t special. You''re very special to me, Marianne Greene." Marianne smirked and dropped her voice to a whisper. "I don''t believe you. Maybe if you showed me how special I am¡­" She craned her neck to look past me and gave Susy an apologetic smile. "Sorry, sugar, did you want to say something?" Susy was clutching her phone to her chest, watching us with a wide-eyed, dreamy expression. She did have the air of a student right before raising her hand, I thought. The teen stuttered into life as we waited patiently for her to respond. "Um, you two look really cute. Could I take a picture of you?" "Aww, that''s so sweet," said Marianne beaming. "Only if you send it to me! Come here, James." "Should I put a shirt on?" "Boy, don''t even play. Like you ain''t the biggest ho on the block." I leaned back into Marianne''s embrace, my shoulder blades resting on her chest as she hugged me from behind. Susy jumped into action, turning it into a mini photoshoot, even directing us a bit. There was zero doubt in my mind that these were ending up on a fan page somewhere by the end of the day, but being seen in my boxers with a hot nurse draped over me could only be a positive. I insisted on taking some selfies with Susy as well. These, outside of the one or two where she wasn''t bright crimson, I suspected would be saved for her private collection. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Thankfully, a few pics with Susy were all it took to break through her starstruck silence. She must have been fairly gregarious when not around a crush; Marianne asked a few questions about the Shrine, and it was off to the races. I got to focus on eating a second and third bowl of rice while Susy explained her duties, her family structure, how she was going about her magical training compared to her cousins and siblings, and all about the wild morning the Shrine had as the news slowly filtered through about the Bell Street exorcism and my new status as an adopted member of the Ishida Clan. She even excitedly bragged about how she''d driven Ishida Ai here after helping make the rice with her mother, adding very, very conspicuously that she had only gotten her license after turning eighteen but how that was still faster than basically all of her friends. Marianne and I shared an amused glance at that. "And then I knocked over the bowl right after Auntie told us to not disturb your rest, haha. Sorry about that, James. Um, doesn''t look damaged to me though." Marianne sipped her teeth. "About that bowl, James, that I have to say, is a very interesting design choice on your end." I immediately decided to play stupid. "What do you mean? Jade eggs and golden cherries are way better kitchen decorations than wax fruits. Check it out," I said, pulling a pair of rin-no-tama out of the bowl, the Japanese equivalent to Ben Wa eggs. "Silk stems too ¨C not sure why they''re so long, but hey, more silk, more impressive in my book. Don''t think it''s real gold though." Marianne looked skeptical of my three-Success-lie but graciously didn''t call me out on the matter. Susy was holding back laughter but did appear to believe that I believed I was telling the truth. The Producers helpfully fed the information to my subconscious that the bowl was meant to contain party favors and that its position had more to do with it being on the way out of the apartment, rather than because of its proximity to the kitchen. I also felt assured that the bowl would replenish any contents given as gifts, though not any I sold off. I was firmly of the opinion that offering sex toys as parting gifts was completely insane, slimy, and weird, but, I did think the idea of accidentally giving out sex toys as gifts was pretty funny. "You''re free to take a few by the way. The bowl came with a ton, I think they were intended as, like, party favors." "R-really?" "Sure." I shrugged. "You''d be doing me a favor. Like I said, got plenty more taking up space in storage. Grab as many as you like." Susy picked up the largest of the eggs which sat heavy in her palm, staring at it with a mix of fear and awe. Marianne quickly rushed around to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. "Oh honey, no. Let''s talk this out, yeah? James, go do pushups or meditate or some other martial artist thing. We need a girls'' chat." "That''s right! Thanks for reminding me. I''ll be in my meditation chamber; knock if you need anything." Maki and her mother were on the couch, having a hushed emotional heart-to-heart. I slipped around them and into the Viewer selected Base Upgrade. Sunlight, bright, hot, and wonderful greeted me on the other side of an otherwise unremarkable door. It was good that I had only opened it wide enough to enter; this would certainly have interrupted the ladies'' conversations. I was standing on the covered narrow wooden patio that bordered an elaborate and beautiful Zen garden. The interior of the meditation chamber was very reminiscent of that of the Little Tokyo Shrine, if smaller than their large central chamber, in that it was expertly designed to appear as the outdoors. The large grass mounds that sat like islands amongst the freshly raked gravel, were bright green and very much alive, as were the bamboo and other trees that were used to mask the boundary walls, making the room seem larger than it was. Above it all was panel lighting mimicking a clear blue sky. I couldn''t wait to see what it looked like at night. Fully impossible without serious magical effort, were the two flowering trees in full bloom despite the season. On one side of the room was a large cherry blossom, its petals occasionally dancing down on some ephemeral wind. On the other, behind a torii, was a plum blossom; from a large branch, hung a bell on a rope over a small altar that had been swallowed by the tree''s roots. I imagined that was so I could say a prayer and converse with Funikugami, should I ever find a need to. I was curious to see what became of the place once I reunited with Mars, who had built a shaman. Would the room expand? Would the altar grow more elaborate so that she could entreat her spirits the way that Maki might her Kami? I hopped over the gravel, leaving the neat lines undisturbed, and sat cross-legged on a grass mound. Traditional meditation had never been my bag. James had preferred losing himself in the movements of a form, and Alan had liked long hikes alone to clear his head. But the atmosphere of the room did more than lend itself towards meditation, it almost demanded it of visitors. I contemplated Corruption. Between the Hakkotsu no Ha and becoming the Champion of Funikugami, I''d earned myself two Permanent Points. Filling my Willpower track with either Temp or Permanent points would mean character retirement without outside help. I''d been counting on Nasim to delve into the Corruption mechanic so I wasn''t as well acquainted as I should have been, but I knew from in-world knowledge that a fully corrupted martial artist was basically a raging demon. My mother had warned me that pursuing power above all else opened a martial artist to, little-c, corruption. It was why, she told me as a child, we took the time to spend some days not working out or studying, but simply enjoying the company of family and friends. She''d said that this was as important, if not more so, than forms or sparring. I didn''t feel any different with my two points of Corruption, but then, I hadn''t felt all that different after stabilizing myself last night either. Or, I should say, I felt hornier, but I hadn''t felt like my decision-making had been grossly affected, and yet I had in retrospect, been a total maniac. Ken too, told me that he hadn''t felt the sword''s corruptive effects until it was too late, and he was already rushing headfirst into a fight he wasn''t prepared for. As I sat, it became clearer and clearer that I wasn''t going to be able to find the differences in my cognition, at least not without spending Experience points and expanding my build considerably. An answer did come to me though, one for how to prevent corruption, and/or Corruption, when you couldn''t personally feel the difference between levels of it. "Friends," I said to myself, "AKA, get someone else to do it." It was simple, but the best epiphanies felt obvious after the fact. I was sure that I could have dug through the catalog of feats and invested heavily in relevant skills like Meditation and Insight to find some way of objectively measuring my mental and emotional changes. But I was equally sure that I could more than get by with people like Maki and Marianne around to cuff me on the side of the head if I ever got too out-of-pocket. "The real enlightenment was the friends we made along the way?" I asked myself, stroking my chin in thought. It was clich¨¦ and embarrassingly saccharine but for the purpose of defending against Ego Death, it seemed sound and practical. "Yeah, I''ll stand by that." I did worry about how the others would manage it. Thankfully, only Nasim and Mars had started the game with Corruption-powered abilities. Mars would have her tribe to look out for her, and I could trust Nasim to manage on his own. The man was a veteran exploiter and min-maxer. Hopefully, the rest would be a bit more cautious than I''d been; maybe sign one fewer deals with spirits than I had or be a little more sensible about it all at the least. There was one looming, massive problem with my plan to form and rely on a tight-knit, close social circle around me. I''d been ignoring it since I visited Ma last week, then some more that night after getting to know Marianne better, and I''d all but locked it out of my thoughts after taking Annie as a student. At the end of this, after I''d got the crew back together, we''d found or earned a way back home, how was I going to leave them behind? Was I going to leave them behind? Was I going to leave? This world had all the many problems of my old world. Global warming, corporate greed, corrupt politicians, extremist psychopaths, etc., except it also had the literal Devil. It had ghosts that would crawl through your window and drown your infant and ghosts that would beat the shit out of you on the street and eat you. There really were shadowy cabals of warlocks running things in the background, and the only news that wasn''t fake cost tens of thousands of dollars to get access to. It would be insane to stay. Although, to its credit, this world was maybe a little less racist and sexist than my old one, the result of anyone being theoretically capable of training to the point where they could reliably bring their fists to a gun fight. I had to hand it to the place, that was very cool. And as much as I internally griped ¨C I think justifiably ¨C about being forced into porn by interdimensional perverts, their chosen location was naturally much more sex positive. How that weighed up against all the great and ancient evils populating the land, I couldn''t yet say. The door opened behind me. "Kami-sama! This, this is¡ª" "Holy shit, James. Are we sure we have the same landlord?" Session Zero 2 Maki and Marianne stepped into the room onto the wooden floor that bordered the meditation garden on two sides. There was a sharp difference in their reactions. Both were awed, but Maki was notably more affected, almost stumbling in shock as she entered. Her perceptions must have been grandfathered into the normalizing effects my Deed had on the Base, because Marianne, while equally as surprised as the other woman, shared none of the existential terror. I smiled at them. "I was just thinking about you two." To Maki, I said, "Where''s your family? I wanted to show your mom my shrine. Maybe if we light incense and pray my apartment can get its own little guardian." The miko shook herself free of her thoughts and pursed her lips. "Our mother, you mean?" she asked pointedly. I held my hands up in surrender. "Honest to god, I thought Ken had told you and you just didn''t feel like talking about it in the moment." "Hah. Fair. It''s my other brother I should be annoyed with. And you''re right, last night would have been¡­" "Not the best time to talk about technically being siblings? No. Can you forgive me?" Maki surprised me by taking a step forward and full body glomping onto me with a hug. "You are forgiven, Kenji." I groaned. "Please don''t." "Why not?" She stepped back and put her hands on her hips. "What''s wrong with the name Ishida Kenji, hm?" "Kenji?" "You''re his successor, it makes complete sense." "I''m not even my mother''s successor, alright." I jabbed my chest with my thumb. "I''m my own thing. I don''t walk in other people''s footsteps; I carve my own trail." My younger sister¡ªugh, no. Maki patted my upper arm condescendingly. "Of course, you do, dear. Anyway, our mother and cousin Susy left twenty minutes ago. Their original plan was to leave before you woke, but your younger cousin Susy knocked over your decorative bowl of sex toy party favors." She paused to let that sentence hang in the air on its own for a bit. "I''ve been filling in Marianne on the Underworld while you were meditating. I thought it best she hear about it from anyone but a martial artist. We decided we''d check on you since it had been some time." It had been over thirty minutes since I''d entered? I would have guessed a fraction of that. The epiphany had been pretty good, I suppose, a pleasant reminder that I wasn''t alone if nothing else. I coughed into my fist. "Yep. Sounds good to me. So, Marianne, how much time do you have before work?" "I''ve got a little before I should leave for the bus, working a swing shift today." "Nice, I''m glad you stopped by when you did. No question, it was for the best that Maki was the one answering your questions, I won''t argue that. But I''ve also been meaning to pick your brain about Harbor Hill, and I''d like her here for that as well." Marianne was amenable and we returned to the living room; the meditation chamber felt like the wrong place for a relatively casual conversation. We left the door open, however, letting in the ''natural'' light and giving us a picturesque view. There was an overfull envelope on the low coffee table. I picked it up curiously. "It''s as much money as they thought you would accept as payment. I warn you, there''s no way to get out of taking it. You will also be expected to take a salary, as an official retainer to the Shrine. My mother invited you to come at your leisure for a proper introduction to the rest of the family and an orientation to your duties. I would ask you to let me know when you intend to be by so that I can be present as well." I blew out a puff of air at the contents, five freshly bank-wrapped thousand-dollar bands in twenties. "Oh, thank god," I muttered to myself. I''d have done a show of ''I can''t take this'', but even without having to pay for rent, money remained tight. No way was I taking a salary though, who''d ever heard of a salaried hero? I passed Marianne two of the bands, rolling a Deception + Finesse to trick her muscle memory into taking the money before she could realize what I was doing. Four Successes later saw her looking aghast at the two thousand dollars in her hands. "A completely reasonable fee for waking you up in the middle of the night to stitch me together last week. I don''t want to hear it." "Are you out of your mind? This is way more than I would have made for that job. James, this is more than I make most weeks." "That''s not even an ambulance ride, woman; I don''t have insurance. It may be more than you would have been paid, but not more than I would have had to pay for an emergency, midnight, at-home, trauma nurse visit. In fact, you''re cutting me a huge deal. Thanks!" "James¡ª" "Marianne. Can the impossible happen in Black Harbor, for once, please? Can two good deeds go not just unpunished but actually rewarded in one day? Can the unthinkable happen? You have the power, Marianne, all you have to do is accept the money that''s already in your hands. Me and you, we can hold back the tides of cynicism by being paid to be exceptional, civic-minded neighbors. Imagine that, a Jersey miracle." She was conflicted clearly, but I had spoken to a feeling that all decent people in the city probably had at one time or another. "I mean¡­I had a pretty great time that night. I mostly remember what happened after stitching you up. I''m not trying to sound cold, but if you getting badly injured means¡ªwell, no, I''m not going to go that far¡ª" Maki interrupted her with a hand on her elbow. "I know precisely your sentiment, I assure you. However, I also believe you should take the money. Surely, saving James''s life is worth more than a few orgasms and two thousand dollars, no?" Marianne sighed. "Well, shit. Fine. You two fight dirty. What did you want to know about Harbor Hill?" Twenty minutes later I was tapping my finger on the side of a coffee mug, trying to put together what sounded so familiar about Harbor Hill''s story. Maki and I had grown up in similar contexts; both Little Tokyo and Chinatown had, when we were children, been the backdrops to a series of bloody, on-and-off gang wars. But by the time we were in our teens, they had stabilized into two of the safer neighborhoods in the city. Harbor Hill on paper was nothing like Little Tokyo or Chinatown. It was larger than both combined, more populous, poorer, and far more ethnically diverse. The timeline was off too. In the late eighties and early nineties, a full decade prior to the Yakuza''s and Triad''s internecine wars, the neighborhood''s criminal underworld suffered a total collapse. And rather than reach a new equilibrium in the over thirty years since, it had only remained in chaos. "Can I ask why you wanted to know all this? I get you live here, but you do have your own gang problems to worry about." "I must concur with Marianne, James. I hope you''re not adding too much to your plate. You do recall that the Yakuza have expressed some interest in killing you." There was no use explaining to Maki the difference between an invitation to fight potentially to the death versus an outright duel to the death, I thought. The priestess would not understand. I looked at the women, confused and concerned by their ignorance. "They''re all directly related to each other, aren''t they? Most thugs aren''t robbing and stealing on the blocks that they live in." I continued, seeing that they weren''t quite following the logic. "Sure, they''ll fight for territory to sell illicit drugs and services, but no one is snatching chains from their neighbors. Those people know where you sleep. Idiot kids aside, of course, no accounting for teenage stupidity." Marianne frowned. "I wish that were true, but I''ve known plenty of people who''ve been robbed by fellow Hillers. I''d never say this to Darius and Shaun ¨C I don''t want the boys to fall into the wrong crowd ¨C but a big reason I stay on this street is because Papes and his men keep the peace on the block. I mean, the people who tried to take Shania''s groceries live in the Chauncy Projects, not ten minutes walk from here." I should have killed those two. Stealing food from neighborhood girls in broad daylight, they were worse than roaches, at least those would scatter when you turned on the lights. Chauncy Projects, eh? Maybe I''d stop by for a classic, Daredevil hallway fight scene against a mob of mooks¡ª The artificial sunbeams coming from the open door to the meditation chamber grew warmer upon my face. Kill them, what was I saying? As if wantonly cutting down a dozen dumbass petty criminals would do anything for the general safety in a neighborhood with four-hundred-thousand people in it. "One sec." I let the faux sun warm the back of my head as I turned to the Hakkotsu no Ha, still sitting innocently in my umbrella stand. There was no roll required to call it telekinetically to my hand, the white blade was all too eager to come. I disrespectfully lobbed the wakizashi into the mediation chamber and slammed the door shut. "Sorry about that. Where was I?" "Right, it''s all related. Chauncy''s ten minutes'' walk away, right? Well Chinatown''s a ten-, fifteen-minute bike ride. The Underworld is a delicate ecosystem ¨C you literally cannot meaningfully change one neighborhood''s balance of predators and prey without affecting every other, and not only those in Black Harbor or New Jersey. One of the instigating events before the last big gang war in our Chinatown was when the Tigers consolidated control of Manhattan Chinatown. It flooded Flushing Chinatown, Philly, and us with displaced shooters and veterans looking to reclaim lost face and territory." I studied my black reflection in the coffee mug. In the dark brown tones of the cheap pre-ground bean juice, I was older, more Alan than James. "What''s bothering me, is that the story makes sense to a point. The Haitians lose control of Harbor Hill in the early nineties, thus beginning a free-for-all for the neighborhood. The violence inevitably spills out, destabilizing Little Tokyo and Chinatown enough that by the late nineties cold wars start getting hot. Then, somehow, twenty-plus years later we''ve reached a point where almost every neighborhood in Black Harbor has seen huge improvements in violent crime rates except Harbor Hill? For God''s sake, they''re building condos in the Foundry! Luxury condos in the Foundry. So, thirty years ago, Harbor Hill was enough a part of the broader Underworld that war here could precipitate conflict across the city, but now the violence has no apparent effect outside its borders? Something must be happening to keep that the case." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Maki was skeptical. She alone out of us three had the luxury of growing up at a healthy distance from any gang violence. Well, my parents had tried their best, but Dad was a thief and Ma was Ma. They kept Crystal and me as clean as two people waist-deep in mud could. "I''m not questioning your expertise in the Martial World, but don''t you think that you''re confusing correlation with causation? If the events were only tangentially related to begin with, then nothing has changed." I shook my head. "That''s plain ridiculous, I''m sorry. Listen, there''s a square mile in Harbor Hill with sixty-six thousand people in it, and a lot of those people live exceptionally violent lives, kind of a self-perpetuating cycle sort of thing where they drag each other in. If I know one thing for certain, as sure as the sky is blue, there are some bad motherfuckers in that square mile." "Maki," I tapped my temple, "think about everything you know about martial artists. If left alone, we will find reasons to fight each other. In thirty years, at least one real monster should have been able to claw themselves out and make a name for themselves, shake things up. But that hasn''t happened; therefore, we are not being left alone." "I," she quirked her head and grimaced, "don''t have enough information to dispute your argument." With her body language she added, ''But, I''d like to.'' "Maybe that''s a good reason to not stick your neck out," offered Marianne tentatively. "What do all these bad motherfuckers know, that you don''t, right?" Maki scoffed. "Don''t bother. James''s neck grows longer every time he has a heroic thought." "Yeah¡­had to try though." Marianne was being careful with her expressions, holding back some opinion. I could have made an Insight check, but it was much easier to ask. "What''s on your mind? You''re the local." She mussed her hair and groaned. "Tell you the truth, James, I''ve been conditioned not to think too hard about the topic. It''s always another tragedy, nothing ever changes ¨C just sad, sad, sad, every day. I think a lot of us treat it like the weather, you can''t do anything about it, but you try to keep an ear out for when it''s best to stay inside." A weariness settled upon her features, familiar to her I thought. It looked to be at home weighing on her, sagging her shoulders and gaze lower. Rather than aging her, it had a reverse effect, reminding me that she was only ten years older than me. At thirty-two, she was a young woman by most standards. It was unfair that she''d had to live so much life in so short a time. "What you''re saying makes enough sense to me though. When Shania was born, I used to be so jealous of Little Tokyo, and this was before the big renovations. The violence was as bad as the Hill, but it almost never touched innocent people, the Yakuza kept it to themselves for the most part. I used to think, ''What the fuck is wrong with us that we can''t do that?''" Hopelessness did not become Marianne. "I''m going to change that," I said. "At the very least, it will be safe to walk around Harbor Hill during the day. That''s an achievable goal for me, and I''m going to make it happen. It''ll make it much safer for me as well. The more secure the Hill is, the less likely outside gangs are to launch an assault in the neighborhood." She didn''t believe me, but I could tell that she wanted to. "Not having to cling to my teenage son when I want to do my laundry would be nice. There are some items of clothing I''d rather he didn''t see me cleaning. I''ll help however I can to make that a reality." "Thanks. It''s nothing dangerous, and I''ll make it up to you however I can. You have a lot of family in the neighborhood, right?" "That''s the only reason we still live here." "I want you to ask around for me if that''s not too much trouble. Tell them that James Li wants to know what the current state of affairs for the Harbor Hill crime scene is. Don''t reach out to anyone you''re uncomfortable with, of course." Marianne let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "James, if I don''t reach out to anyone I''m uncomfortable with, you aren''t going to find out anything at all." Maki explained for me, having followed along. "That''s fine. He just wants the word out around the neighborhood that a powerful martial artist transplant is beginning to investigate its Underworld. Fox hunting, I assume, James." "Yep, flush ''em out. First thing anyone interested is going to do is go to Papes'', the information broker who knows me. I''m planning to have made a deal with him by the time that starts happening." Marianne was startled. "Information broker? I thought he was a pimp." "He is. Natural companions, those careers." "Ah. Well, I can certainly ask around for you but," she smiled, returning to her mature, confident disposition, and asked, "what was that about making it up to me?" "Hey, name your price. Anything for you, Marianne." Her eyes flickered to Maki. She checked the time as nonchalantly as she could. "I should probably get going. I want to put together a sandwich for dinner, otherwise I end up getting fast food with the other girls. Walk me out?" Maki pulled out her phone and conspicuously distracted herself with it as I got up to do so. Marianne stopped at my door, leaning her back against it, and gave me a ''come hither'' with lidded eyes. I did as she commanded and stepped in closer, pinning her against the door. She draped her arms around my neck and just stared up in silence, a small, satisfied smile on her face. "I''ve been dreaming about you. Shania has too, I''m guessing." "You still want me to¡­" "Yes. I know it''s a little weird, but I can''t think of a better man. She needs someone to break her out of her shell, and we can''t afford therapy." "No need to justify it to me." I gestured with my head back to the living room. "I''m about to fuck my adopted sister ¨C got no room to talk." Marianne barked a laugh. "How could I forget, a ghost made you his heir after you rescued him from another evil ghost. My life''s going to be a lot more interesting with you in it, isn''t it?" "Unfortunately." "You''re alright. It''s been interesting for all the wrong reasons so far. Getting pregnant at fourteen sure wasn''t boring, I can tell you that." Marianne rested her cheek against my chest. "Maki''s nice, a bit sharp around the edges, but I''m glad she''s looking out for you. You really think you two can fix Harbor Hill? It''s a big place with a lot of problems." "I know I can, and with a little help, I will. Speaking of, you''ve got me curious how I''m paying you for your part." The nurse purred, and her hands began to travel across my sides and back. I got a mental picture of the network of scars left behind from my fight with the Egui as she did, her palm feeling different, slightly muted, to my scar tissue. "You mean for the extremely difficult job of texting my friends and family, and only the ones I''m still in regular contact with?" "Shit, it''d take me half the day to do the same. I''d charge too." "True, definitely going to be navigating a lot of ''you hitting that'' conversations for the next few days." She pulled back away as best she could with our waists still pushed together and started to count off. "One, the boys are away on Friday so I told Shania she could have a sleepover with her best friend. They want to see a movie that ends after it''s dark, think you could escort them to and back?" "Sure. You want me to¡ª" Marianne held a finger to my lips. "Oop, stop right there. Shania''s friend, Aminah, is from a very religious family. All I''m going to tell them is that I''ve arranged for the girls to have a neighbor escort them to and from the theater, and that I''m going to check that they''re being good when I get back from work, a little after midnight. That''s all I''ll tell them because that''s all I''m planning to know, got it?" I nodded. "I''ll keep them safe and make sure they have a good time." "Thanks." She gave me a quick peck on the lips. "Personally, on an unrelated note, I think that having your first sexual experience with your best friend there for support would be empowering and sweet. And it would keep one of them from getting jealous of how far the other''s been and rushing things to try and keep up. You got to watch out for that with shy girls." "Completely unrelated, of course." "Of course. And two, you start training pretty early ¨C would it be alright if I start sending the boys over before school a few days a week for lessons? I worry about them." "Sure," I shrugged. I liked teaching kids, that was no trouble at all. "Send them by whenever." I got another kiss in reply, this one a bit longer than a peck. "Thank you so much." She hesitated and reached for the doorknob behind her. "I should get going for real now." I caught her wrist. "Oh no you don''t. No one starts to count off on their fingers if they only have two things to address. Let me hear that third request, Marianne. What can I do for you?" "It was silly. I don''t know if I''ll even ever have time for it on my end." "Great, I love silly shit. Let''s hear it." She bit her lip and looked embarrassed. "Look, if it can''t happen, it can''t happen. No harm in throwing it out there though." She sighed. "No judgment?" "Do I need to fuck my adopted sister in front of you for you to believe me? Woman, the list of people I got the room to judge dwindles by the hour." Marianne laughed. "Fine. There''s this cocktail dress I bought right after my ex and I split up. I was depressed and splurged on it with my tax return. It''s been years and I''ve never worn it. I was going to ask if you''d take me out somewhere to justify it." She added quickly, "But, it''s honestly way too slutty for me to wear out anyway. I don''t know what I was thinking." "Oh my god. Did you think that would convince me not to agree? Your dress being too slutty, are you¡­kidding?" She groaned, but I could tell I was winning. "Okay, bad argument. There''s still timing¡ª" "Send me your schedule. Ah¡ª" I put my finger to her lips. "Too late, I''m like a dog with a bone, Marianne. It''s happening. I need to see this dress in action." "You''re a wanted man¡­" I waved it off. "We''ll go somewhere bougie downtown, get a hotel there. The Tigers are not running a spontaneous hit at the Ritz." "¡­alright," she said in a quiet voice. "That does sound fun." "It''s a deal?" Marianne pulled me down for another, longer, kiss goodbye. Session Zero 3 "That was very kind of you." Maki was reclining on the long backless lounge when I swaggered back to the living room, dressed in a conservative calf-length skirt and a white long-sleeved blouse with frilly lace cuffs and collar. It was still pleasantly disconcerting to see her so relaxed; I was glad to see the gains from last night weren''t temporary. "Hm?" "Giving her that money. You have no shortage of problems that could be helped with money yourself." "Ah. Marianne has three children," I said, holding up three fingers for emphasis. "Two thousand dollars will go a lot further for her. I can punch my way out of my problems." "To be clear, I fully approve. I was merely commenting." She gave me an approving, proud smile. "Marianne told me you saved her daughter from being mugged. It''s quite novel for me, you know, to be around a real hero. Running around, saving damsels ¨C Why, I might swoon," she added dryly. I meandered to the kitchen to put on another pot of coffee. "Picked the right place, think that''s technically a fainting couch." "It''s a chaise lounge, James; a fainting couch has a partial back. I can''t believe how little knowledge or control you had over these furnishings." "Me and you both," I grumbled to myself. "Oh god," I slapped my forehead and full body cringed, "I just remembered your mom saw the bowl get knocked over." Maki broke into a fit of laughter. "Jade eggs and golden cherries! What were you thinking?" I groaned. "If it makes you feel better, my mother is utterly charmed by you and is more than willing to ignore a few idiosyncrasies. Besides, everyone knows powerful martial artists can get a little¡­peculiar." We passed some time on inconsequential matters; I''d call it small talk, but Maki had an encyclopedic knowledge of seemingly endless topics that lent depth to the conversations. I was happy to let her lead, and she seemed to enjoy the opportunity to show off. Maki hadn''t spent a willing moment talking with a friend about anything and everything since Ken died, and I could tell that it was doing her some good. I scratched one of the ghostly white marks on my side. There was a phantom itch traveling through the roadmap of freshly healed scars left behind from the fight. We were on the couch together now; she''d gotten up and pressed herself to my side the moment I sat down. Maki drank her coffee like a college student, which is to say continuously. I was up and down as I refilled our cups, enjoying the sight of her curled up on the couch like a pleased cat and how she perked up as I brought her more of her precious caffeine. "It won''t be too stressful on your end, don''t worry. You''ll be made to feel at home, and everyone will be on their best behavior for you. I will be interrogated after the fact by one to three curious family members at a time for days to weeks after you leave. But," she shrugged, "if you want the time off to recover mentally, I think you should take it." "I''d love to meet your family, it''s not that. It''s just, ah, how do I explain this¡­Every time I leave the house, I feel like there''s around a thirty percent chance something¡­" I struggled to describe it. How could I explain random and planned encounters without mentioning the Producers? "It''s like I''m cursed to just constantly be going through crazy ass bullshit on a semi-regular basis for the amusement of some ephemeral, undefinable Audience that I can''t perceive and yet am certain is watching me at all times. Which is why I was kind of hoping for the weekend off. Just chilling inside, maybe training in the backyard, but definitely not checking my phone, not investigating strange sounds at night, et cetera, et cetera." A shadow fell over her face. She grieved for me; I suspected she thought I was going insane, being mentally affected by ''domain'' in the same way a Kami might. I didn''t know how to feel about that. "That sounds horrible, I''m so sorry." "Nah, it''s cool. It helps me get stronger faster." I flexed my bicep for emphasis. "I''m just hoping for a day or two down to catch my breath, is all." "I meant the feeling of being watched and judged. I think I''d lose my mind." I chuckled. Half of me knew and felt the same, even as my other half reveled in the feeling. "You get used to it," I said honestly. Maki was still frowning. I smiled, going so far as to roll a Charisma check to alleviate whatever pity she was currently feeling for me. "It actually scratches an itch for me. I love performing and I don''t get that many opportunities to do so." She gave a little laugh and shook her head. "Right, that follows. It takes all kinds, I guess. Not for me though, that''s for certain, even if meant all the power in the world. The thought of being observed constantly, even in my own home¡ª" she shuddered. I hid my expression behind my coffee mug, and we passed into an amiable silence together. I was glad to learn that we were already in the phase of a relationship where silence could be both comfortable and welcome. Maki broke it with a chagrinned and embarrassed smile. "I folded immediately to Marianne, you know? I didn''t realize that you had kept her out of the Underworld, my apologies. When I met her at the door, I saw the scrubs and immediately said, ''Ah, you must be James'' neighbor, the nurse. He''s alright, don''t worry.'' Marianne leaped on that and asked me why you''d mentioned your neighbor was a nurse, why would you not be alright, and, well, she''s a very sharp woman." The miko blushed. Clearing her throat, she continued, "She has a tone and a look she gives you when asking questions. I felt compelled to answer truthfully as if I had to justify my actions from some never verbalized accusation." "The Look! Surely, your mom had it as well. That was The Look in the hands of a widowed mother of three and lifelong Harbor Hill resident." "Formidable. But regardless, I must own the mistake of letting her into the Underworld." I scoffed. I couldn''t see what she was so worried about. "Don''t worry about it. Marianne''s a big girl, she''ll be fine." Maki shook her head, annoyed. "Sometimes I forget how little formal training you have. James, being open to the spiritual side of the world invites ill spirits and malignant energies, and one can''t ever be completely closed off if they are awake to the existence of the dark powers." "Oh please, as if being ignorant of the dangers is much safer. There''s a ghost that crawls into people''s windows and drowns their newborn babies. I mean, what the fuck." "Which is why there''s a common superstition to keep the windows closed when it''s raining if there''s an infant in the home. There''s a middle ground that most people exist in, one that Marianne existed in prior to me dragging her out from that safety." I disagreed with the idea that there was safety in ignorance but arguing it with Maki would be like headbutting falling bricks for the next however long it would take. "Whatever. What''s done is done. She''s a close friend, a neighbor, and my occasional trauma nurse, I''m sure she would have found out eventually. I''m glad you were the one explaining things and not me. Speaking of, if you wouldn''t mind staying late, there''s someone else I''d like you to meet. My senior student, Annie is supposed to be by after work to train and film, but while I have you, I could use an expert opinion on what''s going on with her." I gave Maki a thorough rundown of how I''d unlocked Annie''s Qi and the changes I''d noticed in her body and Qi network. Her eyes lit up when I described the extent of my training and teaching ability, but she stayed focused on the topic at hand, quiet save for when she asked for clarification. Articulating responses to her questions was helping me get a better grasp of what was happening, once more proving that I''d been right to trust her. The value of having a sounding board alone was invaluable. "No, whatever''s going on with her is totally unlike what''s happening to me. My body is being affected by the incredible amount of Qi I have; Annie only has a moderate amount more than an average person. Her body and Qi are being transformed at a deeper, more fundamental level, one that I''m not sure where to begin looking for and probably couldn''t identify if I found it." "Hmm. Nothing immediately leaps to mind. I''ll try to read her energy and if I take the time to prepare a few talismans, I should be able to tell if she''s not fully human any longer and potentially what type of entity she''s becoming. Anything more than that will require research and preparation, but we''ll have a starting ground." "Thanks, feel free to summon whatever Kami you need through the shrine in the meditation chamber." I watched her closely as I mentioned the chamber. Maki was the most inquisitive and perceptive person I knew, and yet the sudden addition of a working shrine and Zen Garden to my apartment had sparked only passing interest in her. The Producers were flexing their muscles. She nodded. "I''ll try to get as much as I can without calling on outside help. Am I to take it from your tone that you want to be cautious about how you proceed with this?" "Yes, extremely. Annie is being changed at the genetic level ¨C I want to be as delicate as possible. I''ll be biting the bullet and giving my mother a call as well, but I don''t expect she''ll be able to give me much. Li-Family Eagle Style has no famous spiritual techniques; there are three unofficial ''paths'' different family members tend to go down with the Art, bodyguard, assassin, or brawler ¨C not a wizard amongst us. But maybe she''ll have heard about something similar before, Ma''s been around for a minute." Maki shifted her weight slightly, pulling her legs under her and turning slightly towards me. There was less contact, but it was suddenly less familial and much more intimate. Before her touch had reminded me of being cuddled up with my sister, watching a movie in the wintertime ¨C not so much anymore. She rested her elbow on my shoulder and began playing with the hair on the back of my head. "Very sensible. I must say, James, this is a side of you I wasn''t sure you possessed. Deliberate, thorough, risk-averse ¨C these were qualities I thought I would have to wring out of you." "Wring out of me, eh?" I wagged my brows at her. She was too smug to be offended. "It does seem to have worked this time. Why not again?" "Woah, hang on." I raised a finger in objection. "As much as I''d love to incentivize this line of thinking, you did not fuck me reasonable. I''m always capable of reason, it''s just sometimes the situation doesn''t call for it." "Preposterous." "Agree to disagree. But regardless, last night was a wake-up call. I need to include prep time when I''m thinking about doing these big stunts in the future. It was pure luck the Tigers had a distillery there. Now, if I had known it was there, I could have gone for it intentionally, maybe even set up for the kill." I shrugged dismissively. "It is what it is, but for next time, you''ll be happy to know that my more patient half is awake and active." "And are you going to be listening to this better half?" Her voice dripped skepticism. I shook my head. "It''s deeper than that. You see, there are two wolves inside me. These wolves, they''re the kind that if they were walking in a forest, one wolf," I raised my left arm, "he''d be all nonchalant and say, ''Hey, I''m going to walk on this nice path, because it''s way more convenient and faster. I don''t care if anyone sees me because I''m cool as hell, and I''d beat ''em up if they had a problem.'' Then there''s this other wolf," I raised my right arm, "and he doesn''t even have to think about it, he''s happily slinking unseen through the bushes, loving that no one''s looking at him. He''s like, ''Why would I walk on the path, I''m a wolf. I''m just as capable of moving around through the brambles, and it''s way safer, and I''m not sure it''s a given that it''s faster to take the human paths to begin with. Can we please be normal for once?''" Maki grabbed my right wrist and gently put it down. "James, there is not a ''normal'' wolf inside you, to use the terminology of this extraordinary metaphor." "You would naturally believe that, because that wolf was asleep, you see." She narrowed her eyes. "You deliberately picked the most boyishly stupid way to frame this as you could, didn''t you?" "You know, Maki," I said seriously, "some say there are two wolves inside all of us." "Oh god," she groaned. I started giggling. To put it in terms without using the extremely helpful and self-explanatory wolf analogy, last night had finally given me enough information about this world and Black Harbor that I could begin to engage with the situation as Alan. When I got here, though the city may have appeared recognizably modern and American at first, all the important deciding factors about my day-to-day life did not make any sense to half of me, at all. Thrust into the life of a fighting game DLC character, the part of me that had lived into his early thirties without getting into a single fight was left standing off to the side, hands on his hips, shaking his head at everything in baffled alarm. I already had a decent picture of the martial side of the Underworld from my memories and secondhand information. Last night had only been a small subsection of the broader supernatural world, but it was enough to work with. I got to see a little mortal magic in action, learned more than perhaps I''d have preferred about what ghosts and gods were capable of, and finally got an idea of what a Lesser Evil could be ¨C Jesus Christ, what a sick joke that was. Still, I now had enough information to actually engage with the world using the memories and expectations of my past life. I was no longer fumbling in the dark, forced to fly by the seat of my pants. I could begin to be more methodical about my high-action hijinks. "Regardless of the number of feral animals inside you or their individual personalities, I wanted to say that I''ve noticed the positive changes in you," said Maki, continuing to play with my hair. Her other hand had moved to my abs, fingers stroking the defined channels between the muscles. "I''m also pleasantly surprised by how open you''ve been. Thank you, sincerely, for your trust. The image you project fooled me into expecting more senseless machismo out of you. I thought you''d be hiding more from me, foolishly trying to shoulder your burdens alone out of pride and bravado." My first reaction was to bristle, but I did portray myself as a himbo, and pointlessly rejecting a hyper-competent genius''s help would be fantastically stupid, so I took it as a complement of my acting skills instead. "Nah, my shits all kinds of fucked." I paused to savor Maki''s long, tired blink. "But for real, I can''t afford to be a cool noir badass." Plus, I''d have to start smoking cigarettes for the aesthetic, and I hated the smell they left behind. "And frankly, the reason I''m brash and bold has nothing to do with being a man and everything to do with being an action hero ¨C an archetype for everyone no matter sex, gender, race, nationality, or species for that matter! Let''s be honest, everyone on the planet would watch an Air-Bud-style Taken-esque movie with a literal dog and/or cat in the Liam Neeson role. No voiceovers, either, just think, it may be the perfect¡ª" I gasped. Atoms collided within my mind, triggering a perfect nuclear cascade. My pupils dilated, continuing past the physical bounds of my eyeballs and skull, and maybe even dimension, as I had the greatest idea I''d ever had in either of my two lives. I said with total clarity, "I must teach a cat martial arts. It will be the most viral video of all time." If it worked, I might be able to find everyone without the tournament! Victor at the very least would be sure to find me. The man loved cat videos ¨C but then, who didn''t? Oh, and I''d have a weapon against that fucking rat! "And there it is¡­" Maki sighed and swung her leg over mine so that she was straddling me and settled herself down in my lap. She nestled her hips as close as possible, only several layers of dress and underwear keeping our sexes apart. "I was waiting for the impulsiveness to return. You are what you are, James Li." "Hey! This is a moment of genuine brilliance¡ª" Maki put a finger across my lips. "More brilliant than establishing proper defenses against the multitude of physical and supernatural threats that are being levied against you as we speak?" "I could do both¡­" "Can you? Researching sex magic with me, cleaning up Harbor Hill, and training your senior student are all disparate goals but they work towards the same purpose, developing your strength and making you and those you care for safer. How does making a series of JinJin videos training a cat in kung fu play into those goals?" I frowned. There was little point in defending the idea from Maki, I could tell she wouldn''t be moved by it. Annie on the other hand would be sure to see the genius of the plan. I couldn''t wait to tell her about it. "Yes, actually. For reasons I can''t get into, I do need to become famous, and the sooner, the better." Even one more Player Character in my life would radically improve our chances of survival. She nodded. "That''s in keeping with several of my assumptions. However, you can''t become famous if you''re locked in a dungeon somewhere being milked for your seed or stuffed in a concrete drum at the bottom of the Beagle River. So again, I ask, can you really do both?" Maki may have had something there, I reluctantly admitted to myself. To let me use Cultivator of Men on animals, at minimum, I would have to buy five or six Dice into the Animal Handling Skill and at least one of its minor feats, and that was the best-case scenario. I would likely need much more; I was already planning on investing in teaching and training, but realistically, I was looking at somewhere between two and four hundred Experience on top of that if I wanted to apply it to animals. "Fuck. I might not." I bonelessly sagged into the couch with a petulant groan. "Ughhhh, fine ¨C I''m not giving up on it yet, but at the very least I''ll concede that teaching a cat kung fu will require more planning on my part." "Good." She leaned forward and captured my lips with a kiss, passionate, though without tongue, and much more intimate than I''d been expecting. She must have read my surprise; pulling away, she clarified, "As your partner, I must incentivize responsible decisions with positive reward mechanisms. The literature quite conclusively supports rewards over punishments and incentives over threats." "Easy there, Pavlov. You can''t train me like a puppy. This dog don''t bark, it bites." Maki slid her hands under my pecs and thumbed my nipples with a challenging grin. "We''ll see. When does your senior student get off from work?" "Around eight tonight. How long do you think it''ll take for you to get ready for her?" She cooed and tightened her thighs around my hips. "Oooh, such a sexy question about scheduling," she said in a ridiculous, airy tone. "I love a reliable lover. We have at least an hour for me to spoil you senseless and make my appreciation known." "This is how I imagine autistic train guys sext." Maki flicked my nose. "Ow! It was a compliment! Everyone loves autistic train guys, so wholesome." I mean, I wouldn''t want to be cornered by one at a party, but she didn''t need to know that. She crossed her arms and tossed her hair. "Here I was, all excited to show off my growing sexual competencies, but if you''d rather joke around¡­" "Woah! Let''s not get carried away." I lowered my voice into something deep and husky, "You know, I''ve been thinking about opening a high-yield savings account at a local credit union." Maki laughed before kissing me again. Her tongue darted out as she pulled away, cheekily licking the tip of mine. Desire surged in me at the gesture, completely unrelated to any artificial lust from erotic sorcery this time ¨C I just found it impossibly cute and striking coming from Maki of all people. "Good, puppy. See, you can be trained after all." I had to fight back the impulse to hold her where she was by her hips as she rose off of me. She pinched the sides of her long, black skirt and swished it as she turned side to side, the very image of the ''Yamato Nadeshiko'', or the idealized Japanese woman. The outfit, while conservative, complemented the thin, elegant lines of her body. Her blouse, tucked tightly into her high-waisted skirt, was pulled tight across her chest, and through its thin white cotton, I could just make out the fine lace of her white bra beneath. "Do you like my outfit?" she asked. "My mother brought it for me from my family home. I forgot I owned it, honestly. This would have been a common pairing for me in high school." "Damn, you were classy as hell as a teen, Maki. I love it, really suits you." She preened and even hid a blush with a little cough. I wondered if she was a fashionista before Ken''s death ¨C she did have a model''s body, it''d be a shame if she wasn''t. "Thank you. Do you find anything strange with it?" I scanned her up and down; it was a lacy, button-up blouse tucked into a long black, semi-pleated skirt which did an excellent job of showing off the roundness of her hips. She wore no jewelry and was barefoot. "There''s something strange to find?" She nodded. "Hmm." I could have rolled a Skill, but I wanted to see if I could figure it out on my own first. The longer I looked, the more of a ''tip-of-the-tongue'' sensation growing in me. Less was more here, the longer I studied her clothes, the more badly I wanted to peel them off her, to see if perhaps Ishida Ai had brought her daughter a pair of matching lacy panties to go with the bra. Thinking out loud, I said slowly, "Your mom brought it from your family home, what was left behind there from before you moved to an apartment in University City. So, then¡­why¡­" Why, why, why, I repeated in my head, trying to piece together what I was feeling. I found my eyes pulled to her chest, and not for the usual reasons either. "Would you like to touch?" "No¡ªI mean, fuck. Yes, obviously, but I don''t think I need to." I knew I shouldn''t be staring at her breasts like this, that it was the definition of creep behavior, but I couldn''t deny that there was something there, something about the¡ª "Wait. You left lingerie behind when you went to college? And then your mom grabbed it to bring here?" Maki clapped once and jumped back onto my lap. She grabbed my face with both hands and planted a big platonic smooch on my cheek. "I''m so proud of you, I knew you''d get there! No, I didn''t leave lingerie in my childhood dresser, although I wouldn''t put it past my mother to have brought it if there was any there. She''s fond of you, and of us as a pair." She took my hands and planted them on her tits. "What do you think?" "They''re great, ten out of ten, would fuck again." She rolled her eyes. "James." I smiled and started actually inspecting her through touch and not merely groping. "It''s well-fitted, I''m not finding any skin bulges or signs of pinching. Whose is it?" Maki smirked. "Whose is what?" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Nothing shifted, nothing changed, not truly, but the sensation of holding a pair of bra-covered breasts was slowly replaced by that of braless ones. Under her shirt, a slow-moving, bright blue fire burned away the lingerie without harming her, me, or her blouse. I watched, mouth open. The lace burned in intricate patterns as the flames consumed the cups of the bra, registering neither as heat to my touch nor as fire to my Qi-nature. "Holy shit." "Fox-fire," she said with great pride. "One of the most potent forms of illusion, on par with if not greater than fairy Glamour. My mother took over an hour to recognize its presence today, and even she had to clarify that I hadn''t brought lingerie with me on my mission." "It holds up to touch?" "Of course, it is the tool of the great Kitsune, it would be useless if it couldn''t survive such simple scrutiny. Don''t worry," she added, seeing the concern in my face, "it is exceptionally rare. I''ve been trying to replicate the effect since I was a child. The Shrine hosts a kimono event with local and Japanese designers during Fashion Week, and I would dream for weeks after it of conjuring the one-of-a-kind, ludicrously expensive silk pieces I saw there. Unfortunately, even as a child, it was clear that I lacked the temperament required to be a regular Petitioner of either of our two fox spirits. They are fickle with their power, and quick to ask for more and more from their favorite mortals." Her eyes were twinkling, and I could see where this was going. "Then you drank down some of that sweet, sweet James-branded jizz. I thought you were being unusually proud and approving of me." "Don''t be ridiculous, if I''ve seemed unusually approving it''s only because you''ve been unusually reasonable." I raised an eyebrow in response. A hint of pink colored her cheeks; she was too self-aware to fully believe that. "Perhaps I''ve been slightly biased in your favor by the circumstances, but it has nothing to do with your semen. I already owe you so much, the access to a universal power source is only an added benefit." It was good to know that Maki registered my three guaranteed Successes on any Social interactions with her from Hero''s Harem as a ''slight'' bias. "Speaking of owing you¡­" Maki undid the top button of her blouse. "I made you a promise last night." "To get nasty? Don''t sweat it, that was before we agreed to be partners. We''ve got plenty of time to check off every sticky box on the nasty-list. Honestly, it makes sense to keep certain ones uncrossed so that I can use them as sources of power later on, when I know more about the specific challenges ahead." Maki moaned a completely unbelievable moan that would have seen her kicked off of a porn set for terrible acting. "Oh, baby, if you get any more reliable I''m going to cum." I laughed before realizing that she hadn''t been joking. "Wait, were you being serious?" I laughed harder. "Sh-shut up! Laugh all you want, James, but sexual incentives have moved men and women much more resolute than you through all of human history." My jaw dropped. "You''re actually planning to try to use sex to keep me reasonable?" Maki pouted angrily. "HAHAHAHAHA! How are you quietly the craziest person I know?" "It''s a great plan!" "I''m borderline a sexual demigod, woman. The plan is to manipulate me through sex. It''s a terrible plan!" "Hmph. I''ll rise to the occasion, of course." She stuck her hands to the side. "Undress me." So good at reading people, so bad at manipulating them ¨C a morally righteous way to live your life, I thought. It was clear she considered this a power move; I would have torn her shirt open as a riposte, but that would mean I''d be sheepishly sewing the buttons on later so that I didn''t feel like an asshole. Her lips twitched upwards as I started undoing the rest of her buttons. I shook my head. "Don''t look so smug. You''re about to be topless and in my lap." "It''s only an incentive if you view it as a reward, James. I have you right where I want you." I smiled, made eye contact, and opened the gates of Gorgon''s Lust, a feat I hadn''t used since my first night with Marianne. I found it too crude, a sledgehammer compared to my many other fine instruments of pleasure. A sharp spike of lust leaped from my eyes to hers, causing her entire body to go rigid as she mustered her willpower to fight off a spontaneous orgasm. Maki fell forward, resting her forehead against my sternum, and made a sound like an angry cat. "Jerk," she bit out past gritted teeth. I continued unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it out from under the high waist of her skirt. "What was that?" She pushed herself back and let me pull her arms through the sleeves of her blouse. Her nipples were like glass cutters and her pupils had dilated slightly. I dragged my hands roughly up her sides, enjoying the way her soft, pale skin molded to my firm hold, and leaned forward to take a nipple into my mouth. Maki stopped me with a hand on my forehead. "Wait. I," she gulped nervously, "ehm, could I make a request? This isn''t a ploy on my end, and you''re of course free to refuse." She was half-acting; the emotions at the root were honest, but she was playing them up to try and move me. I tutted mentally ¨C it was on now. "You could ask me for a star, and I''d spend my life trying to pluck it from the sky," I said, making a formal Seduction + Charisma roll. Her face and down past her neck turned red and she had to look away to control herself. "Th-thanks," she said in a small voice. Clearing her throat, she continued with her usual confidence, "I wanted to ask you if we could try sex without your lust magic. I''d like to see the difference for comparison." I stayed silent, waiting for the real reason. After a moment she reluctantly added, "And, you know, for the first time, I thought it might be nice¡­" I ran my knuckles gently down her side reassuringly. "That''s all? You don''t have to justify your desires to me, and certainly not your boundaries." She quickly shook her head. "It isn''t a boundary, I''m just being, well, frankly, perhaps, needlessly sentimental. I shouldn''t be, since we aren''t actually dating but¡ª" "Maki, it''s fine. I''m happy to show off my non-magical talents, on one condition. Ask me for something genuinely unhinged sexually, something you''d assume I wouldn''t do for you." "Why?" "Why not? Maybe I want to know what makes you tick, maybe I want you to know that I really would rob the heavens for you. Go on, we both know you''ve got something crazy in the chamber, shoot." Maki bit her lip. "Okay, but again, feel free to say no¡ª" "I''m feeling free, babe." She thought about it a little, wobbling her head back and forth. I got the impression she was fairly vanilla, but this was Maki, and we were in a porn world ¨C I was sure she had something strange to request. "After you¡­" she squeaked something I couldn''t make out. "Pardon?" Clearing her throat and doing an admirable job of pretending she wasn''t a deep rose-red color, she said, "I asked if after you learn to shapeshift, would you be willing to have sex with me as me? As in, would you shapeshift into my body before we had sex. One of the fox spirits used to wear my shape and tease me when I was growing up and it''s become the fetish that I can''t get out of my head." "Hahahahahaha! Holy shit, that''s what I''m talking about! Hey, hey, I''m not making fun of you," I added, seeing her reaction. "Well, okay, maybe a little, but I''m totally down; that''s the sort of harmless degeneracy that I need to embrace if I want to get stronger. It is fucking weird, not going to lie. And I''m a bit confused as to why you seem sure I''ll learn to shapeshift." "Come now, James, we can both read the writing on the wall, this mortal form of yours is only transitionary. Almost every divine spirit is capable of taking other forms. That said, if you only develop a single other form, then I''d rather it not be me, but if the stars align¡­" I wasn''t sure any of that was a given, but now wasn''t the time. "That could be years away." "I''m a patient woman." "You don''t have to be. I''d be willing to actively pursue shapeshifting if you asked me to, purely because you asked. Then you could fuck me in whatever body you want ¨C I don''t give a shit." She reared back aghast. "I can''t ask that! It''s too much." "I''m telling you, you can." "James, I¡­the things I was saying last night about how I''d take you if you were a woman were only to tease you. I don''t expect you to shed your gender identity¡ª" I laughed. "Maki, if Loki can fuck a stallion as a mare and give birth to its eight-legged kid, I can have sex with a human female as a human female without worrying about any of that. Also, I identify as an action hero ¨C no, as the Action Hero; I''m Sarah Connor and the goddamn Terminator, alright. So come on, what do you say? Let''s go on this journey of sexual metamorphosis together." I was half following the lead given to me by the Seduction roll, and half making the call in the moment. In truth, yes, I was uncomfortable with the idea of having sex as a woman, and doubly so with the idea of having sex as Maki with Maki ¨C a delightfully insane proposition. But with my life, my friends'' lives, and my family and my city''s safety on the line, discomfort wasn''t going to stop me from collecting the fat EXP bag the Producers would be sure to reward me with. I felt her breath hitch and watched as she fought back the excitement in her face. "You won''t prioritize it above your safety?" "Nope. I''m gonna have to fight, like, one to three shapeshifters before I figure it out anyway, so no need to worry there." "Kami-sama," she whispered to herself before mustering her courage with a deep, meditative breath. "Then, please, if you wouldn''t mind." "Please¡­" "Please learn to shapeshift into a feminine form, and then specifically into me." "So¡­" A little manic smile seized her face in a worrying rictus. "So¡ªso that I can," she said, each word coming twice as fast as the last, "have sex with a hotter version of myself." I gave her a thumbs up. "You''ve got my word that I''ll learn to shapeshift to satisfy your self-cest kink." She let out a long breath and relaxed onto me, wrapping her arms around me and nuzzling her nose into the crook of my neck. Finally, without my bandages and her clothes in the way, I was able to feel her bare breasts against my chest. "Ahhhhh, that feels amazing, it''s like I''ve physically unburdened myself. I don''t know how long I was carrying that shame, probably since puberty. ''Self-cest,'' hm? Of course, there''s a term for it ¨C feels silly to have even been worried." Maki kissed her way up my neck and chin and took my lips, nonverbally communicating her appreciation with a remarkably loving, affectionate kiss, only pausing once she could no longer hold her breath. The idea that this was a purely platonic relationship was becoming more tenuous by the minute. The miko closed her eyes and pulled back from me, pointing her head to the sky. "Kami-sama, I wish that every shy lesbian in Black Harbor one day grows up to have an open-minded demigod for a lover." "I think you''re going to have to be okay with being a special case in that regard, Maki." "Oh, I don''t know, maybe we can do a bi-yearly raffle for charity." She stood up in front of me once more. Reaching behind her, she unclasped the waist of her skirt and let it fall off her long, narrow legs. A pair of lacy white panties that matched her fox-fire bra was all that she was wearing now. "Inspect them." I pinched the cloth between my fingers, marveling at how real it felt. Circulating some Qi between my thumb and forefinger, I tried to sense if they were in any way unique ¨C nothing, not even the hint of Fire-Qi. I''d have to look elsewhere if I was going to try and replicate the power. I rubbed down the front, feeling the little bumps and ridges of the immaculate lacework, letting a finger separate her lips as it went. Maki was wet, and more interestingly, so were the panties ¨C they even stained as they soaked in more of her grool. "What the fuck," I muttered. Was I simply helpless in the face of such illusions? Was there no way to ever be prepared for everything in this world without a large team of specialists? "Maybe a closer look will help," teased Maki. "Good idea." She screamed in pleased surprise as I picked her up by the waist and moved her so that she was standing on the couch in front of me, legs straddling either side of my head. As much as I wanted to turn this sexy, I was still stuck on my total inability to pierce the illusion. I laid my tongue flat, dug it into the growing damp spot where the panties were sticking to her wet labia, and licked up to her clit. Where my tongue had met the dry cloth left a dark patch, but it was distinctly different from what had already been affected by her natural lubrication. That section was stickier and slightly more reflective. "Tastes real, feels real, looks real ¨C I don''t get it. Is it impossible to tell Foxfire apart from reality?" Maki bonked me on the head with her fist. "That''s because it was an invitation to take them off! I was about to show you!" She started to squirm, trying to escape back to the floor, though admittedly not very hard. I kept her in place with ease, a single hand on her hip more than enough to overpower the thin, bookish woman. With an Eagle''s Talon, I sliced the panties in two quick motions and pulled them free. They stuck momentarily to her skin, peeling away with long, sticky strands. Within a few seconds, they had faded away into blue-green sparks before vanishing completely. Maki explained at my curious look, "Our bodies know a tremendous amount of information about our clothes, far more than is useful, so our brain normally shuts out those sensations from our perception. I spent nearly a decade refining and developing heuristics which could compartmentalize that information within my subconscious so that I could use them to create lifelike illusions of clothes, all I lacked was the power, the Foxfire itself." "Then if I had dazed or overwhelmed your mind, then the illusions would drop? Pretty risky if you''re going to use it for outerwear." She smiled another approving smile and ran her nails along my scalp gently. "Which is why I didn''t try. If my bra vanished in front of my mother and cousin, it would have been embarrassing, if my skirt and shirt though? Humiliating. But I think I would feel comfortable with doing so after a little more practice. Being dazed wouldn''t stop the illusion, not while I still had the Foxfire or your semen with which to fuel the spell ¨C it''s mostly constructed from subconscious sensations of touch. However, if you were to overwhelm my mind by forcing me to divert all of my attention towards something else, then yes, the illusion would break." "Huh. I can work with that, just need to be super distracting whenever I suspect an illusion is afoot." "Or by being your usual erratic and unpredictable self. I wouldn''t worry too much about illusionists, James ¨C like the weather, you''re a probabilistic phenomenon. Mortals can''t hope to accurately predict your behavior." Went unsaid was, ''if even I can''t do it.'' Like the Great Detectives of fiction, Maki possessed equal parts pride and talent. "The best illusions require forethought; more witnesses, larger areas, and more active environments all create additional variables to consider. Then there''s you, a complexity multiplier; will you turn into a towering flame or will you call forth a blanket of mist? Will several dozen ghosts arrive to save you?" "I doubt that''s going to happen twice. Keep them guessing though, that''s good advice." I reached my hands through her thighs, sunk my fingers into the meat of her butt cheeks, and pulled her forward and up, trapping her legs between my shoulders and the couch. She gasped, grabbing my head for balance. Maki sipped her teeth. "You''re as predictable as you could be. I saw this coming the moment you pulled me off the floor. Well, go ahead, get it out of your system. No magic though, no matter how it might sting your pride." Her pussy was glistening in the soft lighting in front of my face, betraying her excitement. I looked up past her tummy, core muscles flexing for balance, and her perky breasts to her face, wreathed by pitch-black, silky strands of loose hair. She looked bored and nonplussed, confident that her opinion on receiving oral was unchanged, though her eyes were curious; I had surprised her before. "Not a fan?" "I don''t even enjoy sixty-nining, too distracting, but I love giving. I''d be happy to show you just how much if you''d let me down." "Tempting, but you know I''ve got to try it now." "Yes, yes, I knew you would." "Hey, sometimes to keep ''em guessing, you got to do exactly what they expect you to." She rolled her eyes. "Just be quick about it. I want to feel your cock pulsing while it pumps your semen down my throat." I maintained eye contact and gave a peck to her inner right thigh and then her left. I did my best to project how much I was enjoying this, already knowing how much she liked that from a partner and rolled my Sensuality + Seduction with a loving lick through her damp lips. Maki stood no chance, even without any magic; she was already a member of my Hero''s Harem, and from that, we shared a profound connection that extended directly into our physical intimacy. I didn''t roll well, despite the bonus from the furniture, only getting three Successes, but I was starting with three from helping her avenge and free Ken. Three alone would have shown her a fine time, perhaps redeemed the act in her eyes enough that she''d be more open to trying again at a later date, but six made her squeeze her thighs around my head. I pulled her into me, burying my face and tongue into her pussy. My nose was pressed into her swollen clit, and I began to move my head in small circles as I licked, using it to get her off. Her skin was silken against me, having been reshaved this morning in the shower, readied for our mutual enjoyment. I mouthed and mauled her sex with my tongue and lips, being forceful and wild. I had been ready for a slow pace where I teased and played with her over the long minutes, but to my surprise, this was what Maki wanted ¨C wet, nasty, and unmoored from anything that could be considered proper or even considerate. She didn''t want to feel like this was for her at all, her own pleasure was meant to be only a byproduct of her lover''s. I obliged as best as I could, trying my best to drown myself in her juices. My grip on her ass grew harder, enough that it was hurting her I was sure, but she only shuddered, erotic energy spiking. I wasn''t using any magic, but it was impossible for me to not sense her rising lust, that was as much one of my senses as sight or touch. "Mm, fuck! James!" Maki was clearly unprepared for how much her anorgasmia had affected her prior enjoyment of oral. She tried to maintain eye contact, visibly enraptured by my adoring, reverent gaze, eyes watering as she refused to blink, but a spasm of pre-orgasmic pleasure had her curl over me. My world darkened as she hugged my head, resting her tummy on the top of it and holding it tight with both arms and legs. I became even more frantic to show my appreciation sans the eye contact, lapping up her lubrication like a man dying of thirst. Maki began to rock her hips and I helped her along with my hands on her ass, pulling her against me hard enough to cut off my air supply, and rubbed my face back and forth making a wet slicking sound as I whipped her juices into a lather that began to drip down my cheek and neck onto my chest. No wonder none of her past partners had managed to satisfy her orally ¨C this was an embarrassing display of pussy-addicted mania that only someone as shamelessly slut-pilled as I could put on. My tongue battered and wriggled through her inner tunnels as deep as I could get it, curling upward to tickle her g-spot with the tip. Her little moans and gasps, which had grown like a chorus as I proceeded, were more like whines and bestial keening wails now. Her hips rocked more and more fiercely as she got nearer to climax, and her nails dug into my scalp as she held on for dear life. Once she was close enough, I ripped my tongue out of her tunnel and up to her clit. I placed the flat of it against her little button and began to vibrate it side-to-side until her rocking came to a stop, her body going rigid. I kept up the stimulation as she started to climax, stopping only when she started rapidly tapping my head, begging for a break. Maki''s climax was powerful and long. I pulled the shaking woman off my shoulders and put her back onto my lap, straddling me again. She wrapped me in a hug and buried her face into my neck, riding out the little tremors and aftershocks there.
[Ally Quest Complete!] Make Maki orgasm from oral sex. Reward: 30EXP, +1 Willpower [Hidden Quest Complete!] Give a lesbian an oral orgasm. Reward: 50EXP, +1 Persuasion [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have 6 Dice in Willpower. Reward: Gain Special Feat Impossible Determination [Special Feat] Impossible Determination You may take 1 temporary point of Willpower damage to try and resist mental powers that would normally completely ignore a mortal''s defenses like a Vampire''s Hypnosis or a Dragon''s Fear.
Excuse me, dragons were real, and you couldn''t resist a vampire''s hypnosis?! Well, at least this was probably the best way I could have learned either of those facts. I made a mental note to ask Maki about dragons ¨C later, we were busy at the moment. Maki started to suckle and kiss her way up my neck, seemingly unworried about tasting herself on me. "So, was that what you expected?" I asked, proud even though my powers had trivialized the challenge for me. She rewrote history without missing a beat. "Of course, it would have been more surprising if I''d hated it. You are a sexual demigod, after all. I never disputed that." "Aww, come on. Can''t you give me this one, at least?" "No," she said succinctly, capturing my lips with a deep, hungry kiss before I could respond. "Take off your boxers," she panted into my mouth between kisses. "I''m ready." There was no point in questioning Maki''s resolve, nor would she have appreciated the gesture. Instead, I literally tore my underwear off me and tossed it aside, showing her just how eager I was to comply and earning myself a pleased coo from the miko. She moved her hips to trap my cock between us and looked down with awe. Its tip went past her belly button. "Wow. I''ve scoffed in disbelief at smaller dildos. Without magic, will it still fit?" "Yes. It is an immutable universal constant that it will always fit." Maki gulped nervously but nodded along. "That''s right," she said more to herself than to me, "it''s yours, so it fits. It isn''t a man''s penis, it''s your penis. It''s grotesque and absurd and beautiful, and most importantly, it''s yours. It''s yours, yours," she repeated with emphasis. "Can it even be called a penis? A penis is a male''s genitalia ¨C this is a cock, a fat, drooling cock." She began to fondle the head as she continued hyping herself up. "This is your instrument, the means through which you assert your power and true nature. It is a divine tool." She tilted her hips up and dragged her clit against the bottom of my dick until she reached the head and let herself sit back down. Her eyes were closed and I could tell this was a part of her building up her confidence for the real deal. She was simulating riding me, up and down, working herself up to take the last step. "It''s yours too," I added, "whenever you want it, partner. Whenever, and however." Maki''s eyes snapped open, but she said nothing, watching me with a strange intensity and continuing her rocking. I opened my mouth to keep flirting, but she used the opportunity to thrust her tongue in, messily slurping out my saliva. "I want it now," she said, having pulled away to catch her breath. "However you want it, hurry." I smiled and lifted her up by her hips, taking a moment to suck on each of her nipples, and began to lower her down. My muscle control was great enough that I could keep my cock at the angle I needed with my pelvic floor alone. As my huge dickhead started to stretch her lips, the dice clattered in my mind, rolling a truly momentous Sensuality + Seduction check. Golden, metaphorical, clouds parted above, and a shining Lady Luck reached a fist down from heaven, dapped me up, and gave us both a huge thumbs up. The Dice had come up on fifteen Successes, before adding in the three guaranteed Successes from Hero''s Harem. Once the head of my cock was fully inside her, almost locked motionless by how tight her walls were, I dropped her down with a single sharp tug, hilting myself completely inside her. Maki threw her head back and howled a mix of pleasure and pain, more the former than the latter due to my Porn Physics. The feat converted all pain from penetration into an intense, masochistic form of pleasure ¨C it still hurt, but her body couldn''t help but love it, and her mind couldn''t stop itself from craving more.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Awaken someone''s mild masochistic tendencies into a full kink. Reward: 25EXP, Gain Minor Feat Slut-Making Strikes [Minor Feat] Slut-Making Strikes You can choose to make the pain you cause from your unarmed strikes or in a grapple paired in equal parts with pleasure. This provides a passive 1 Die Penalty in combat to anyone you''ve hit since the start of the scene, but without additional feats or actions on your part, it can''t do more than distract.
Ah, I presumed that was from the fifteen Successes. I''d noticed that Maki liked a bit of pain, but it was mostly because she enjoyed it as a physical sign that her partner had lost control and was giving in to the lusts she had inspired in them. I don''t think she''d have ever considered herself a masochist or have come to enjoy pain for its own sake without my accidental intervention. I flexed my cock inside her, hard away from me, and then harder back towards me and her g-spot, not beginning to thrust yet. She exhaled and gasped an exhale every time I did it, as though I was punching her from the inside. Only a martial artist could abuse her cunt like this, and I was only getting started. I spanked her hard. "Talk to me. How''s it feel?" "Mwa, ahahh¡ª" Maki opened her mouth but only nonsense sounds came out. I spanked her again. "AH! YES! Mmm, James¡­can''t¡­" Another spank. "AH! Just do it, you bastard." "Do what?" I asked innocently, slamming the inside of her walls with another powerful kegel. Maki whimpered. She mumbled something incoherent into my neck. I slapped both of her cheeks at once. "What was that?" "Fuck meEEEE¡ª" Maki screamed her answer, and I started before she could finish, thrusting up with my hips. My cock battered her cervix, making her ''me'' morph into a wordless squeal. Two of my fingers reached down and hooked into her asshole without ceremony and used the painful hold to pull her up before letting gravity drop her back down, then repeating the motion again, and again, and again. My hips worked in time with gravity, so that they were pistoning my cock up as she was falling down onto it. It was a wet, nasty endeavor, filling the room with the sounds of sticky flesh slapping together and the keening wail of the miko, now lost to the sensations. Maki came before the first full thrust was complete, the shock of my fingers entering her ass having pushed her into a sudden, mini-climax. That wave of pleasure carried her as I continued to pump into her, each crest higher than the last, each fall not as far as the one before. The orgasms chained into one another as I kept pounding her. She was mostly an incoherent mess, tossing her head side to side, completely lost to what she was feeling. In the few fleeting glances she managed to give me, there was no reason or higher thinking, only pleasure and pain, which may as well have been the same thing. I slowed down when she started tapping my chest, expecting her to call it quits or at least ask for a moment to collect herself. Instead, she used the opportunity to arch her back up and pull my head down towards her breasts. I took a nipple into my mouth and started sucking and gnawing on it, getting a happy, sigh from the non-verbal lesbian. She moved my free hand, the one not currently knuckles deep in her asshole, to her other breast, and satisfied I got the message started to pump her hips awkwardly, signaling she wanted me to get back to it. Her willingness and animalistic passion threatened to make me bust. It was the contrast of it all, like ice cream on a hot day; I couldn''t get over the sexual demon that I had unleashed in the otherwise cold, shy woman. Following the instincts granted by my earlier insanely successful Seduction roll, I knew exactly how she wanted this to end. I spun us around into missionary and started pounding her into the couch like it was a competition to see who broke first, the woman or the magically enhanced furniture. I held out for a few more minutes, simultaneously orgasming with her, though that had been practically a given with how frequent hers had been. Her climax was long but mine was longer and it was she who was gently running her hands along my back as I fought the convulsions at the end. Due to Cum Overflowing, my balls had to clear one hundred times the normal amount of semen they would have had to otherwise. Halfway through the orgasm and my cum was already blasting out from the seal her pussy was forming around my cock, having apparently occupied the space entirely. I pulled out, letting the rest loose onto her belly, tits, and even her neck and chin, the force of each spurt being so great.
[Ally Quest Complete!] Have vaginal sex with Maki. Reward: 40XP, +1 Affinity, +2 Research [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have consensual, vaginal sex with a lesbian. Reward: 50XP, +1 Sensuality, Gain Relationship Token x2 [Hidden Quest Complete!] ''Defile'' a priestess. Reward: 20XP, +1 Seduction [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have pseudo-incestual relations with your technical sister. Reward: 20XP, Gain Major Harem Protagonist Feat Not-So-Distant Relatives [Major Feat (Harem Protagonist)] Not-So-Distant Relatives The power of a Harem Protagonist can conquer any taboo and even genetic hazards. The closer you are to a family member, both emotionally and in terms of blood relation, the more Guaranteed Successes that both you and they get to seduce one another, up to 3 Successes for the closest bonds. There will never be any negative genetic consequences to indulging in this, and while society will judge you as harshly as it would otherwise, your friends and family will be bizarrely unbothered by the taboo when you are involved.
God fucking damn it, you absolute, degenerate assholes. No amount of feats was going to make me okay with having sex with my actual sister. I groaned and rolled off Maki. "I got to learn to dial the cum back, holy hell. Too much, way too much." She hummed her disagreement, scooping some cum off her neck before it could roll down onto the upholstery, and sucked the finger clean. "I asked my mother to grab me a few mason jars from home. Be a dear and bring one, would you." I hopped up, extracting myself from the couch and Maki carefully so as not to disturb her treasured puddle of cum. There were about eight empty jars in a lunch box on the counter. "Which size? There''s a few." "Any will do. You''ll be filling them all before your student arrives." I paled, looking at the four one-quart jars with dread. "Oh man, I don''t know, Maki¡­" She laughed. "Don''t be silly, James. It''s far removed from what a witches'' coven would milk from you. A little more worrying of a prospect now, hm? Now, hurry up or I''m going to end up drinking half of this." Session Zero 4 I was a husk, a man lost in the desert, neither alive nor dead, heart pumping through willpower and accursed grit alone. How was I alive with so little fluid left in me, was I mummy, a revenant? All I knew was that the witch had desiccated me. Even my brain, so totally drained of all the many life liquids must have been but a walnut now, rattling around a dusty skull. "Annie," I croaked to my senior student, "you''ll have to continue the school alone. My voice grew weaker. "My¡­soul''s leaving my body¡­" Annie looked down at me with a mix of bewilderment and concern, as best she could while avoiding my nudity. I was lying on my back atop the bearskin rug. I had not bothered to get dressed. The redhead took my hand. She had let herself in with a spare key I''d given her, taking us both by surprise, here a few hours earlier than I''d expected. Behind her, I saw an increasingly embarrassed Maki pinch her brow. "Aww, you poor baby. Did¡­the ghost do this?" She was still no less confused about my ghost hunt than she was when I first dropped it on her casually. The longer I could drag out giving her a proper explanation, the funnier it became for me. "Suc¡ª" I coughed. "Succubus." "What, really?" asked Annie. She didn''t know, she was so new to all this that anything could be true at this point. I limply pointed at Maki behind her. "Oh. Wait, what?" Annie followed my finger with confusion and then looked back at me, repeating the motion a few times before she got it. She turned to look at Maki with a new understanding, appreciation, and, if I wasn''t mistaken, a bit of competitive spirit. "Oh. Wow," she exhaled in breathless awe. "And you''re still standing? That''s amazing. Are you also a martial artist?" Annie stuck out her hand to Maki in a gesture of dazed respect. Maki, too polite to turn it down, shook her hand, even as the rest of her threatened to curl in on itself like a startled fern or maybe a neutron star moments before it became a singularity. "He-he''s exaggerating," stammered Maki. Then, the moment Annie ended the handshake, she did a running soccer kick to my ribs. I started laughing hysterically, only infuriating her further. Switching to Japanese, she shouted, "Just what the hell are you telling her, you bastard! Get up and introduce me already, it''s your apartment! And put on pants!" The ding of my slow cooker interrupted the farce. I kipped up to my feet with new vigor, my penis all aflopping, drawing the attention of both my guests. "Woo! Dinner''s ready, thank god. Good timing, Shine! You''re off early tonight. How you feeling? You like my new scars?" "Of course I''m early, I rushed here as soon as I could! You told me you were fighting a ghost last night and then your phone broke at three in the morning!" Annie put both of her hands on top of her head. "Gah! That''s how I feel. Gah! James! Gah! And also I feel, AHHH! And a little bit of Whawhawhwahwahwah-whaaaaaaaaat?!" I nodded knowingly. "Mm, yes, all appropriate reactions to a spooky ghost story. Did you eat dinner yet by the way?" "James," she whined pitifully, "please, you''ve been teasing it out for days!" "Sure, sure." I put on my boxers and made my way into the kitchen to put dinner together. Annie gasped in horror at the sight of the scars on my back. "Am I making you a plate, by the way, or did you already eat?" "James! Are ghosts real?! Did a ghost give you those scars?!" "Uhuh, sure did. Although, these were all me" I said, holding up my arms. The burns I''d suffered from harnessing the distilled alcohol had healed into a neat speckled pattern, only visible when they caught the light. "Fire tornado." "What!? What does that mean!?" "This is Maki, by the way. She''s a priestess at the Shinto Shrine in Little Tokyo; it was her brother we were avenging with the ghost fight. She''ll be helping us out from now on." Maki bowed. "Nice to meet you. James has told me a lot about you. I hope I can be of use." As desperate as Annie was to finally learn about the ghost hunt and the broader Underworld, she too was too polite to ignore a greeting. "Oh my god, yes, of course. I''m sorry I rushed in here like I did! I thought something had happened to James. It''s so great to meet you!" "It''s alright. Your master is a very dramatic man." "Ha! Yeah, that''ll happen. We''re both performers, you know." Annie''s cheesy smile dropped as she had a realization. "Sorry, did I hear correctly that you two were avenging your brother? Was he, um¡­" "Killed by a ghost? Yes. There was a Hungry Ghost in Chinatown feeding on injured martial artists; that''s how I met James. I''d asked a mutual friend who drives a taxi to keep an eye out for strange phenomena in the area." Annie''s eyes went wide. "That''s¡­something that can happen?" I gave Maki a meaningful look. "Would you mind¡ª" "Not at all." She took Annie by the elbow and led the startled woman to a stool by the kitchen. "I''d be happy to answer any of your questions. I don''t trust James to not continue to baffle you for his own amusement." I pointed at her with the spatula I''d been using to stir the chicken curry into a pot of steaming hot rice. "It''s true, that''s exactly what I would have done. Also, get a whiff of this," I said, wafting the modestly delectable scent of a three Success meal over to the girls. The sixth Die I got from Maki''s handjob made a huge difference. "He''s improving! Pretty cool, right?" "No, not cool!" shouted Annie, thoroughly affronted. She''d been going tear recently with fresh recipes for training snacks and meals in a poorly concealed attempt to steal my heart by way of my stomach. "I told you not to get better at cooking!" "Hey, I didn''t try to get better, but you''re bound to improve at anything you do often. Wait ¨C what am I even defending myself from here? I cook for you all the time; you''re upset that it''s going to start tasting decent?" "Cooking''s my thing, James. A girl''s got to have a thing. You get it, right, Maki?" She nodded. "He''s annoyingly competent, yes. I understand your frustrations completely." "Yes! Like, be bad at one thing, guy. Jeez." "And it''s made worse by how flippant he is about it all, too." She cast her voice in a deep, parody of a himbo, "''Bound to get better by doing stuff, relax.'' Hmph. Unbelievable." "Exactly!" "Thankfully, your master was too traumatized by becoming a death god''s champion to edge in on my ''thing'', as you call it. I''d suggest you focus on an area of your expertise or your personality that he''s grateful for out of a genuine reticence to adopt himself." Annie''s face and body language, which had been rapidly untightening, instantly returned to the near panic that she''d arrived with. "I''m sorry, what?" Maki turned her head and gave me the slightest hint of a smile; she too enjoyed teasing the other woman. There was also an unspoken promise to me written on her face, ''Don''t worry, I''ll defend your secrets,'' it said. "Don''t be cruel, James, give the girl a hint. What are you the happiest to leave in her more capable hands?" "Cars, for sure. I don''t know shit about them, while Annie can build one from scratch." And I hadn''t gotten any of those skills from her Companion Quests either, so that wasn''t likely to change any time soon. "Is that so?" asked Maki, raising an eyebrow. Like me, she was a lifelong local to Black Harbor, and like most locals, knew little to nothing about the four-wheeled, noisy abominations clogging our streets. "Remarkable. I too may have to rely on you in that field." "Th-thanks. And, sure, anytime." "I appreciate that." She patted her arm, and took her hand, holding it in both of hers. "Now, I''m going to tell you everything you could want to know, and if James tries to interrupt with a," she cast her voice into the himbo parody again, "''Uh, hey, two ever think¡ª'', or, ''Say, Annie, how about we¡ª'', you and I are going to talk right over him. Okay?" Annie exhaled a sigh and finally relaxed fully since she''d entered the apartment. "Oh, thank God, you have no idea how much that means to me. I could kiss you right now." Maki shot me a quick smirk. ''That''s right, I''ve got game too,'' it said. I smiled to myself over the pot. It was nice that the girls were bonding. A little worrying that they were doing so over how annoying I could be, but if that was the price I had to pay, then I''d gladly be two or even three times as irritating. "You know what, Maki, for making me sound like Yamcha in your impersonation, I am going to explain the ghost fight." I took a deep breath and started from, where else, the sort-of-middlish-part-just-after-the-start. "Chinatown on a warm, late Summer night smelled like pot stickers, charcoal, and home. It was Friday and the people were out, about, and buzzing with excitement. Plastic tables with chain-smoking uncles playing mahjong were out on every block. Men stood outside karaoke bars hocking their specials¡­" I''d thought that being overly thorough and needlessly descriptive would irk them as I started from well before I even met Kuze and had the fateful brawl that kicked off so much, including earning me the attention of the Egui on the walk back home. But when a man with 7 Dice in Charisma starts in on his noir origin story, even the impatient sit quietly. Maki had heard an abbreviated part of the tale in Tamaki Grill, but I''d been, despite appearances, very professional with her prior to our exorcism. I''d been trying to get to know her better for the sake of our imminent team-up; this was not great for that, only I was talking at length while they sat quietly. It wasn''t until I got to the part where I was waiting for Maki in the hallway of the Shrine that I realized how little we''d spoken about what had happened from my perspective. After the fight, the last thing we wanted to do was a full debrief, and I''d assumed that Maki got the important parts by sensing my roaring Qi. She shivered when I described the way Funikugami courted me. Evidently, he barely showed himself to most people in the Shrine, their mostly silent guardian. Funikugami had asked me why I''d let my younger sister watch our father fight two men to the death. I had told him the honest, simple truth, that she would have been gutted if I hadn''t let her see one of the rare occasions where Dad busted out his martial arts. "Brotherly love and a child''s joy, so rare in our Domain," said the death god in response. That line seemed to weigh heavy upon Maki, and I was glad that she had Annie to rub her back comfortingly while I continued. We paused upon the scene on the rooftop, when I''d been trying to bait the monster into showing itself. "It attacked you and a woman?" said Maki sharply, her first interjection. "That''s¡­" She trailed off, but I could read the issue on her face. The idea that the ghost would attack two people at once, or that it would attack women had been firmly outside of what she''d expected from it. I''d antagonized it to that point, yes, but it was still harsh evidence that she could be wrong. "Yeah, and it was for sure eating a lot more than one person every three to five years judging from what I saw at the end. I''m guessing those were just the disappearances that were reported on." I added, seeing her despondent face, "Don''t beat yourself up. Nine times out of ten that a martial artist disappears from town without a body, it probably doesn''t register outside their immediate circle, let alone the news. You had no way of knowing." Annie, who had been listening enrapt, was next to stop me. Upon hearing about the fire tornado, she said, "You''re responsible for destroying that warehouse?! Holy shit, the pictures were on the news; they''re blaming it on a faulty moonshining still. Everyone at work had their personal conspiracy theories though. Can you believe that not one of them came close to the truth?" At the end of the tale, Maki was smiling again at the reminder of her brother''s freedom. The mistakes of the past were forgotten; as she had told me when we got back, it had all worked out for the best. "Sorry, I don''t want to sound ignorant, but does that mean you guys are¡­related now?" asked Annie, no doubt remembering the state in which she''d found me. "Oh boy. How about you take it from here, Maki?" "Of course." She nodded seriously. "And thank you again for everything you''ve done for me. I was taking your strength for granted. I didn''t realize how close I came to¡­remaining brotherless," she added with a wry grin, unable to help herself, "Kenji." I threw a light lead leg roundhouse to Annie''s sternum, catching her by surprise and knocking her to the ground off-balance. "Ow! Why? You said you''d only be dodging and blocking." "You were beginning to take that for granted." She grumbled an objection, but I could tell that she understood and agreed with the lesson. We''d made our way outside to my gym, giving Maki the peace to finish her preparations. After filling Annie in on what had happened post-ghost fight, she''d sent us out here to work up a sweat; she wanted to see Annie''s energy when it was in full flow. Annie stood up and brushed herself off. She feinted by shifting her weight onto the front leg and started to half torque her hips, but as her back leg came off the ground, she let herself fall and roll forward. I slid a few inches to the left to dodge her single-leg takedown by a hair and hopped back a few steps. She was slow to stand up, and already gritting her teeth in pain. I''d been running her ragged, according to miko''s orders, of course, but Annie had stepped up the pace further by herself. My senior student was fighting like she had something to prove. Annie wasn''t jealous. She was so not jealous, that she had done absolutely everything in her power to make that clear to us without coming out and saying it. She''d been ecstatic to learn that Maki had been present to help me heal myself through my Erotic Sorcery, and doubly so when she found out she''d be taking a hands-on approach to helping me research sex magic. She had even made a few ''sister wife'' jokes in a strained effort to make it clear just how unbothered she was by it all. The amount of nervous laughter from the former cheerleader had ratcheted up exponentially when Maki started talking about my sex magic. Maki had adopted an academic tone, speaking forthrightly and honestly about her thoughts and observations regarding my Erotic Sorcery, while still covering for my stranger powers. Clearly, she had hoped it would neatly sidestep any issues of jealousy ¨C it had not. Annie had hit her with a number of, ''Oh, haha, cool,''s and, ''wow, that''s so crazy,''s, more than could ever be believable, and all while avoiding eye contact. Neither Maki nor I had bought it, but if the redhead wasn''t going to be honest with herself about her feelings, there wasn''t much we could do to help alleviate her fears of abandonment. Annie had promised me, unprompted, during our first training session that she''d be the ideal casual hookup, that she''d never expect more than what we had, and that she''d never be envious of other women. Frankly, I thought that was a pretty unrealistic goal to set yourself, but I didn''t know how to address it. ''Hey, you''re allowed to be angry at me for my philandering, by the way. I''m not going to stop, but we can fight about it if you''d like,'' didn''t seem like the answer. She took a more conservative entry, coming in with a series of long jabs. Each of them hid the intention to start a grapple, but that didn''t matter. I ably smacked her wrists aside each time they entered my space. Annie was my student, however, and a great student at that, always ready with another trick. By deliberately catching the front of her sneaker on one of the stone tiles we were fighting on, she faked a stumble and a fall ¨C the setup for a brutal surprise headbutt. It may have worked on me not long ago, before I''d had to buy my Martial Arts Dice to 11 to keep parity with my Erotic Sorcery. I stepped forward and checked the headbutt by directing it into my shoulder instead with a hand on the back of her head. My other hand went to her waist, picking her up off the ground, and spun her around to deal with the momentum before she could turn it into an impromptu full-body tackle. I held her close to me, feet dangling over the stone tiles of my outdoor gym. Fast moving clouds had obscured the moon, leaving the early autumn night dark and cold, but Annie''s tremendous body heat could warm even me. It chased the cold away, and our combined temperatures wreathed us in a misty layer of condensation. She struggled a bit, but she was gassed, and my arms may as well have been steel cables to the exhausted woman. Annie sagged into my hold and groaned. "I can keep going," she mumbled weakly. "I know. But your head''s not in it, so we''re taking a pause. Don''t want to build bad habits." "Gotta get my energy flowing ¨C doctor''s orders." "Ha! Maki would have been satisfied twenty minutes ago, and she''d have been silently stewing about potentially encouraging an injury five minutes after that. Now relax, shifu''s orders." I put Annie back down on her feet. She leaned forward into my hug, her earlier protests having been mostly aesthetic. No one wants to be known as a quitter, especially not someone as competitive as a former collegiate athlete. It was as much my job to make her stop as it was to keep her going. A decent coach could push you past your limits, a good coach understood the difference between soft and hard limits, and a great coach taught you to recognize exactly where your own lay. "Yes, shifu. Sorry, guess I''m still processing it all." "Want to talk about it?" She was still speaking into my chest, words half muffled by flesh. "It''s dumb, and I know it''s dumb since I went to taekwondo last night and literally felt the difference, the huge leap in skill since you''ve been training me. But," she sighed, "fighting you tonight, it''s like I''ve regressed or something. I mean, I know I haven''t, but it feels like it." "Makes sense, people make big leaps in skill after fighting with their lives on the line and by teaching, putting words to their formerly half-understood realizations; I''ve been doing a lot of both recently. But that''s the point, right? You improve, I improve, we improve together." She laughed a little. "You''re right, sorry. I''m being silly." The redhead unburied her face from my armpit and looked up at me excitedly. "You did get better, way better! Maybe I should find a ghost to fight?" "Maybe we start a little smaller, build your way up to dueling the spiteful dead. Speaking of, you kind of brushed off my mention of wanting to step up your training next week." "Oh! That''s right. My bad, there was a lot of information to process at once. I was a woman of science once, you know? At least Qi effects can be more-or-less replicated through tremendous effort and therefore studied, kind of like quantum physics except instead of particle colliders it takes decades of training and instruction. Magic seems to be too fickle and dangerous for scientific inquiry, too reliant on the whims of ''gods''." She pronounced the last word with an overtone of skepticism that even her faith in me and acceptance of my full retelling of the Bell Street exorcism couldn''t shake. It was easy to forget that Annie was a trained and degreed if not licensed, engineer. She tended to adopt a ditzy demeanor, a natural outgrowth of her bubbly personality, probably for the same reasons that I portrayed myself as a himbo. Intelligence was alarming in the really, ridiculously good-looking, whereas idiocy could be disarming. Early on in her career, she''d decided to choose cheerleading over the nuclear sciences since Penn State didn''t allow students to study the classified literature outside of their secure research library. In another life, perhaps, her curiosity may have won out over her drive to perform and compete. Maybe she''d have ended up as a side character in Ted''s new life, working on reactors and batteries in Ryuukai for cybernetics conglomerates. "We did drop a lot on you all at once. You''re handling it great though, really rolling with the punches." "Thanks. Maki helped a lot; she has a very calming influence. I like her." I grinned so that she could hear the smile in my words and teased, "You made that clear, as well as exactly how not jealous you were of her." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Annie jumped back, wriggling out of my arms. "I''m not, I swear! Not sexually, at least, or romantically, or anything like that, I promise!" "Hey, it''s all good, Annie. We spend a lot of time together and we have sex regularly ¨C it would be weirder if you weren''t catching feelings. It''s only human." "James, I swear that''s not it. Honestly," she licked her lips and turned a shade of pink, "I''ve been thinking a lot about, ah, performing for you with another woman, maybe more than is strictly healthy. Like, I''ve suddenly been looking at my roommate differently and I''m pretty sure she''d noticed ¨C well, she bought me two MFF romance novels, so she''s definitely noticed. When I found you naked and exhausted, I was actually disappointed that I''d missed a chance to finally enact the fantasy. I don''t know ¨C I think I might be bi? Does it work like that when there''s got to be a specific man involved somewhere in the process?" "Oh, cool. So you were¡ª" "Just being weird and awkward for no reason? No, I guess not. If I am jealous of Maki, it''s because she can hang, and I can''t. When you started telling me about the ghost hunt, I was upset that you didn''t bother to involve me, but then you kept going, and I realized that I would have one hundred percent, absolutely died, and that made me feel even worse. I don''t want to hold you back, James, and I hate feeling like I''m the weak link. It''s like freshmen year, high school cheerleading all over again, except that if I fuck up the pyramid this time, my teammates all die. Hearing you two talk about the Underworld made me feel like the adults had let me sit at their table on Thanksgiving ¨C it just¡­sucks, you know? Ugh! Look at me, it''s got me mixing my metaphoofs!" "First of all," I said, gently taking her wrists and pulling her back into the hug, "teaching you has been amazing for developing my Art. You aren''t holding me back at all, and I don''t regret a single second I''ve spent with you." Except for maybe when I gave her a new fetish in her sleep ¨C that didn''t feel great to reflect on. "But I feel you, and I''d rest a lot easier if I knew you could survive accidentally running into a supernatural horror or getting jumped by Tigers, which is why I want to prioritize your training before I start antagonizing things further." Annie sniffled and discreetly dried her eyes with her sleeves before wrapping me in a backbreaker of a bear hug. "Thanks, shifu. What did you have in mind?" "Ideally? How would you feel about taking a full seven days, Monday to Monday, and fully devoting them to training? I can give you a couple grand to help you out; don''t expect your work will be accommodating." Her head snapped back, her eyes disbelieving. "You''d do that, seriously, a whole week?" "Pshh, hell yeah. Fuckin'' love a training montage. You down?" "Oh my god, yes!" Annie leaped up, arms wrapped around my neck, and kissed me. She refused to let go after, feet dangling, body molded to mine, kissing my face, chin, and neck with machine-gun pecks. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" "Alright, alright," I said, laughing. "It''s my pleasure, Shine. How about we go check up on Maki, yeah?" "Okay!" The meditation chamber''s fake sky turned from crystal blue to a speckled, shimmering black at night, illuminating the room with thousands of stars twinkling and a moon, full and slightly larger than normally possible. "Here, James, catch." Maki threw me a wooden charm that had been freshly inked with an esoteric design. A near-taser-strong electric shock shot up my arm when I caught it, making me accidentally fling it up at the chamber''s covered porch ceiling. I caught it again with my other hand as it tumbled back down; this time, anticipating the pain, I was able to overcome my reflexes and hold onto it tightly. The charm continued to pulse waves of pain up my arm, but it wasn''t actually electrified, that was merely how my body was interpreting the mystic sensations. "What the fuck, Maki? It feels like I''m sticking my hand into a wasp nest. What is this thing?" "Then pass it back, you maniac. Why are you still holding it?" she asked, as though she hadn''t told me to catch it. "Goddamn menace," I grumbled, lobbing it back to her. Annie giggled. "You two are cute together. What is that thing, Maki?" "It is a simple tactile ward against spiritual entities. I wanted to test if it was working properly. I suspect it would have caused James a small amount of harm if he was a little further in his transformation before shattering. These paper charms," she lifted a small stack of rectangular rice paper pieces with different designs on them, "ward against more specific threats, though they will only glow harmlessly in their presence. We''ll, if you''re willing, use them to test what might be occurring to your body, but I''d like to give you a few of the wooden ones to leave with today. I can, hopefully, modify them to leave you unharmed." "Of course! I''m so grateful for your and James'' help. I still think whatever''s happening to me is strictly positive, but it''ll be nice to know more." "Excellent." The miko reached down and picked up one of the now full, one-quart mason jars of my cum. I paled a little, remembering the orgasm hell I''d had to suffer through to fill it, its three siblings, and its many smaller cousins. "Have a few sips of this," she said, handing Annie the jar. "It doesn''t take much to be effective. I want you to take the jar home with you and have a tablespoon with every meal. Whatever is happening to you, I''m certain this will have a beneficial effect; it is without doubt the most potent nootropic and nutritional supplement you''ve ever encountered, of that you can be sure." Annie held the jar up to her face, blinking in confusion at what she was seeing. Her brain was refusing to come to the obvious conclusion. "Is this¡­it can''t be¡­" "It is James''s semen, yes. Before you balk, I insist you try it first. Have you not given him a blowjob yet? It''s a most delightful experience, you really should give it a try." Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. "Holy shit, no wonder you put him on the floor. My god, James, how are you not in a hospital right now?" I shrugged. "The gods weren''t so merciful." Annie continued the girl talk as though I wasn''t here. "You must have milked him dry!" "No, not dry, we merely filled the jars I''d brought. He could have continued; like I said, he was being dramatic." She nodded. "He gets like that when he''s trying to distract you. You''ve just got to power through when you know best." I raised a hand impotently. "You guys know I''m in the room, right?" "The jar''s still warm! Did you heat it up?" "No, I didn''t have to. According to James, it will remain as hot and fresh as it was when it left his body indefinitely." Annie popped the lid off the jar. It opened with a satisfying ''whump'' sound as the airtight seal broke and let the fragrant scent of its contents into the room. To me, my cum smelled unique and unobtrusive, but it had a much stronger effect on the women, who both shivered slightly. She stuck her nose over the open jar and took in a big breath of it. "Wow! It''s better than I remembered, but then, I''ve been making him finish inside. I''ve only given two blowjobs in my life, and they were both disasters, total, total disasters, and James is so big¡ª" "Don''t be concerned with that," said Maki, with a tinge of the same mania she''d possessed this morning. "It is an immutable law of the universe that it will always fit. For your first time, have him take you roughly; it''ll alleviate your fears and it truly is a sublime pleasure, unlike anything else. I assure you, I had zero experience and it went fantastically." "Alright. That could be fun." She turned to me. "You good with that handsome?" "I don''t know what''s happening right now," I said, looking around the room to check I wasn''t dreaming. "Before you continue," said Maki, ignoring me, "you should prepare yourself for the taste. You''ll want to chug it down, but that''s a very inefficient use of an extremely precious resource. It provides its benefits for as long as it''s in your system - much more sensible to administer it regularly." "Right." Annie gave the other woman a serious look and nod. I continued to not have any idea what was happening. She raised the jar to her lips and took a small sip which, after a short pause, became a large gulp. "You weren''t kidding! I nearly went bottoms up there. Wow, thanks, Maki."
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Unwittingly have a partner feed your cum to another person. Reward: 30XP, Gain Minor feat Social Lubricant (Semen Upgrade) Bonus, She prescribed a semen regimen: 20XP, Gain Major feat Liquid Luck (Semen Upgrade) [Minor Feat] Social Lubricant (Semen Upgrade) Other people who have consumed your semen gain a temporary +1 to Charisma and Empathy for as long as it remains in their system [Major Feat] Liquid Luck (Semen Upgrade) Your blessed nature extends into your life fluid. Other people who have consumed your semen may reroll all the 1''s they get on any Dice pool result, accepting the new results regardless of number, for as long as it remains in their system. Click to shrink...
Maki led Annie over to the meditation chamber''s shrine, continuing to explain more about the preparations she''d taken. I stood back with a blank expression, still processing the last few minutes. The cum thing was whatever, just another strange, lewd twist in an increasingly bizarre, lewd life. Liquid Luck was more upsetting than exciting after my earlier, extended milking, but the danger of my seed falling into the wrong hands had already been so high. No, I was more concerned with what Maki''s wooden charm had done to me, and the implications therein. I''d internally brushed aside Maki''s theory that I was mid-evolution into divinity. She couldn''t have possibly concluded that I was an interdimensional reality TV contestant, so she had found an answer that worked in-universe, or so I thought. But hadn''t she just confirmed her theory? What did this mean for me? I smoothed my eyebrows with my thumb and forefinger in a repetitive, soothing motion as I tried to wrap my head around it. The answer came like a gut punch, though thankfully, the meditation chamber''s calming, elucidative atmosphere dulled the blow somewhat. I was not immune to the consequences of my actions through the system, nor would I be spared from the fallout and secondary effects of whatever the Producers blessed or blighted me with. I had 10 Dice in Aura; in this world, that meant I was already well into the process of shedding my humanity, full stop. Eventually, defenses and spells that worked against supernatural beings would work on me. My strengths could become vulnerabilities if I wasn''t careful ¨C no, that was wrong. My strengths would become vulnerabilities, eternally. As steel hardened, it became more brittle. When my Dice in an Attribute or Skill went up, the change didn''t occur in a vacuum, it cascaded through my mind, body, and spirit. I looked down at my scar-crossed chest. If I was knocked out, would my Force Armor allow a surgeon''s scalpel through? To my shame, I hadn''t considered that once. A sharp inhale from by the shrine broke me out of my reverie. Annie was lying on her front, shirt and bra removed, on the soft grassy mound amidst the roots of the blossoming plum tree. Maki had laid a hand on her lower back, and it was she who had gasped. The rice paper talismans had been arranged around Maki''s hand in a circle. They were glowing, but not uniformly and not at the same time, instead the glow seemed to dance and shimmer in and out of visibility at random across them all. "Is something wrong?" asked Annie. Maki hesitated. "No, only¡­surprising." The miko shot me a concerned glance, beckoning me closer. I cleared the distance to them with easy two hops. "What are they supposed to be reacting to?" "I made as many types as I could from memory. Clockwise from the top, they glow in the presence of the Tuatha de Danaan, spirits of wind, spirits of fire, spirits of night, spirits of fertility and life, wandering shades, tsukumogami, spirit beasts, and one of my own design that covers many yokai." "Oh wow," said Annie, "I didn''t realize how many, uh, things there were out there. Are any of them glowing?" "They all are." I knelt and put my hand over Maki''s, and circulated my Qi along the same paths that she was circulating her spiritual energy. Annie''s Qi was lively and active as it repaired her muscular strain, affecting minute changes outside my perception. If I had to anthropomorphize it, I''d describe it as playful and proud, almost showing off for its two witnesses. "What''s this mean, Maki?" Maki lifted her hand off, taking mine with it, and knelt back with a heavy sigh. "Annie, how closely do you resemble your siblings and the rest of your family?" "Moderately? I take after my mother strongly, we''re the only two redheads in the family, everyone else is blonde like my dad. If you put a filter on my cheerleading photos, they''re almost identical to my mom''s from the same age." "And your father, how closely do you resemble him?" Annie rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows, eyes wide and disturbed by the insinuation in the question. "Not a lot. Why? What are you saying?" "Not a lot? So, you have his nose, or earlobes, or¡­" "Well, I guess¡­not at all, really. But like I said, I''m almost identical to my mother." Maki nodded, unsurprised, and continued her questions in an even-keeled tone. "How much do you know about your conception?" "Jesus, Maki," I said, palming my face. "What kind of question is that?" But Annie answered decisively. "I know the basics, my mom likes to tease my dad ¨C and me, I suppose ¨C with it whenever he leaves for a long business trip. It was goodbye, night-before-sex." Maki shook her head. "I''m sorry, Annie, but I don''t think that''s the case. I don''t know if you possess non-human heritage or were affected by a powerful spell, but I can say with total certainty that you were not conceived in the typical congress of two human beings." I furrowed my brow, there was something else bothering me as well. "Little weird that your mom frequently teases you with your conception ¨C didn''t take her for the type from what you''ve told me about your family. I only know how my parents conceived me because Funikugami has boundary issues and a tenuous grasp on human relationships. Did she mention how your siblings were conceived in front of them?" "N-no, I don''t think so." I leaned forward. "But she''s brought yours up multiple times?" "Yeah. Why? Maybe theirs weren''t as significant." Maki nodded slowly, seeing where I was going with this. "I see. James thinks your mother is hiding something through her conspicuous mentions of your conception. I''m inclined to agree. Tell me truthfully, is she really the sort of woman who would make lusty jokes?" Annie let herself fall onto her back and covered her face with a loud groan. "No, no she isn''t. Shit." Maki and I shared a look. I patted my senior student''s thigh. "That''s some good news at least, Annie. It means that your mom knows something ¨C we have a lead." "More than one," added Maki quickly. "We know a place of interest too. Where are you from Annie, or rather, where were you conceived." "Same place ¨C same house, actually. Good old Crucifixion, Missouri, in the Ozarks; Middle-of-Nowhere, America, basically." I nearly fell over. Annie had only referred to where she was from as ''the country'', ''the Ozarks'', or with that same ''middle-of-nowhere'' epithet before. "Crucifixion, Missouri?" Annie chuckled. "Yeah, I know, and it''s exactly as nutty as the name implies. I try not to tell people, especially on the East Coast; they end up thinking I''m waaay more country than I am. You can see the shift behind their eyes, that little worrying, ''Oh no, I hope she''s not crazy or racist.''" I had to stand up and turn away, both palms slapped over my face. Jesus Christ on the cross, it had been in my face the whole time. The Producers had called Black Harbor the ''City of Shadows'' ¨C get it, Black Harbor, shadows, it was right there in the name. Victor, who I had essentially given up on finding on my own, was lost somewhere in the Flyover States; he''d been sent to the ''Crossroads of Destiny'', a small, rural town of strange import. Crossroads, Cross, Crucifixion ¨C it was like being slapped in the face. And while there had been some pretty wild names for towns back on Alan''s Earth, I doubted even rural America could come up with something as unhinged as goddamned Crucifixion. "What? Something wrong?" My voice came out strained. I tried to think of anything that could indicate a secretive order of wizards was operating out of there. "Are there, like, any old institutions there, maybe a university or something? Or did any semi-mysterious organizations move in, in the Cold War era or something?" "There''s Saint Christophers, which is a small, private university. And I don''t know about semi-mysterious organizations, but there''s an army base nearby. Why?" "You wouldn''t happen to know what he''s the patron saint of, would you?" Maki answered for her. "Travel and transportation are the most well known. He was said to have carried the child Christ across a river." I didn''t have to look at her to know she was staring at me ¨C I could feel her intelligent, prying gaze on the back of my head. "A lot of the bus drivers at my school hung little cards for that reason," added Annie, "and if you see a picture of saint dangling from a rearview mirror, it''s probably good old Saint Chris. But how on Earth is that relevant?" Holy shit, Annie had been in my very first scene in this world, and she had been immediately in simpatico with me. The Producers had clearly tugged on Fate to arrange our meeting. It had been right fucking there the entire time, a connection to Victor, to the others. What other glaringly obvious clues had I missed? "I¡ªI can''t get into it yet. But we need to pay your family a visit. Soon." "Is it about what''s happening to me? Because I still don''t think it''s a negative." "I really can''t get into it, but no, it''s something else. You''ll have to take my word for it, sorry. I''m pretty sure I''ve got some pressing business in the area, and if strange non-human entities are impregnating human women, then we should probably look into that as well while we''re there." "Okay," she said, with an easy acceptance. I was profoundly grateful. "It has been a while since I saw them, might be nice. And I don''t think I''ll be able to get anything out of my mom on the phone, anyway. It''ll be easier in person when she can''t get out of the conversation by pretending my dad''s calling her in the other room. When do you want to go, before or after our training montage?" "After. I want you in fighting shape." There was no question in my mind. I wasn''t taking my half-trained student to a place called the Crossroads of Destiny. "Will that matter?" she asked with alarm. "It might." "Then I''m coming as well," said Maki, before blushing. "If that''s okay with you, Annie. I know we just met." "Sure, no problem. It''ll be easier to sell to my parents if I''m coming back with a boy and a girl ¨C they might actually believe that I''m not dating James." She let out a long breath. "Thanks, guys. I was worried for a minute about confronting my mom, but having some friends around will help." "Okay," I said, "it''s set then." I looked at the two women, Annie, breasts bare in the fake moonlight, and Maki, kneeling placidly, expression distant as her genius mind worked to piece together a new mystery. This was the squad. "Our first team field trip will be to Crucifixion, Missouri." Jesus, what an ominous sentence. END OF ARC 1: The Tutorial Interlude 5: The Man With the Metal Hand Interlude 5: The Man With the Metal Hand? His thoughts were being aggressively Italian again, a problem that worsened by the day. He couldn''t help it, anytime he started to get dangerously depressed or stressed he''d begin going on mental rants to himself, usually about the standards for food in Ryuukai or the insipid designs currently running rampant in the city. It was better than indulging in thoughts of suicide or engaging with the many semi-legal high-end pharmaceuticals his coworkers favored he supposed, but it didn''t speak well of his mental state. He wasn''t Italian, not really, he was Ted Andersen, and his entire family was from Ohio. He wasn''t a fussy Milanese cyberneticist named Antonio D''Antonio, he was a database engineer for a regional bank, with no strong opinions on fashion, lighting, or design whatsoever. He refrained from glaring at the secretary''s cybernetic arm again, she''d surely notice if he kept it up any longer and he didn''t want to offend her. It was a bright red, fibre-steel statement piece that cost an order of magnitude more than what his apartment did to rent for a year, completely ruined by the absurd RGB fittings and the fact that she''d made the mistake of having the hand match her other one instead of simply ordering something beautiful and elegant. It was a simpleton designer that favored pointless symmetry over artistic expression; no one ever sees someone else''s hands close enough to make a comparison between the two, it was ridiculous. And even if they did, who would care? So, you had one human hand and one work of art ¨C in what world would you be judged poorly for that? Much of what Mena Technologies did could rightly be considered a waste of time, innovation for the sake of innovation, all for corporate vanity. Everyone with eyes knew that the Milan School had perfected human cybernetic design. What his professors and predecessors had done was so iconic that it defined European cybernetic research. While the megacorporations of Asia fought amongst themselves to brand their own proprietary frameworks and design guides, their European counterparts had wisely decided to focus on improving and expanding the functions of the tech within the superior Milan School frame. Fibre-steel was meant to stay inside the chassis, not serve as the outer layer ¨C ugh, it was hideous to see it in the open. This fad would only last until people realized how expensive, in both time and money, it was to repair and clean damaged fibre-steel. He shook his head and slapped his cheek a little. There he went, doing it again. The idea of quitting had his head in a mess ¨C Ted had always been a company man, willing to overlook a lot in exchange for steady employment, and he absolutely hated making major life decisions. It used to drive his wife, Cici, insane, and would do so again, hopefully, once they met up and put all of this madness behind them. The man once known as Ted Andersen stood up from his comfortable leather chair and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows of Mr. Mizutani''s waiting room. Ryuukai was a dystopic hellscape, but the view was fantastic up here on the 110th floor; the city of the future stretched to the horizon, bleak to live in, but pretty to look at. It was early enough in the day that the smog had yet to render the scene unviewable, not long past sunrise, and the gold of the morning sun was reflected in the many rivers of the city, like veins of fire on the devil''s benighted cock. Ted thought that it would have made a good moving screensaver, on the off chance anybody started using screensavers again; the people were little technicolor ants, streaming from one neon sign to the next, rushing to and from shining steel skyscrapers swaying almost imperceptibly in the heavy Pacific winds, their glass tinted a marvelous array of pastel pinks and purples. Everything on the island was garishly colorful. They had tried to paint a rainbow over the black heart of the city. "Mr. Oh?" It took him a moment to realize that Mizutani''s secretary had been talking to him. Mena Technologies didn''t make everyone take a suitable Ryuukaian name to fit the company culture better, but it was heavily incentivized through the M-point system. M-points could be exchanged for vacation time, which at the time he assumed he would need in abundance to track down his wife and friends. ''Oh Yasushi'' was the name he''d been randomly assigned. "Pardon me. What was that?" he asked in his nearly flawless Japanese, and not the specific dialect of the island, the actual language. He''d bought the language up to fluency last night with the Experience he''d earned from the raid. He had to get out of here. Once he started over at a similar zaibatsu in Tokyo he''d have a much better chance of finding Cici, who was presumably stuck as a kunoichi somewhere in Japan, and he''d be far away from the nightmarish pit of misery that was Ryuukai. Plus, MenTec didn''t allow employees with his security clearance to use social media, arguably his best chance of finding his friends. The secretary smiled apologetically, as though she''d interrupted some grand work of genius and not his idle moping. People were treating him radically differently than they had only a week ago. Not only was MenTec courting him away from any thoughts of quitting, Ted had also ''randomly'' earned 2 Dice in Presence and 3 in Seduction and the combination was beginning to affect his day-to-day life. "I said Mr. Mizutani is almost ready to see you. May I make you another coffee or a cup of tea before your meeting?" She was a pretty Filipina who must have been spending every one of her M-points on subsidized cyberware because there was no way she could have afforded what she had on her salary, even assuming that Mizutani was tipping her in cash for ''extra services''. Her hair had been replaced with smart microwire, which could let a person change every aspect of it, from color to length, to curliness, and even included LED displays. Today it was pearl white, long, straight, and with a golden shimmer to it. He didn''t recognize her optics, but she''d replaced both eyes which couldn''t have been a cheap surgery or recovery, and she''d had a MenTec military-grade socket bay cleverly concealed behind her left ear, only visible in passing. The ten-million-dollar woman, he thought to himself, what''s your secret? "That''s quite alright, thank you. Any more caffeine will only make me anxious." "I understand," she said with a bow. "I have herbal tea as well, or if you''d like, I can give you a shoulder massage to help you relax." He gave her a polite smile but shook his head and looked away, nonverbally dismissing her and the very idea of such physical intimacy. Not only was he still married, he had met very few people so overtly out of a cyberpunk dystopia as Mizutani''s secretary and was duly suspicious of her. She looked like a Stand User with her too-tight, too-short pencil skirt and blouse, bright red arm, and shimmering white hair ¨C and could the Producers have been any more obvious with the visual metaphor? A red right hand and a glowing white synthetic halo, right before he was to meet with an executive to determine his future in the company? Really? Ted had come up with a plan to survive this ordeal early on, he called it: Proactive Reactivity. In short, he stayed vigilant for any cyberpunk bullshit, and should he encounter or suspect it to be afoot, he would move to decisively shut it down. Here, that involved shutting down the secretary''s seduction attempt. At other times this week, it had involved covert investigation, frequently, and overwhelming, immediate firepower, only once, thankfully. Ted spotted the attack helicopter well before the building''s defenses could react. It was flying far too low, about even with the 110th floor if not a bit lower, and was without a doubt moving in their direction. "Shit." He moved quickly, interposing himself between the secretary and the window, and locking his arm into its bolt cannon mode. The loud whine of the railgun preparing to fire filled the room, a sound that he had shamefully come to love recently. Ted tracked the helicopter on the small chance that he needed to intervene in the situation. His bolt cannon could pierce the building''s aluminum glass panel, but he''d have to fire in quick succession to punch through both it and the helicopter. It was possible ¨C he had the feat for it ¨C but might leave him crippled for a day or two, and the superheated air would likely result in severe burns regardless. Red LED light strips began to flash above them, and each window panel displayed a large message in Japanese, Chinese, and English. STEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOW, they read, scrolling down in a repeating pattern, DEFENSE LEVEL ONE ACTIVATED. "Attention," came a loud announcement from the floor''s speakers in Ryuukaian Japanese, "an external threat has been detected outside the building. Please shelter in place. Security quarantine is active. Do not leave the floor you are on." The message then began to repeat, cycling through the half-dozen languages common to the city. At the last moment, the helicopter swooped down, turning its back to the tower, and opening up heavy machine gun fire on a line of cars stuck in the morning traffic on the Daniel Huang bridge. The tower was heavily insulated, but nothing could have held back the thunder of two mounted miniguns firing at full blast, or the resulting explosions of torn-apart gas tanks going up in flames. "Hm. A few of those cars are registered to MenTec," said the secretary, coming around him to take a look. Her eyes moved side to side, as though she was reading something. "One of them belongs to Director Nguyen, I wonder if he''s the target or if it''s bad luck." Defensive drones launched from the tower''s roof and began circling the building. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "Director Nguyen? I''m not familiar with what they''re working on." "He''s the head of the aqua-tech division; it''s big money. Indonesia just signed a contract to retrofit half their fleet with MenTec sensors. Let''s hope that cancels out whatever stock dip this will cause." She shrugged, turned to him, and gave him a big smile. "Thanks for stepping in front of me like that, very chivalrous." He nodded a silent acknowledgment and unlocked his arm from cannon mode. Just like that, the threat was forgotten, having become someone else''s problem. Someone else''s division, someone else''s attack helicopter to deal with, as far as the both of them were concerned. What''s that, a helicopter is doing strafing runs on a bridge during the height of morning rush hour traffic? That''s Ryuukai for you. God, he hated it here. "Mr. Mizutani asked for another twenty minutes just now. Are you sure I can''t make you a hot drink?" "Understandable," he said. "And yes, I think I will take that coffee." Mizutani was standing facing the window when he entered the office, hands on his hips, watching the firefighters work to put out the over a dozen burning cars on the bridge. "You know, Mr. Oh, I''m supposed to be convincing you to not leave the company right now. Pretty shit timing, eh?" The executive was the image of an amicable, relatable older brother figure. He was handsome, but not too handsome, formally dressed but just shabby enough to not be intimidating, and instead of smiling he wore a friendly smirk like he was about to tell you a joke. It was an excellent performance, but Ted was the wrong audience. He was more than genre-savvy enough to know that no man rose to Mizutani''s position without leaving a lot of ruined lives behind him. Ted approached the desk and bowed. "Mr. Mizutani." The fifty-something waved him off. "Please, I insist you call me Ichiro when we''re in private. You''ve had a hell of a week, Oh, saved me a lot of money. A lot of money," he repeated. He bowed his head. "A matter of luck, sir." Mizutani shook his head, walked back to his desk, and gestured for him to sit down. "If you believed that, you wouldn''t be trying to escape the island, would you? I know you haven''t been enjoying your time here, and in light of the week you''ve had, I can''t blame you." "I assure you, it isn''t the company, sir¡ª" "Ichiro, please." Ted gave a hint of a smile, his way of yielding to the faux hospitality. He''d play along with Mizutani for now. "Only if you call me Yasushi." "Happily, Yasushi. Please continue." "I love my work at MenTec, ehm, Ichiro. I''m merely," he turned to look at the rising cloud of black smoke out the window, "very, very tired of this island, in a very short period of time. I don''t anticipate that trajectory is going to change." Mizutani pulled a pack of cigarettes from his desk and offered it to him. "Smoke? Don''t worry, the ventilation is designed for it." Ted never smoked, but Antonio D''Antonio was an extremely particular Italian dandy. Antonio loved smoking. "Yes, thank you." He let Mizutani light it for him and took in a deep, grateful drag. "You don''t have to bullshit me, Yasushi. I owe you too much, and frankly, we have your psych profile, we know you hated your assigned project." He shrugged, looking chagrinned. "But let''s focus on the first thing. MenTec and I, personally, owe you a great deal of gratitude. You''ve gone far above and beyond anything we could have reasonably expected from a researcher in your position." "And your growth, my god!" he continued, waving his cigarette around for emphasis. "I mean, what you''ve done to your own arm in your free time with your limited resources is¡ªlet''s just put it this way, you have a lot of leverage here, Yasushi. Mena Technologies is committed to investing in you; we believe you''re an astronomically appreciating asset. There''s no reason you should be considering leaving the company ¨C zero! People have killed to be in the position you''re in right now. We want to buy you out before other companies realize what we''ve got and start a bidding war over it. You could ask for basically anything, man. ''Within reason''," he said, doing air quotes, "can mean a hell of a lot for you." Ted closed his eyes and sighed. Shit, he thought. He''d assumed they''d make some counteroffers to keep him around, but he hadn''t anticipated a full charm offensive. He opened his mouth but wisely closed it before he could speak. Now was the time to quit, before asking a single question, or else he was going to be stuck here, he told himself. Ted knew himself too well. It was in his nature to settle in for the long haul with a job, he hated job hunting, he hated taking leaps of faith, and frankly, as much as it pained him to admit it, he was enjoying the time away from his wife. Their marriage had been quietly troubled for years, emphasis on quietly. They had dated in high school, married as soon as he''d graduated college, and ten years after the fact, the life they had built together was one of convenience and routine. At some point, they''d stopped arguing about what they wanted out of life, stopped arguing at all, in fact, and just¡­settled. Ted knew he should be using this time to think, contemplate their relationship, and grow as a person, but every time his thoughts turned to Cici, he imagined her getting fucked by some Japanese noble and it made him sick to his stomach. So, he tried not to think about it. He''d find her, find their friends, go home, and then they could have a long talk. Assuredly, the past week must have looked insane from MenTec''s perspective. He could see why they were so eager to keep him; they didn''t know he''d just been following some basic genre assumptions. Towards the end of his first full day, Ted had looked around his quiet, pleasant laboratory workspace, and hedged that he''d probably missed something. There was no way the first full day of the game was going to end with him quietly clocking in and out of work without any incidents. So, he''d started snooping around his coworkers, corporate espionage was a universal problem in every cyberpunk company after all, something would probably turn up. Best to nip it in the bud early, he figured. And something had turned up, or someone, rather. Ted had done a little, oddly fun investigation, sent the report of his findings to the relevant bodies, and the spy had been fired. Unfortunately, he''d caught him early enough that prosecution looked unlikely, but Ted had earned himself a healthy portion of M-points out of the deal, and a good deal of Experience. A few days later, when the same fired coworker walked through the door of the lab with a hand in his pocket, Ted hadn''t hesitated for an instant. He''d turned and fired off his wrist taser without missing a beat, having already assumed that there would be attempted retribution ¨C it was a cyberpunk hellscape, of course, there''d be. As he''d expected, a gun had fallen out of his former coworker''s pocket. What he hadn''t expected, was for the man to have hired mercenaries to try and rob the corporate secrets he had promised to his original employers, Fong Industrial, or for them to come pouring into the room, guns blazing as they did. It had been a bloodbath. Ted had built a completely normal TTRPG character in Antonio D''Antonio, stupid joke name and all, but your typical PC was a borderline ungovernable, violent psychopath. The mercenaries had come armed for a quick in and out, grab some data, grab the prototypes, and get the hell out of there before MenTec could muster their forces. They had not come thinking that one of the researchers would have built a railgun into his arm ¨C normal scientists did not do such things. Antonio D''Antonio wasn''t even a former military man, there was nothing in his past to indicate that he would have done anything close to something so unhinged. The in-game reason Ted had written on his original character sheet was that the man idolized American cowboys as a child, hence the Weapon Proficiency Dice, and had added the weapon as an adult to his arm purely to see if he could fit it in with everything else inside the chassis. He should have seen MenTec''s interest coming. In the last week, Ted had bought four feats for his cybernetic arm, all of which were flavored as technological improvements; to an outsider''s perspective, he must have seemed like the reincarnation of DaVinci the way he had returned to work with a new homemade upgrade day after day. "Yasushi?" Right, he was in the middle of quitting. He needed to get to Japan, find his wife, find his friends, and go home. "My apologies. I understand and appreciate your offer, but I''m set on moving to Japan¡ª" "Great!" Mizutani held his arms wide, victorious. "We have offices and labs in Japan. Your lab was badly damaged in the firefight. We would have had to transfer you somewhere else anyway." "I¡­" Ted stopped himself. If he even asked one question, Mizutani would have enough to hook him. They had his psych profile, they knew what would work on him, and Ted was already vulnerable. "Yasushi, do you really want to spend weeks to months on the job hunt, trying to get a visa and a sponsor to move to Japan? Or would you rather be living in a fully furnished, company home, rent-free in the suburbs of Tokyo by this time next week?" Goddamnit, he cursed to himself, am I really about to do this? Am I about to go full corpo scum? It probably would be faster, though... Ted leaned forward. "What kind of labs?" Mizutani smirked, foxlike. Ted made a note of the way the man''s canines appeared to have grown slightly sharper since they''d started talking and filed it away for later under the ''Yet More Bullshit'' category with a mental sigh. Alan owed them all an apology dinner over this shit, he swore to God he wasn''t letting the man live this one down. Betting Man 1 Betting Man? Riverside was better by rooftop. Down on the streets, freshmen art school kids were out in force today; they sat on every corner, drawing pads in lap, milled about in the middle of foot and vehicle traffic with their cameras, and chalked their work onto the sidewalks and walls. Some university must have had an initiative planned for the day. It looked annoying, especially for a man as entrancingly photogenic as me, so I''d opted to jump from a raised subway platform directly into someone''s roof garden, heading to Kas''s from there. I waved hello to several groups of parkour enthusiasts training atop the eclectic architecture of the neighborhood, and a few of my fellow roof runners in the middle of their parcel deliveries but didn''t stop to chat. Kas had texted me to get to his place pronto and give him a call; he was in a hotel lounge somewhere in Bavaria and only had so much time to talk. He''d mentioned a surprise, and when it came to my oft-drunk and highly impulsive mentor that could mean literally anything. I wouldn''t have put it past him to have a miniature pony waiting for me in his kitchen, but if he was insisting on a call, then I assumed it was something confusing enough to warrant an explanation. I entered Kas''s from the back, using my spare keys to slide the two deadbolts in his ridiculously heavy, solid wooden backdoor. Kas had bought the antique from Andalusia on a vacation and had it shipped back and installed, all supposedly on impulse. Before the game had started, that had sounded believable, but now I couldn''t help but wonder if the old man had another reason for replacing the old French window with what was essentially a security door. There was an envelope and a still-hot cup of coffee with a coaster on top of it to keep in the heat better. I rolled my eyes at the mug, dialing my mentor on my new, fully insured, phone. "Did you make Alex come here just to leave me a cup of coffee?" I could hear the smug smirk in his voice. "Nice touch, right? Did you open the envelope yet?" "Not yet." I took a sip of the coffee. It was almost lunch, but I always appreciated a free coffee. "Mm, it''s good." "Former baristas make great personal assistants. Now, come on already. I''ve been excited for this ¨C you have no idea." The envelope had the Mazzy''s logo on it, one of the larger casinos in town, and Kas''s favored haunt. I dumped out the contents, three plastic receipts, like movie tickets, and tried to decipher them. I recognized my name, but most of the rest of the text was in abbreviations, and my mind was boggling at the numbers I was seeing. "What are these?" "They''re fucking real, is what they are! Go on, let them sink in." "No, I mean, literally what are these? I see my name and I see numbers, but I''m not sure how they''re related." There was a pained sigh. "The youth these days, I swear. They''re betting stubs, James, old-fashioned ones." "Okay." "¡­and you still don''t know what you''re looking at, do you? You''ve never done any sports betting, James? I thought half your generation was on those phone apps." "Nah, that shit''s boring. If I''m going to make money on sports, then I want to be competing, not watching." "Huh, alright, respect." His excitement returned suddenly. "Well, kid, let me be the first to walk you through your first bets! I decided that it was both very stupid to bet against you, and bad form as your coach to influence your development over a wager." Almost exactly a week ago, I had bet Kas that I could learn his ultimate technique, the Six Star Meteor Kick in under seven weeks. It had taken him seven years to develop, and he was, understandably, a little affronted by the claim. If he won, I had to move out of my apartment, which Kas had hated since the minute I moved in, and if I won, he had to pay for an all-inclusive trip to Mexico for me and Annie. "Which is why I unilaterally," he continued, "altered our previous wager a little to be more sporting. First of all, learn the Six Star if you want, or don''t ¨C I''m not going to question your ability to do so, nor the time frame you could do it in. Instead, I made some inquiries at Mazzy''s about gambling on the Last Chance Qualifiers and sent Alex to open some positions the moment they finalized the odds. Which was last night at around midnight, by the way; as of now, all registrants for the Qualifiers have been selected. The first position was with thirty thousand dollars, what I was planning on spending for your vacation if I lost, on a bet that you''d take first place in the Qualifiers at twenty-to-one odds." "Twenty-to-one! I deserve way better than that." "Heh, funny you say that because Mazzy''s agrees. We should be glad that I sent Alex to the counter at midnight¡ª" "You sent Alex to the casino at midnight then had him come by in the day to leave me a mug of coffee?" "And it turns out I was right to do so since your odds skyrocketed by this morning," he answered, cleanly ignoring what was actually wrong with giving your assistant a work schedule that included both midnight and noon. "I''m thinking they may have made a little mistake, or their Martial World researcher dropped the ball in a major way. But hey, it''s our win. That''s an additional six hundred thousand for you if you take first, on top of the prize money. Pretty cool, huh?" It took me replaying his words a few times while holding the stub up to my face to register just what he was saying and what he''d done. "Oh my god, Kas, I don''t know what to say¡­Wait, a minute, if that number represents the payout for the bet¡ª" Kas laughed maniacally. "That''s right, son, I didn''t stop there. I had Alex inquire into a few parlays for me while he was there, and the odds were just too good to pass up. Oh, by the way, I opened up all the same positions for myself at ten times the money; win the Qualifiers and you''ll be making me six million dollars." I shook my head. "So, you weren''t planning on making these other bets when you sent your PA to the casino? Because judging by the payouts on these stubs, I think this might be the most degenerate gambler shit I''ve ever seen someone do." "Pshaw, relax. You''re a safer bet than death and taxes, kid." Kas paused, putting the phone to his shoulder as he ordered a few drinks in German, and lit up a cigarette. "Anyway, second bet''s a simple parlay, thirty grand at a hundred-fifteen-to-one that you go undefeated in your pool and take first in the tournament. Can you believe those odds? I''m telling you, someone''s going to lose their job over this." "Didn''t you say there were forty people in each pool? I don''t know if I''d call beating thirty-nine people in the same day a guarantee." "You got this, don''t worry. I was so confident in those two winning out, that I decided to make one fun bet while I was at it ¨C you know, get a little spicy with it. This one''s for less, only ten grand, and you''ll have to go undefeated while also winning more than half of your fights without taking a single hit, with at least one of those fights being in the top sixteen, but, the odds are ridiculous, as you can see." I groaned. "You put seven hundred thousand dollars on me, old man? Jesus Christ¡­" "Best investment of my life!" "Four hundred grand of that on pure impulse?" "Ah god, you sound like my ex-wife. I thought you''d be thrilled! You''re going to be a millionaire, kid! A multi-millionaire, buy a fleet-of-yachts-millionaire!" "Why would I want a fleet of yachts?" "I dunno, piracy?" I continued rubbing my temples. "Kas, so many things could happen between now and the Qualifiers. My life is pure chaos, man ¨C I got my ass saved by ghosts two days ago and I''m still beefing with a fat rat. Hell, tonight I''m meeting with the Cranes to discuss what I''m pretty sure is a simmering gang war. The city''s a powder keg right now and if it blows, then I''m not sure I''ll be available for a public sports fighting tournament." Kas started to respond but as he did, a notification screen from the system popped up that took immediate priority. "No fucking way," I muttered. "Hm, what? Something come up?" "Yeah. Listen, thanks for these, uh, gifts. I do appreciate them, but I got to get going." We scheduled a video call in a few days, and I found somewhere comfortable to sit while I went through the lengthy messages from the Producers. Congratulations! You''ve completed the Tutorial Week for Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoes of Fate, where Legends Converge and Destiny Resonates! I''d forgotten how stupid the official name for the game was. They should have gone with the working title we''d given it while making characters, Love Fight, much catchier. But ''Tutorial Week'', huh? It was simultaneously hard to believe that I''d been here for a week, and that a week had already gone by. Last Thursday, I''d woken up as a struggling stunt actor with a lot of friends and decent prospects for the future. In the time since, I''d made close companions out of Annie, Marianne, and Maki, enemies of the Tigers and rivals out of Kuze and the rat, become frenemies with some anonymous Yakuza boss, mastered my Art, been adopted into the Shinto Shrine by a ghost, defeated a Lesser Evil, championed a Death God, almost transcended my humanity, and drawn the attention of every supernatural entity for dozens of miles. Man, I needed a vacation. When I lined it all up like that, it kind of sounded like my life was spiraling out of control. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
[Group Quest Completed!] Survive Tutorial Week while separated without losing a member of your group to death or Corruption. Reward: 100XP, Gain a random Major Feat from your Social Archetype (Sister Wives), Gain a random Major Martial Feat from your Style (Punching Dummy) [Major Feat (Harem Protagonist)] Sister Wives The feelings you have for someone you''re in a romantic or sexual relationship with will guide how your other partners feel toward that person. If you are sexually attracted to someone, then your other partners will gradually develop the same attraction towards them, overcoming natural preference and prejudice in time. If you view a lover in a maternal light, then she will likely become the ''harem mom'' as your other lovers start to develop the same feeling. The greater your affection, love, and attraction are for your lovers, the greater the effect and, naturally, the more harmonious your harem. [Major Feat (Black City Kung Fu)] Punching Dummy Few excel at rolling with hits more than you do, combined with your abilities in stage fighting and performance, and your supernatural slipperiness, this has coalesced into a powerful defensive ability. Once per round, you may negate Damage of any type by half of your Dice in the relevant Attribute rounded down, i.e. physical with Agility, psychic with Willpower, etc.
Tears welled in my eyes, and I nearly slid off my chair in relief. I felt light enough to float away on the breeze. They''re alive. Everyone''s alive. A near-existential anxiety that had gripped me from the start of this adventure finally let me loose. I could count on them; my friends could survive on their own. I''d wanted to believe in their ability to adapt and navigate their new lives, desperately so, but I couldn''t let myself until now.
You''ve had some time to acclimate into your role, and we at SkinDimensional have had the opportunity to observe the rule set in play, so it''s time for Patch 1.1! We''ve made 22,430 individual rule changes, so for your convenience, we''ve selected those most relevant to you. [Patch 1.1] -Tutorial Difficulty Switch: Injury Thresholds are now calculated by the highest of either your Endurance or Willpower Attribute as opposed to the sum. -Item Creation System Consolidated: Our various Item Tokens are being consolidated into a simple Artifact system that works similarly to the Base Upgrade system. Players who have accumulated Item Tokens will be compensated in equivalent Artifact Tokens. All Players receive an Artifact Token for free. -Bleeding Rules Change: Whoops! This is why we''re running a playtest. Due to an oversight in the rules for bleeding out, we''ve modified the mandatory Stabilization checks to occur at the end of a Scene and/or once every hour. Players who had to come up with in-universe explanations for the out-of-context ability to avoid death by blood loss will be given a feat in accordance with their excuse, for the sake of narrative consistency. -Some Skill Prerequisites for Feats were found to be too restrictive. To counteract this, we''ll now allow more combinations of Skills to be viable alternatives for certain Feats. For example, some Feats that required 5 Dice in Performance (Acting) can now also be purchased if the Player has a sum of Dice in Performance (Acting) and Deception equal to 7. -Relationship System Total Overhaul: Rather than the unintuitive Title-based relationship system, every NPC now has five social metrics that determine their feelings towards a Player. These are Trust, Affection, Respect, Lust, and Curiosity, and are measured on a scale of -5 to 5, with 0 being ''no strong opinion''. Relationship Tokens now increase a metric by 1 point. In compensation for the relative weakening of the Tokens, Players will receive four additional Tokens for every one they received in the past. All Players receive a Relationship Token for free. -We''ve created thousands of lewd Feats based on viewer input and Player habits. Check them out! -Created the Challenge system to bridge the growing Experience gap between party members. [Minor Feat] Muscular Vascularity Your control over your muscles is such that you are only at risk of bleeding out while unconscious. [Accept Challenge?] The top three members of your group have far outperformed our expectations, earning hundreds more Experience Points than we had anticipated. While we are grateful for your cooperation, unfortunately, this means that the Experience gap between the top three and bottom five party members is larger than we would prefer. The Challenge system seeks to address this gap by offering unique debuffs to each of the top three Players, in exchange for distributing additional Rewards to the bottom five. The Challenge, if accepted, will be in place until your fellow Players are comfortably in your ''tier of play''. Challenge: As the top performing Player, you have been issued the hardest challenge. If you accept, you will no longer be able to decide how to spend extra Successes in combat after the results are rolled. Rather, you will have to determine how would you spend any extra Successes ahead of time, should you roll them. Reward: Bottom five Players will each receive 75 Experience, +1 Random Attribute, +3 Random Skill every week, starting the moment you accept.
I had to take the Challenge, every core aspect of both my personalities demanded it. Pride, duty, love, honor, concern, none of them would let me even consider not shouldering the burden for my friends. It was rough though, to no longer be able to metagame fights, that was for sure, and a serious difficulty spike in combination with the now extremely brutal Injury system. Together, they dragged me down back into the muck of mortality, no longer operating as an out-of-context threat. That change to Injury Thresholds made the entire world fantastically bloodier and more dangerous. As someone who had managed to hit the Injury Threshold in the old ruleset, I was shocked, to be honest; the game had hardly felt easy during the ''Tutorial''. Doing an entire Injury Threshold in Damage with a single Attack allowed you to break a bone or remove a limb if dealing Murderous Damage. I was going to be taking eyes and legs, left and right if I survived. I would have died limbless had I fought the Egui with the new Injury rules and those claw strikes would have paralyzed me back on the rooftops. I could still feel them if I thought about it too hard, my flesh and bones being torn and shattered, the bile rising to the back of my throat. Sure, perhaps that should have, realistically speaking, had a greater effect on me at the time, but did the Audience really want to watch a man get ripped to pieces by a ghost? Almost as soon as I had the thought, came the next, more welcome notification.
[Viewer Popularity Poll Winner] Congratulations, you''ve won the Popularity Poll for the first week! The following have been selected from our highest tier of Rewards by your appreciative Viewers, with a few thrown in from us, your grateful Producers, as courtesies for your continued active participation. Skeleton Key Fob ¨C 3 charges; Point at any electronic or mechanical lock to instantly lock, unlock, or activate its mechanism. Fob refills its charges at midnight. Will return to you after 24 hours if lost or destroyed. Peach of Immortality ¨C Consuming this divine fruit extends the eater''s natural lifespan in excess of 3,000 years. Can be lost, stolen, or destroyed. Producer''s Care Package ¨C 1d6 Talisman of Recall (x1); 1d6 Base Upgrade Tokens (x5); $5000 added to Black Card Account
"Aw fuck." I stared at the aesthetically perfect peach in my hand with open horror. It was radiating not Qi or magic, or any Earthly power I had ever felt, but pure divine power ¨C and I did mean radiating. A faint breeze had begun to creep in through the closed windows, the sun''s rays felt brighter, and an illusory sound just at the edge of perception of a fire alit in Kas''s hearth from the other room; They were beginning to notice, the Gods. I recognized the sensation from when I first entered the Shinto Shrine in Little Tokyo. The Eyes of Fate were turning upon me. My sense of reason was telling ¨C no, screaming at me to eat the Peach immediately, to waste not a second longer. That was the safest thing to do, eat the fruit, obliterate the seed with fire, and move on. And yet¡­ I pulled out my phone and dialed from muscle memory, eyes still locked on the Peach. She answered quickly, thank god; I had no backup plan for what to do if she hadn''t. "Where are you right now?" I asked, putting all the urgency I could muster into every syllable. The answer was curt, clearly upset by my tone. "Stay there, I''m coming. I need to see you," I said. She tried to talk, but I continued, cutting her off, "It''s too important to waste any time. We can talk after." I hung up and put my phone on silent ¨C I couldn''t let anything distract me from my mission. Betting Man 2 First things first, it was time to spend some Experience. Thus far, after the enormous amount I''d gained from my nights with Maki, the only purchases I''d made were 2 Dice in Martial Arts to give me 1 more than I had in Erotic Sorcery. I''d almost bought my Agility up to par with my Aura to really keep to the spirit of the promise I''d made to the Audience ¨C the loud proclamation to always be a martial artist first and a sorcerer second ¨C but had decided to hold off and give myself some time to think about it. That had been a wise instinct in retrospect because I certainly hadn''t anticipated running a Peach of Immortality across the city. Today was supposed to be a light day and a busy night of social maneuvering amongst the Cranes, which I still had to do later. I would have to be efficient to manage both. As much as it pained me to admit it, upgrading the Crouching Tiger Stance was the only reasonable move. The technique involved wrapping your Qi around yourself in a constantly shifting, complex pattern that both camouflaged you and deadened your sounds. I didn''t know if the Major Feat version of it could also mask your Qi; probably to some extent, it was a narrative system after all. The wording of the Master Feat, however, explicitly mentioned supernatural means of perception. Making one of my few Master Feats a Tiger Style technique had bothered me enough that I''d previously decided to work towards my own way of masking my shining, golden Aura, but for this, I''d put aside my pride for now. After this was settled though, I''d come up with my own, cooler stealth Stance. At least it would drive the Tigers completely mad if they learned I''d stolen one of their most legendary techniques out from under their noses and mastered it on my own. Humiliating them online and even burning down their counterfeiting operation were two things that could feasibly be negotiated down from a death sentence, this was not. Stealing a signature technique was an unforgivable offense amongst traditional kung fu practitioners, the start of many a revenge tale for thousands of years. I''d be signing my death warrant in the eyes of their more old-school masters. Fuck ''em. Welcome to Jersey, motherfuckers. My Black City Style will embody disrespect. Even with the new, more generous Feat Prerequisite rules, the mastered Crouching Tiger Stance had a pretty broad set of requirements. Thankfully, I met most of them already, having already been an acrobatic and agile fighter, but I still had to buy another 2 Dice in Stealth for a total of 10, 3 in Climbing for a total of 5, and 2 in Athletics for a total of 6. There were other ways to get there, but that was the cheapest and most in line with how my build was developing. After spending 210 Experience on Skills, I was able to spend the last 50 to upgrade the Feat to Master.
[Master Feat (Tiger Style Kung Fu)] Crouching Tiger Stance Your spirit reflects that of the Great White Tiger, B¨¢ih¨³, with crystalline clarity. Your Qi cloak is perfect, blending your very metaphysical presence into your surroundings with deadly precision, extending beyond just your appearance and the sounds you make to include your heat, scent, psychic presence, and more. When motionless in the Stance, you can only be detected by specialized supernatural abilities, with most creatures utterly unable to notice you. When in this Stance, you may add your Aura to any attempt to avoid detection, including against unknown observers.
That was around a third of my reserve Experience gone and while it would never feel great to see that number dip by the hundreds, I had to say, the fully realized Crouching Tiger was pretty damn cool. I would enjoy crushing the Triads with their own technique. But that was only one of my concerns; speed was the other. In the vast catalog of Feats in Love Fight, there were hundreds of ways that I could increase my movement speed that I already had the Prerequisites for. However, I had a better idea, more in line with my Black City Style; it was high time to start wrangling in my build. I pulled up my shirt and pressed my new shiny Artifact Token, a platinum thumb-sized bolt, to my black-and-gold Steel Silk Sash. I''d taken to wearing my mother''s gift under my shirt; it was indestructible, making it ideal for knife defense, and served as a sentimental reminder of her. A mental screen akin to the Base Upgrade menu popped up, offering a multitude of ways to improve the Sash. Unfortunately, unlike my rinky-dink basement apartment, the Sash offered me no discounts. The Producers had already upgraded it with indestructibility, the ability to return to me if lost the next day, and a self-cleaning enchantment. I counted myself lucky that it didn''t cost me extra to upgrade it further, and that Artifact Tokens, while still costing 50XP, hadn''t been designed to be pooled together like Bases. Each Token, at first glance at least, could have far greater effects. It still cost me another 200XP in Tokens to get exactly what I wanted, but I was more than happy with the results. Two Tokens had bought me ''Extendable 2'', which allowed me to effortlessly extend the sash up to a hundred-fold its normal length of three meters. Another three Tokens had given the Sash ''Flawless Qi Channeling'', meaning I could channel any of my Qi techniques through the material with the same ease that I could my arm. The only reason I could see that the Upgrades hadn''t cost more, was that in the hands of most anyone else, it was still just a fancy length of silk. For me, though, it was devious. I extended the Sash''s ends, making them telekinetically zip in sharp angles around me, envisioning using it to block Pak Hadiman''s relentless flurry of whip attacks. At a potential three hundred meters, I''d have been able to both attack and defend simultaneously ¨C shit, and entangle, distract, and a half dozen other things too. It would take a long time, or a lot of specialized Feats, to master the use of my new thousand-foot-long, extendible, indestructible silk limb, but the possibilities were endless, and I was itching to explore them. With that, I was off, out the backdoor, onto the roofs, and racing towards Chinatown at a full sprint. The Sash was a game changer, making me into a knockoff Spider-man and exponentially expanding my potential routes. I could now leap from what we in the roof-running business referred to as a ''death fall'', wrap a Sash end around a lamppost on the way down, and not only not die, but convert the momentum into ludicrous speed with a swing. Three hundred meters was so, so much more than I had been able to visualize in my head. While the Sash didn''t have the benefit of being sticky like Spider-man''s webs, with telekinesis I could form the end into a hard hook to latch onto any ledge or I-beam and retract it like a movie grappling hook as needed. And the further I went down Force Armor''s tactile telekinesis tree, the more the city would open up. Already, there were few roofs out of reach. The tallest were typically flat and thus required by law to have a parapet; with one end of the Sash around my waist, and the other hooked onto the parapet, I could defy gravity and run up the sides, the silk helping pull me up faster as it retracted. The only thing stopping me now was that some buildings lacked a way to swing down off them safely. Once I could effortlessly stick the Sash to surfaces, I''d be flying. Despite how serious my task was, and the still deeply anxiety-inducing presence of the Peach of Immortality zipped up in my pocket, it was impossible to not enjoy myself as I cut through the air faster than the trains below. Unfortunately, the speed meant that the fun ended prematurely, taking me from Riverside to Chinatown in no time at all. While I could pass nigh invisible in the Crouching Tiger Stance over a sidewalk full of people without disturbing them with wind or noise, when I swung off a post or railing, it would continue to wobble or bang noisily after I''d gone. I wasn''t na?ve enough to think I could do that in a neighborhood full of Triad killers and not catch some unwanted attention. Once on the edge of Chinatown, I stuck to jumping from roof to roof, moving as quickly as I could while minimizing lines of sight, even crawling on my hands and feet when I needed to. I treated every window as though it had an old master with supernaturally enhanced perception. After all, the one I was headed towards did. I landed noiselessly on the fire escape outside Ma''s kitchen window, the same that a Rain-Woman had crawled through shortly after my birth. My whole life I''d assumed this window stayed locked for security reasons, and yet the front door was unlocked more often than not, and no one who could have seriously posed a threat to our family would have been stopped by a glass pane anyway. I''d never really considered it, I suppose. If I had, I don''t know what I would have thought ¨C Ma wouldn''t have made a mistake as simple as that. Now I knew, though. A spirit had crawled through that window and tried to drown her baby, so that window stayed shut and locked, forever. It was strange to think of Lily Li as a woman capable of being traumatized, but there it was. I could think of no other reason she''d been such a stickler about it. I was flattered; once you got to know Ma, you learned to recognize all the little, unspoken ways that she expressed her love. You had to, because she sure as hell didn''t express it verbally. There was a familiar looking girl in the kitchen standing over the stove. I thought she may have been one of the new students I''d taught last Friday, but I couldn''t place her exactly. That was kind of annoying, but I could make do. I placed my hand on the window so that my Qi extended cloudlike over the latch on the other side and telekinetically undid it. I could have used my new Skeleton Key Fob, but it only had three charges and my life was too chaotic to take that for granted when a small effort of will would do. I slipped in and had to clutch my head as a shock of pain exploded within it. There was some mystic ward over the apartment defending against non-human entities ¨C the sensation felt nearly identical to the venomous, electric sting of Maki''s charm except it had shot up the base of my spine and into my skull. I shook my head free of the pain and closed the window behind me, pointlessly locking it out of respect for my mother''s rules. If it made her feel better, then it made me feel better. The girl continued cooking, too busy nervously glancing between a bubbling pot and her phone to notice me from the corner of her eyes when I entered. Even without my stealth technique, the noise of the vent hood over the stove would have covered my entrance. It had been absent the night of the Rain-Woman attack but there for as long as I could remember. My parents must have installed it just to remove any reason to open the kitchen window. It took me a few seconds to recognize the girl. Wasn''t that¡­Kuze''s henchwoman? It was! She was dressed completely differently, her hair wasn''t spiked anymore, and she was without her ostentatious make-up, but that was without a doubt the girl that had been with Kuze ¨C Ami, I thought her name was. What the hell was she doing here? And in my sister''s old clothes too, I noted. That was odd, but I had more important business to worry about than the girl anxiously cooking lotus root and pork soup for my mother, so I slinked behind her and into the living room. Ma was there, in a low horse stance, eyes closed in meditation. She was dressed for comfort in linen flood pants and one of my faded Gorillaz t-shirts she''d turned into a crop top, exposing her abs and a bit of a red sports bra. Her long hair was in a braid and slung over her shoulder. "Ma," I whispered, having to consciously allow the sound to pass through my Qi-cloak. "Don''t freak out, it''s me. I''m going to close the blinds." "Eh, James?" She snapped to attention and scanned the area my voice had come from. I watched as what appeared to be a second eyelid covered each eye and left two huge yellow irises that eclipsed the white sclera and wide, round pupils behind ¨C the eyes of a great bird-of-prey. My single Die in Biology informed me that the eyelids were called nictating membranes, and Style Maker finally gave me some hints at how to achieve our family''s legendary technique. I''d already assumed I''d never learn it after leaving the School, but it still stung to see that confirmed. I met the bloodline requirement, but it was the first Feat I''d seen that required a guided Qi-ritual to unlock, something that would remain closed to me. "Hah?" she exhaled in disbelief, jaw falling open. "You stole the Crouching Tiger Stance?!" Ma threw her head back and started laughing uproariously. I''d rarely seen her so thrilled. "Well done! I was proud of you for destroying their wretched distillery, but this, this is true spite. Hahahahahaha!" Ami poked her head out of the kitchen, clearly confused. "Shifu? Um, is someone¡ªAh!" The blinds fell closed, startling her. My mother waved her hand in my approximate direction. "Ami, your ridiculous older brother stole the Crouching Tiger Stance away from your former employers. Wonderful, yes? This is exactly the kind of spiteful, creative cruelty I want you to internalize on your martial journey. To teach our enemies new forms of fear ¨C this is the Dao of the Li-Family." I sighed, glad my Qi-cloak stopped her from seeing me roll my eyes. I''d heard some form of this sentiment a thousand times. Ma had a talent for putting simple creeds that were relatively normal for martial artists, in the most deranged, villainous ways possible. If I had to communicate the same meaning to Annie, for example, I''d say something like, ''Keep your ops guessing, Shine. If they never know what''s coming next, then they''ll never feel safe. Poison their minds with doubt.'' See, much more reasonable than ''internalize cruelty''. Hang on, did she say, ''older brother''? "James, this is my new closed-door student and your new younger sister. Ami had no official identity, so I decided to adopt her into the family. She has a better-than-average talent for our Eagle Style, as I''m sure you noticed in your instruction of her." "You adopted someone without telling me?" I hissed incredulously, lowering the last blind. She crossed her arms and glared. "Oho, so you can see how that might be hurtful now, can you? And yet you don''t even call your mother to tell her you''ve taken a senior student or have been adopted into the Ishida Clan?" She shook her head sadly. "One would think we live on different continents, not in the same city. Now drop that coward''s technique and introduce yourself to your sister properly. I have some thoughts about this absurd charity you''re doing for the Ishida, by the way, but we can discuss them later. What do they grovel to their gods for if not protection, hm? Why do they need you?" "What? How¡ª" I stopped myself. "Look, I''ve got a million questions, and we don''t have time for any of them." I closed my eyes and regulated my breathing, pulling my Qi-cloak away from my body without dismissing it entirely. It was a complicated maneuver on account of my massive Aura and required a Willpower + Meditation check for me to manage. But with three Successes I was able to reveal myself without showing the whole world my second sun of an Aura, shunting much of my power into my shadow. It wasn''t a sustainable plan though; any major distraction and the technique would drop entirely. There was a sharp inhale from both women as they saw me. My mother wore some unreadable expression, a mix of concern, pride, and something else. Ami, on the other hand, was blushing brightly and was obviously terrified to see me, though I wasn''t sure how much of the latter was related to my appearance. The last time we''d been in the same room, I had gouged channels through her Aniki''s collarbones and left him on death''s door. I held out the Peach. "You need to eat this immediately before something insane happens." If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Ma went rigid and her face pale ¨C it was the most affected I''d ever seen her, not counting the attack by the Rain-Woman. "Ami," she ordered, "go downstairs and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Shout if you need help." "Yes, shifu." To her credit, the girl didn''t hesitate for an instant, simply bowing and moving. Did she know she was being sent to safety, or did she actually believe that the two of us needed a lookout? I didn''t know enough about her to say either way, and while I was extremely curious as to how the former henchwoman ended up in her position, every second counted here. "Zhiqiang," my mother called me by my Chinese name and switched to Mandarin the moment Ami was out the door. That was normally an ''oh shit'' moment from me, but this time I was glad to see her taking this seriously. "How¡ª" I cut her off in Mandarin, "Some gods found me entertaining enough to give it to me. Listen, we don''t have time for a question-and-answer session, Ma; my getting this did not go unnoticed. You need to eat the Peach." She looked wary. "If these gods gave it to you, then you were surely its intended eater." "If the gods couldn''t tell that I would immediately give it to my mother like the devoted son that I am, can they be called gods at all?" There was a flash of a small smile that was quickly replaced with firm resolve. "And do you think that I, as a doting mother would snatch immortality from the hands of my only son?" "Ma, I promise you, I will find a way to achieve biological immortality. Look at me, I''m already shockingly close and it''s only been a week. Now would you eat the goddamn fruit? Every second we waste is another opportunity for this to go horrifically bad." Lily Li closed her eyes and was silent for an agonizingly long three seconds, the ticks of the wall clock ringing like funeral bells in my head. She nodded to herself, shifted her weight almost imperceptibly, and moved her back foot to the side a few inches. "You are correct. There is no time for discussion. Come, give it here." I squinted at her; she couldn''t be serious. "Are you fucking kidding me? You really want to do it like this?" "Now who is wasting time? I don''t know what you''re talking about, James, but I know you should hurry." She extended her hand palm up for the fruit. I rolled my eyes ¨C the battle maniac was totally incapable of chill. You didn''t need to know that those fingers could curl up into diamond-hard blades to see the threat in the gesture. It oozed violence. "Ma, you ain''t fooling nobody. I modified and perfected that ''no tell'' stance you''re in the first thing I did when I started designing Black City Style." She had me stressing; I''d slipped into the gutter trash Mandarin of most Chinatown-born kids there. "Hmph, very well." She shifted into a proper, offensive Eagle Style stance, arms out and relaxed, equally as ready to start a grapple as they were to parry an attack. "Then I will drop the pretense. You leave me no choice. I will make you eat." "You''re going to force feed me this Peach of Immortality? Really? That''s your plan." "Don''t discount your abilities, James. You''ve grown quite strong since I''ve last seen you, perhaps it will be you shoving immortality down my throat." Ma smiled viciously, sending a shiver down my spine. "You know, my son, this will be our first proper fight. My love for you won''t allow me to hold back." "Hah¡­unbelievable. I really, cannot fucking believe this is how this is going." I moved my feet apart for balance, making sure to keep the foot furthest from her at a sharper outward angle than the other ¨C Ma would be going for a takedown. "I''ll try not to break anything, bones or furniture, but no promises." I shook my head, and with another great sigh, let loose my fighting spirit. Funikugami''s influence had warped it to become oppressive and hungry. It flooded the room and likely the surrounding block ¨C I could either hold it back or continue hiding the light of my soul and since the latter shone for far further than a block, the choice was easy. Ma only laughed as it washed over her, predatory eagle eyes twinkling with excitement. Lily Li''s soul was a kaleidoscope of violence. Within it, a simple, ugly red could become a dazzling variety of colors, one for every occasion. Even this display of maternal love and self-sacrifice was dyed bloody crimson and adorned in glittering jewels of joyful cruelty. The battle aura she released in response cut through me like a bitter wind, colder than a blizzard and more gut-churning than the fetid drafts of the Carrion King''s domain. On it was a promise. ''I will beat the hell out of you, and I will make you eat this Peach,'' it was saying. ''And I shall enjoy both equally.'' "What''s the matter, my son? I can''t eat from over here. Step closer." Ah, shit, this was going to hurt. In a straight fight, I doubted I could have beaten the Ma I''d seen in Funikugami''s memories, and that had been twenty-two years ago. At twenty-six, days after my birth, she had torn that Rain-Woman to pieces and then gone on to, presumably, butcher the people who had sent it in the same night. Ma was a freak, a generational talent and total obsessive, a prodigy who had gleefully spent her childhood on the constant edge of training herself to death. God, I loved her, the absolute maniac. No, I couldn''t take her in a straight fight, but this wasn''t a straight fight. Neither of us would risk destroying the Peach, nor would we be trying to maim or kill each other ¨C well, I could see Ma taking one of my eyes to teach me a lesson, she was old school like that, but nothing more. Still, she was a killer, and this was a brawl with a loved one ¨C how many of her high-level techniques would she be able to pull out here? "You know, Ma," I said, starting to juggle the Peach between my hands, "this is some supremely silly shit we''re about to get into. Know what that means?" I started slowly circling, outer foot first to never present an opportunity to pin my legs, and put the coffee table between us and the TV at my back, hoping she''d be reluctant to tear her apartment apart. "That means this might be your home, but we''re in my domain now. Welcome to Silly Town, mother; population: 2, mayor: James Li." "Tch, you should feel ashamed to admit that openly." With the Challenge I''d accepted, I wouldn''t be able to rely on lucky Criticals anymore, not to the same extent, at least. I couldn''t split up extra Successes after the fact to make insanely complicated single-round Attacks. I needed to make intentional, careful moves, no more using half the Successes to tie someone up, two more to move them, and the last few for extra Damage. My plan was to flip over her, kick off the ceiling, and take her back. If I could force her face against the ground, I could use my elbow to pry her jaw open from the side and force the fruit into her mouth. Mid juggle, I caught the Peach between my neck and chin, and hopped onto the coffee table ¨C or tried to. Ma''s foot went through the table a fraction of a second before I could land, crushing it into splinters as she put her entire body into an overhead left using the fully-extended ridge of the forearm, what we called the ''wing strike'', twisting from the hips and back, lunging forward, and utilizing gravity for that added ''oomph'' ¨C essentially the upper body equivalent of a roundhouse. ''BREAK THROUGH'' Her intent was so perfect, so honed, that her Qi screamed the words in my head the instant her forearm made contact with my sternum, or rather, my Force Armor, which it completely ignored. I used my newest Feat, Punching Dummy, instinctually, tucking my hips to curve my trajectory slightly under her arm rather than taking the blow head on, and reduced the damage by half my Agility Dice. It wasn''t enough to save me. I went crashing into and through the TV, its stand, the DVD player, and onto the hardwood floor with such force that the boards buckled underneath me. I slapped the ground and telekinetically pushed myself into an uncontrolled roll to the side, hitting the wall to the kitchen but avoiding Ma''s follow-up stomp to my ribs. "Ho! Impressive. That would have killed you two years ago." Groaning, I pushed myself to my feet. The direct blow to the body had knocked the wind out of me. "What the hell, Ma? You never showed me that before," I said, referencing the Feat she''d used to blast through my armor. She was examining the Peach in her hand. I''d missed her catching it while I was hurtling meteor-like through our pirated DVD collection. "I asked you if you wanted to harden your shins or your forearms first. You picked shins. Don''t put the blame on me. We could have done both, but you wanted your free time." I looked at the wreckage of the living room before me and rubbed my chest, using the opportunity to use my Circular Breathing to heal the bone bruise and hairline fracture she''d given me. Fragments of hard plastic were embedded in the plaster of the walls and ceiling and there was blood dripping down my back from where some had cut me. "Can''t believe you once made me do an hour of wall-sits for forgetting a coaster," I grumbled, stalling as I tried to figure out my next move. If she was willing to rip this place to pieces then I had to reevaluate my strategy. "I''ve wanted to redecorate since the divorce, but it was difficult to get started, so many memories in these simple belongings. This is an excellent reason to start over, however; I can finally get rid of this furniture and put in some new wallpaper. Feel free to go wild, boy. You''ll have to, if you mean to stand a chance." Ma grinned at me, seemingly uncaring of the mess or the situation, and rested her chin on her fist. She was waiting and anticipating, antagonizing me with her nonchalance. Right, I''d make her regret giving me this break. I dropped out of the Crouching Tiger fully, allowing my Aura to shine freely. It had been foolish of me to assume that I could fight Lily Li while holding anything back. I''d have to end this quickly though, everyone of import in the neighborhood was now an audience to our family spat. Accelerating my metabolism and breathing, I began ratcheting up my body heat to unbearable temperatures. For good measure I even invented a Feat with Style Maker to make what I was aiming for easier, creating something I could easily teach Annie as well.
[Minor Feat (Black City Kung Fu)] Hot Blooded By allowing your fighting spirit to rage inside your lungs and heart, you can elevate your body temperature to a tremendous degree. Most opponents ¨C and unprepared allies ¨C suffer a 1 Die penalty when engaged in close-quarters combat with or around you, and a 2 Dice penalty when in a direct grapple with you.
She had caught me off guard with her willingness to destroy the table, and I''d paid the price, but the gap in skill between us was no longer the chasm it had been my entire life. Without meta knowledge, it was impossible to say exactly where we sat in relation to each other, but I could feel it ¨C there were two masters in this room. She could feel it too, or else she''d have pushed her advantage, but she was just waiting, watching, unsure of where I had taken my Art in the time since I''d left the School, unsure of what I could do. "Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?" Both our grins were manic now, but only Ma had started to grit her teeth. She''d be sweating soon. I let my windbreaker slip from my shoulders and tore my shirt off, not taking my eyes off her for a second. The fewer places the master grappler could grab me, the higher my chances of success. Ma would be the first to see my wacky novelty Art and generalist build grow into something cohesive and busted. I undid the Sash around my waist, wrapped one end around my right wrist, and started swinging the other like a pendulum in front of me, spending some Experience as I did to upgrade Feats.
[Major Feat] Improvised Brawler (Upgraded) The entire world is your weapon and ally. Add 2 Dice to your Attacks when incorporating the environment or a non-traditional weapon and increase the Base Damage by 2. [Major Feat] Rope and Chain Combat (Upgraded) Taking account of the wild trajectories of rope and chain weapons in the heat of battle is as easy for you as breathing. Add 2 Dice to your rolls when attacking or defending with weapons that can be swung in this manner. You may freely use one of these weapons to make complicated maneuvers such as grappling two opponents at once or to aid in movement, even during a fight.
"Tick. Tock," I said in time to the swings of the Sash. Those Feats by themselves had turned it into a deadly weapon; its base damage was still only 2, but that was equivalent to a light baton, and no baton could extend to a thousand feet. "If you''re still holding that Peach when we get attacked for it, I expect you to eat it before anything happens." "Where is this sense of urgency when it comes to giving me grandchildren? That''s how a mother truly lives forever, James." Well, if she was going to keep standing there, then I was going to up the heat. I started gathering my Qi in my chest, getting ready to consciously raise my body temperature even further; the more penalties I could inflict on her the better. Ma moved at the same time I rolled my Aura + Elemental Control (Fire), taking advantage of those crucial seconds to clear the space between us. The maneuver forced an opposed check against her Endurance; I didn''t know her results, but the air had become wavy, and the wallpaper nearest me was beginning to curl away, decoupling from the glue as though I''d put a heat gun to it. We both tried and failed to grapple the other. I sent my Sash low to tangle her legs, but she hopped over, just barely avoiding the attempt. She landed in a low crouch and tried to swing her arm up through my legs to hook around a hip and take me off my feet. I sank into a low and closed pigeon stance at the last minute, blocking her hand with my knees. Ma turned her hips and drove up, attempting to convert the momentum into a shoulder check. I could see it coming ¨C it was exactly what I would have done ¨C but she was a hair too fast for me, pinning me to the wall and getting a single point of Damage through my armor that I negated entirely with Punching Dummy, lifting up my heels with the blow. With one hand still holding the Peach, she was forced to grab me with the same arm that had checked me. The only thing in range was the waistband of my sweatpants, a bad hold that was about to get much worse. I thrust my hips forward and belly bumped her using the full telekinetic might afforded to me by Lance Pressure. Unfortunately for the both of us, this was where my new Challenge got me into trouble. I couldn''t decide after the fact to distribute extra Successes towards pushing her; all I could do was to preassign however many I got before I rolled. She blasted away from me directly into the side of the couch, destroying it and sending the remains flying into the opposite wall where they busted out a window and its surrounding framing. Ma was thankfully still inside, but the ruined couch was now half hanging outside of her apartment. Regrettably, she was still holding both the Peach and the waistband of my pants and underwear, leaving me butt naked apart from my sneakers and socks ¨C looking as ridiculous as this fight. "Shit. Sorry, Ma. I''ll, uh, help pay for the repairs." My mother rose to her feet and cast my clothes to the side, wearing a smile so terrifying the system inflicted a roll against fear on me. The heat had begun to sweat through her clothes, and she was covered in plaster dust and woodchips. A little laugh began to bubble up from her, growing louder and more maniacal until she was full villain-laughing at me, head thrown back. I probably should have taken advantage of it, but the little boy in me was shook. "Okay, Zhiqiang, okay." Betting Man 3 A gale began to blow in from the shattered window, swirling around Ma, whipping her hair and clothes wildly. That golden aura she''d used against the Rain-Woman in Funikugami''s memory started crackling across her arms and legs, the faint images of talons appearing and disappearing. Her fighting spirit sharpened, lacerating my own with its fury, assuring me that there would be no more non-lethal Damage from here on out. Some distant part of me noted that the lotus root and pork soup in the kitchen smelled like it was done ¨C strange how that worked. Accenting it all was the Peach, pressing down on the fabric of reality like a neutron star, dragging and spinning Fate in its orbit. I wondered, in the history of the world, had two people ever fought to give the divine fruit to the other? The Heavens were surely laughing. "Don''t worry, Mama will make sure to nurse you back to health. Be a good boy and focus on not dying." "Oh god, here we go¡­" I ignited my soul''s inner light, the same as I''d done against the Hungry Ghost, to muster my Shining Resolve against the terror before me. We were both glowing gold now, though I couldn''t help but feel like second-fiddle to Ma''s full-on anime aura. While invisible to the naked eye, behind her was the distinct psychic impression of two massive wings stretching across the horizon, blotting the sun and heralding doom in their shadow. I was the unsuspecting goat below, about to be divebombed off the mountain. At least it was nice that our Qi had the same color, touching even, a real mother-son connection. Too bad that she was about to try and kill me. No, that was being dramatic. Ma had come to the same conclusion that I had earlier; she wouldn''t be able to beat me if she didn''t allow herself all the many murderous techniques she''d spent her life developing. I was hoping it would take her longer, ideally long enough for me to win, but I probably should have known better. Sticking to non-lethal attacks would have been the same as yielding the fight to me ¨C not something she was known for, yielding. I extended the Sash into a moving, silk thicket before me. It gave away the upgrades I''d made to it since she''d given it to me, but I needed to stall her from crossing the distance in any way I could. It was pointless to hope that it would actually stop her. Using the Sash like this required me to use Telekinesis in place of Martial Arts, and the only Dice Pool that even came close to Martial Arts for me was Erotic Sorcery ¨C not that I''d be busting that out on my mom. You would forgo granting your mother immortality because of squeamishness? Before I could do more than acknowledge the intrusive thought, she exploded into action. Ma was a blur of movement as she wove her way through the undulating silk obstacle course, going over, under, and through the loops I was making before I could tangle her with them. She stopped about halfway to me, though, pausing a microsecond out of shock when her Eagle''s Talons failed to cut the Sash. There wasn''t a mundane substance on the planet that those hands, tempered through decades of deliberate abuse, couldn''t tear apart. That instant of surprise nearly ended the fight, but she snapped her braid around her in a circle, emitting a moving blade of pure, cutting Qi which batted my Sash away and would have severed my throat had I not ducked. I swirled the silk net around her again, but it was a distraction; I knew better than to test her ability to escape a grapple with anything short of my Martial Arts. My goal was above and behind her. Once the Sash was wrapped around the ceiling fan, I ''pulled'' the line taut by retracting it. Ma was forced to roll through an opening I''d intentionally left for her and was caught off-guard mid-dive as I brought the entire fan and a good chunk of ceiling down on top of her for a shocking eight Damage. Non-Murderous, of course; Ma might have been willing to maim me, but I''d sooner take my life than do the same. That was enough to hit her Injury Threshold and I used the opportunity to angle the blades of the fan to shatter the elbow of the arm holding the Peach, glad to confirm that I could still do that much while affected by the Challenge. Ma used her uninjured arm to fling the fan off her and caught the Peach out of the air with her mouth, and not by gently holding the flesh either ¨C no, that would have been too convenient for me. She caught it by the hairs, pinching them between her teeth with unthinkable finesse. My eyes boggled at that. Was she even human? I had been counting on the attack to at least make her stumble or to create some sort of opening for me, but Ma only used the added momentum to kick off the ground like a bullet. Her Qi flared out behind her like two wings, rocketing her forward with a deadly headbutt and burying my back in the shattered plaster of the wall. Behind me in the kitchen, came a tremendous crash as the cabinets on the other side came loose and dumped their contents onto the floor. I splatted out with the blow, sprawling my arms and legs; it looked goofy, but it spread the force enough to keep my sternum mostly intact. Two more points of Damage and I''d be fighting with an Injury Penalty. Her good hand caught me by the wrist, mauling it with steel-crushing force, and her left leg hooked my ankle. I squeezed my fist as hard as I could to negate the Murderous Damage to my wrist, wrapped the Sash around her broken elbow, and pulled it across her front to use as a post. Leveraging the wall at my back, I lifted my knee and dug it into her diaphragm to keep her from using a Circular Breathing charge to heal herself. The fight appeared to come to a standstill as we both frantically monitored one another''s micromovements and infinitesimal shifts in weight for any chances, however small. The Peach was the complicating factor; Ma had let it fall into the valley of her breasts and was trapping it against my chest. It kept me from using Lance Pressure to blast her away, and her from using the Ultimate Attack she''d deployed against the Rain-Woman, the one that effectively turned her into a living chainsaw blade. "This is just like when we transitioned you to solid food," she panted out. "If you had had it your way, you''d have been sucking on my teats until you were five." "Why is every woman in my life so goddamn crazy? Could you be normal for once in your fucking life, you psychotic bitch?!" "Don''t talk to your mother like that!" "This is why it''s impossible to shop for you!" For as frustrated as I was, I was buoyed by the creeping exhaustion in her voice. The heat was beginning to get to her; I was burning hotter than ever, and she was now in full contact with me. Our sweat was mingling, dripping down us both in constant rivulets muddied with my blood, reminding me of what Maki had told me about my bodily fluids. But that would mean¡ª FUCK! I''ve got to do it. I had to, I told myself. If I could make Ma immortal, then no matter what else happened, I could die happy. It meant that much to me. With an achievement like that under my belt, I''d be free to live the rest of my life as bold and content as a true himbo could be. I could imagine myself one day, lying on my back while dying and thinking to myself, ¡®Well, at least Ma will be alright.¡¯ Enjoy this while it lasts, you sickos, because it''s never happening again! I shouted mentally at the Audience, crossing a Rubicon within my mind. "Hmph. Finally," said Ma. "You''re done holding back. I was wondering what it would take to get you to take this seriously." How could she have possibly sensed my decision? I was positive there hadn''t been a physical tell. "A mother knows her son," she said, answering my unspoken question. "I don''t suppose you''d be willing to compromise and cut the Peach in half?" I hazarded in one last attempt to get out of this, though I knew her to be too proud to consider it. "Ha! Too late for that. There''s no telling what half would do. One Peach will make you immortal, that much we know for certain. I won''t bet your life on the unknown." I swallowed, rolling a Charisma check to draw her eyes to mine, putting all the pitiful sorrow I could in my tone, and said, "Then, I just want you to know, I''m very, very sorry about this." Think of it like an embarrassing medical procedure, I told myself. You wouldn''t think twice about giving her mouth-to-mouth if she was dying. Ma turned her head slightly and glanced curiously at me from the corner of one eye. It was all I needed. I drove a spike of lust into her Qi-network with Gorgon''s Lust and flipped the switch on Slut-Making Strikes, mirroring all pain I dealt with equal parts pleasure.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Sexually pleasure your mother. Reward: 200XP, +2 Agility, +2 Sensuality Bonus, It was in the midst of combat: Gain Master Feat Marital Arts [Master Feat] Marital Arts The difference between pleasure and pain is purely academic to a master of your capabilities. You may use your Dice Pool for Martial Arts and all relevant Feats to tease, titillate, please, and generally play sexually with your opponents, partners, and victims. When using your Arts in this manner, others automatically lose one Success on any attempt to resist you.
Ma made a sound like I''d punched her in the throat and tensed up, allowing me to spin around her, taking her mangled arm along with me, and putting her between me and the wall. I scooped the Peach with one of my telekinetic limbs as I went but crucially kept it in contact with her skin the whole time. The fruit was my only shield against her more vicious techniques. I had expected more than one round to act; surely the surprise, the pleasure, and the pain could buy me that, I''d thought. But no, this was Lily Li, the Golden Eagle of Chinatown, outside of the momentary freeze and the tenor of the grunts she was making, you would have thought she was unaffected. Not only that, but she even managed to use the fact that I''d wrapped her arm in the Sash to her advantage. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Ma slammed her head back into my chest to create a few inches of space between us, then ran up the wall, allowing herself to fall to where she was dangling upside down. The drop dislocated her shoulder, but she was now supported at one point by the toes of one foot planted in the cratered plaster and at another by where my Sash had bound her arm. Her other leg wrapped around my neck, clamping down with calf and thigh in an attempt to choke me out. I tried very hard not to think about her face in my sweaty junk. I should have been thinking about how to escape instead. Ma torqued her body with supernatural force, golden aura flashing as she did, and slammed us both into the ground. What followed was not flattering for either of us. I did a crunch with her weight, aiding her choke and making the edges of my vision darken, and then slammed back down, using Lance Pressure on the floor to blast the both of us up and into the ceiling. We dislodged from each other as we landed hard onto the ruined hardwood in a shower of dust and debris. I scrambled to maintain control of the Peach, but Ma took me by surprise and focused on the Sash. She balled it up and threw it to the far wall, willingly eating a kick to the face just to get it out of my reach. The fight became messy from there. Somehow the wall clock had survived all of the collateral damage and was still ticking away, tormenting me, urging me forward. I wrapped my leg around her neck and attempted a triangle choke, but Ma picked me up and started slamming me against the ground repeatedly. My back muscles flexed in time with the slams, keeping them from shattering my spine like they were doing the floorboards. Ma''s face was getting thwacked by soft cock, an image that would haunt me for the rest of my days ¨C not that shame could even exist in my mind at the moment. I could have, had I been capable of higher level thinking at that moment, done something with Erotic Sorcery there, but one hundred percent of my brain was devoted to seizing control of the grapple, my cunning temporarily edged out by my old Eagle School instincts. Ma slipped free and I got to see what happened on a miss with the new Challenge rules. I lashed out with a kick, intending to put everything towards telekinetically pushing her away when she dodged, turning her body and head at the last minute. The air at my heel exploded outward with a crack, leaving my ears ringing and finally deafening that damned clock as the shockwave blew out all the surviving glass in the room. My mother tried to launch a flurry of debilitating strikes with her Eagle''s Talon, but I used the Peach to guard, interposing it between me and her hand, the other still incapacitated from earlier. She tried to fool me with a feint to go for Circular Breathing to heal it, but I saw through it. I caught her by the neck and pulled her into a brutal knee to the nose as she was inhaling. Using my Force Pythons, I pushed myself up to my feet and took the opportunity to take a step back. I was on my back again shortly. Her Qi flashed again as she used her movement technique from earlier to do a modified wing strike to my ankles, sending me head over heels to the ground again. ''SNAKE-STRANGLING EAGLE'' Ma tried to deliver a stomp to my throat, but I slapped her ankle to the side at the last instant. Dust and splinters exploded out around us in a shower ¨C hopefully the neighbors had had the sense to evacuate because I was pretty sure she had just kicked a hole into the basement three floors below. With my own Eagle''s Talon still latched onto her ankle, I tugged her off her feet and the fight returned to the muck. It remained too close to call, but my Dice were beginning to abandon me. Ma started eking out little wins, not doing enough Damage to make it past Punching Dummy, but enough to take a definitive command over the grapple. The one time I thought I landed a good hit, Ma reminded me that she too could adapt to an opponent. Having anticipated the telekinetic lance, she surprised me by spinning us both with the momentum and slamming me down hard enough to break two of my ribs. She pinned my legs together at the knees with her thighs, hard enough that I was sure she''d break them if I didn''t end this soon, and tried to go for a ground-and-pound. I kept moving the Peach to be in the way of her blows with my Force Pythons and used my elbows to block those that got through. While I was able to keep her from beating me into unconsciousness, she finally managed to use Circular Breathing to heal her broken elbow. Ma brought it straight down onto my jaw, catching me with a lucky strike and accomplishing what I had been hoping to do from the start, pinning my face to the wood and using her elbow to pry my mouth open from the side. "Give it up, James! Victory is mine!" I still had the Peach, but my mother simply continued to grind my skull into the floor. If I brought it around to stop the slow attrition of my Health Points, it would be right on my face where she wanted it. Too bad for her she was covered in my sweat and blood. I was out of other ideas and Ma had thoroughly beaten the pride out of me, so, with nothing left in me, I used the nuclear option. My world became pure gold as I channeled my Erotic Sorcery into the fluid. Ma howled.
[Ally Quest Complete!] Make Lily Li orgasm in the middle of battle. Reward: 100XP, +2 Strength, Your unarmed attacks'' Base Damage is increased by 2. [Special Quest Complete!] Have 6 Dice in Strength. Reward: Gain Special Feat Full Power [Special Feat] Full Power You have learned to use one hundred percent of your strength, bypassing the biological limiters normally in place to protect you. You may take Damage to grant yourself additional Dice on a Strength roll. The only limit to how many Dice you can grant yourself is your Health, but you must decide to do so before rolling.
I spun us around as she was lost in the haze of pleasure, pried her mouth open, and shoved the whole Peach into her mouth. Counting on this act to be sexual enough to trigger my Porn Physics, I conjured one of my Force Pythons from my palm and pushed the fruit, pit and all, down her throat and into her stomach. Luckily, while I may have been as far from turned on as I could be, the Producers were generous enough to concede the point and allowed the fruit to bulge her throat out harmlessly as it passed. The effects were immediate and dramatic. All signs of injury faded in an instant, and Ma''s timeless beauty became very much the exaggerated beauty of a woman in the prime of her life ¨C like she''d been in the memory I''d seen except prettier and with a preternatural healthy ''glow'' to her, having visibly gained the equivalent of a few Dice in Presence and Endurance.
[Encounter Complete] Defeated Lily Li, the Golden Eagle, in a battle without limits over the Peach of Immortality. Reward: 85XP [Hidden Quest Complete!] Feed a Peach of Immortality to your mother. Reward: 100XP, +1 Charisma, Gain Master Feat Paragon of Filial Piety [Master Feat] Paragon of Filial Piety You are well known to be a shining example of filial piety, a trait beloved by the Heavens and many people and cultures. Your actions towards your family, so long as they are not unquestionably cruel, are always viewed in a positive light by society as a whole, so much so that those who value filial piety will take your behavior as an example of flawless virtue. Given time, this can have broad overarching effects on the norms and mores of entire nations, but in the interim, this will mean you are largely left to your own devices regarding your actions with and towards your family. The Heavens bestow you a 1 Die Luck bonus to all rolls out of admiration.
I rolled off her with a groan and let myself just lay there. The pride of victory, of finally conquering the mountain that was my mother, could not completely erode the shame I felt over how I''d won. But nothing could cloud the joy and serenity I felt knowing that Ma had eaten a Peach of Immortality. It is a selfish sort of love, a boy''s desire to not see his mother grow old ¨C on Alan''s Earth, that is; there it was impossible. Here, anything could happen. Kas had said that was usually a bad thing, but I could change that. I would change that. A sniffle from my side caught my attention. I looked disbelieving at Ma who was wiping tears from her eyes. She was crying, I realized in shock, something I''d never in my life witnessed. My stomach dropped. "Ah, hell, Ma, I''m sorry. I, ah¡ªoop!" Ma''s powerful arm hooked under my neck and pulled me into her chest, hugging my head with both arms. "Zhiqiaaaaaaang! Mmmmmmmmmmmwah!" Ma kissed me on the forehead, laugh-crying and shaking, holding me to her as tightly as she could without popping open my skull. "My baby''s all grown up! I thought I''d lost you to movies and women, but you came back to me! To beat me at your age ¨C Aaaaah! This is the happiest day of my life!" "Ma¡­can''t¡­breathe¡­" "Now all I need is for your sister to attain her full potential, and then I will be able to die without a regret in the world." Ma released my head, but swung her legs over me, sitting on my chest as she stroked my face lovingly. "I''m so proud of you, my son. You''ve taken a style that was all flash and no silver and turned it into a strange but devastating Art. Although," she said, grinning lecherously, "you''ll be beset by rivals and repeat foes if that is how you intend to incapacitate them. I might have to schedule a weekly spar myself! Hahahahaha!" My face glowed hotter than it had during the fight. "Ma!" She laughed bawdily and grabbed my nose between her thumb and index finger. "You''re so cute when you blush, James!" I groaned ¨C anger and guilt would have been so much better from her than whatever this was. Ma sensed my weakness and dug in her talons ¨C that was just her nature. "Ahh, James, I''ve had a thought. You had better hurry up and make me a grandchild, or else I''ll have to make one myself in my belly." She leaned down and put her lips to my ear. In a cruel whisper, she added, "You can''t beat me every time, boy." She laughed maniacally and stood up. My mouth was too dry to respond. It had been a joke, obviously; Ma was just enjoying making me uncomfortable like always. Unfortunately for me, my Social Feats meant that the gross, erotic elements of our fight became an odd but valid strategy, which meant that I was the weird one here for being so embarrassed about it. From her perspective, my Erotic Sorcery had not only ended the fight, but had done so without causing an ounce of harm ¨C the Holy Grail of many martial arts. Not hers, granted, but she could respect it nonetheless. It''s not happening again, I told myself. It''s absolutely never happening again. A one-time medical procedure, James, that''s all it was. It''s like when a lifeguard has to punch someone who''s drowning to stop them from freaking out and hurting themselves. She was dying ¨C of age, but still ¨C and I''d administered the medicine in the only way that was possible. More importantly, it wasn¡¯t happening again, so I could¡­stop worrying about it? Yes, I decided. Stop worrying about it and maybe¡­lock it away deep in my mind to never think about again? Wow, even better, James, I thought to myself. What a great idea. "Get dressed, James. I''ll send Ami up to help treat your injuries." She sipped her teeth. "Aiyah, look at this mess. I¡¯ll have to make some arrangements after I sort out my Qi. Oh, and I need to let everyone know that my baby beat me in a fight! At only twenty-two, too!" "W-wait, Ma!" I said, propping myself up on my elbows. "What are we going to tell people about the¡­you know¡ª" "Immortality? Whatever we want to, boy. What are they going to do, make us talk? Ha! Don''t fret, I''ll be mysterious and threatening ¨C no one will come looking for you because of what they learn from me." "But don''t you want to know more¡­" Ma leaned down and pinched my cheek. "My son, I would rather wait for the truth from you than make you tell me lies. You''re a young man ¨C you''ll tell me these things in time. Now cover up, unless you want to give Ami a treat when she walks in. Tell her to use everything in the medicine cabinet. Don¡¯t skimp! That¡¯s what it¡¯s there for!" I flopped back down and stared helplessly at the cracked and flaking ceiling until I heard Ma pass into the hallway. My head was ringing. Sitting up, I looked around at what remained of my childhood living room, then down at myself, naked save for socks and a single shoe; the other had fallen off in the melee. "Yep," I said, talking half to myself and half to my ephemeral Audience. "Another job well done from your number one cast member, James Li. What''s he going to get up to next time, folks? Tune in and find out." I let out a great, tired sigh. "Going to be another long fucking day¡­" Interlude 6: In Which There Is Absolutely NO Foreshadowing Whatsoever? The artisanal churro truck on her block was a doomed endeavor but at least it overpowered the smell of the fish market across the street. She still wasn''t paying six dollars for a churro, but the warm cinnamon-sugar scent was a welcome change, nonetheless. The air coming out of the fish market''s HVAC exhausts had made it all but impossible to enjoy the roof deck for the entirety of the summer. Annie tried the door; the handle turned but it wouldn''t open. She frowned. "What the hell? Did they install a latch?" She wouldn''t have put it past the building super to jerry-rig a solution instead of simply replacing the lock; the man was an alcoholic and a tweaker. And just when she was getting into roof running too, she thought, shaking her head. Oh well, it was still faster than walking from where she''d parked. Slagtown was a thin crescent of a neighborhood designed for industry from a time before cars, not the largely residential streets it now harbored. Shrugging, she clambered over the side of the roof and lowered herself onto the brick sill of her kitchen window, her weathered hands having no trouble with the wet ledge. Nice, Jess was home, editing wedding photos from what she could see on her laptop monitor. It looked like she was avoiding the five flights of stairs after all. It took a few raps on the glass to get her roommate''s attention; the brunette had her headphones on, likely listening to one of the rotating true-crime podcasts she was addicted to and was taking tiny hits off a dab pen. Probably not the best time to be interrupted by knocking on your fifth-floor window, Annie noted, watching her poor roommate nearly fall out of her chair in surprise. "Hey, girl!" "Christ, Annie, don''t ''Hey, girl'' me! Are you insane? It''s raining!" Jess opened the window delicately and stepped to the side, looking ready to spring into action if needed, a kind but entirely unnecessary gesture. Since starting her training with James, her balance had become inhuman, beyond even what her master was capable of. Not that she believed the advantage would last ¨C James''s ability to improve himself was matched only by rogue AI from science fiction. Annie threw her bag in first and climbed in after. She had strongly contemplated throwing the old duffel bag out; there was a hole in it and the contents, including her beloved Hammo plushie, had been trashed by their School''s archnemesis, Mr. Squishy. It wasn''t a large hole ¨C a simple patch would do ¨C but the reminder of her brief betrayal irked her. Still, that was all the more reason to keep it. Seeing the patch every day would motivate her towards vengeance. Jess offered her the vape pen, its cartridge branded with the logo of the recreational dispensary down the street. Annie wasn''t a stoner by any metric, but a little did wonders for fatigue, and it had been a long day. The morning started with dual cultivation, quite vigorous today, followed by training with James, and then a busy day on her feet at work. But those were small beans compared to the mental fatigue of her disastrous first encounter with the rat; she had bathed him in the kitchen sink ¨C oh god, the shame the memory brought was almost too much to bear. The stress of keeping the secret from James had made her truly feel her family''s predisposition to heart disease for the first time. Her blood pressure could have been measured with a tire gauge. "Sorry, the only open spots were six blocks away, and it really is so much faster by roof. The door was stuck, by the way. Did Paul try to fix it or something?" Her roommate rubbed her eyes and leaned back against the countertop, tired but invigorated by the company. She had been editing photos when Annie had left this morning for James'' and that had been almost twelve hours ago. "No, it''s weirder than that. I kept hearing the door swing open, but, like, only swing open. I never heard it close, which was so crazy. Really eerie, you know, to only hear half the expected sound. It was driving me crazy, so I went and stuck a chair under the handle." Annie had to pause and replay the words in her head. "You mean you heard the hinge squeak like it was opening or the handle turn¡ª" "The click of the handle, the little noise it makes when it grinds against the floor in that one spot, everything!" Jess grew more animated. She must have been dying to tell her since it happened. "But, never closing. And no, before you ask, not the sound of someone closing it quietly. You can hear the door close, you know what I mean? And there would have been other sounds too if it was a person doing it." It was true, you could hear everything in minute detail that occurred in hallways. Their apartment was a fifth-floor walk-up and the closest to the stairs. The building was pre-war and like any of its age, was the source of all manner of creaks and groans. The floorboards reliably announced the comings and goings of their neighbors, and the stairwell was particularly noisy. Its marble steps could carry a sound to their apartment all the way from the bottom floor. "Yeah, but how would that work?" "I''ve got no idea!" She leaned in, wide-eyed. "Here''s the freaky thing, the door was closed when I went up there. And worse! It felt like something wanted me to open the door as soon as I got near, like the sounds had been psychic requests or something. Creepy, right?" "So creepy!" "I know! Anyway, how was your day?" she added with a yawn, stretching out her back. Her shirt rode up, exposing a tattoo of a lotus flower on her abdomen and her pierced belly button. Annie nearly got whiplash from that transition. Jessica Manning was not an anxious or nervous person. She was outgoing, adventurous, and had been, despite her daily consumption of true crime content, equally as enthused as she was to move to Black Harbor. There was a reason they had hit it off immediately at Penn State. But still, confidence aside, this was borderline irresponsibly incurious. "Wait, hang on. You can''t drop something like that and move on. I need to know more." Jess was amused but obliged her. "Exactly what it sounds like. The door would open, but I never heard it close. It took a few times for me to even register it as something strange. And then when I did, I thought maybe the neighbors were being nice enough to not slam it, but I mean, you know how squeaky it is. There''s just no way I wouldn''t have heard it swing back, no matter how careful they were being. And I never heard anyone on the stairs either¡­" Jess shivered. "I will admit to being high for all of this, but unless the dispensary got some nasty shit, I don''t think that''s applicable." The Annie of a few weeks ago might have attributed a story like that to a mix of stress from overworking coupled with an inadvertent auditory illusion. Sound waves and the way they propagated through air was the domain of fluid dynamics, and fluid dynamics could be fucking crazy. They were perhaps the least intuitive of the non-quantum and non-astronomical physical sciences; at the scales at which humans existed, few things could get as weird as the study of liquids and gasses. Last week, she might have told Jess about the so-called fear frequency, a 19hz standing wave that could cause dizziness, sweating, paranoia, panic attacks, and even visual hallucinations by vibrating the fluids within the human eye. Nowadays, she wasn''t so sure. "Very creepy. Are you okay?" "Yeah, of course. Like, I was spooked for a little bit, but it stopped after I blocked the door, so¡­" she shrugged, letting the sentence hang there unfinished. Annie was familiar with the unspoken sentiment. Strange, creepy things happened all the time; typically, they didn''t even rise to the level of campfire tales. Once at a summer camp, she''d heard the camp counselors calling her name from the woods when she knew they were in the cabin. She''d walked back inside, scared, but that was it, nothing else happened to escalate it from anything more than an ''odd phenomenon''. She''d moved on, just like her family had moved on when they''d discovered three of her younger siblings had named their imaginary friends after local children who had been missing for decades. It was disturbing, but life continued; people had responsibilities. Jess, for example, wouldn''t get the last 50% of her fee until she delivered those photos and videos; she may not have even investigated the sounds if they hadn''t been disturbing her work. But Annie had a different perspective now; earlier today she''d been bamboozled by a master of ninjutsu who just so happened to be a rat. That was the sort of experience that expanded your horizons. "Could be Qi-related, maybe we should get James involved. You''ve been wanting to meet him; he''ll be way more likely to open up his schedule if there''s a martial arts mystery involved." "Oh god, absolutely not, Annie. What am I going to do, lure him to a meeting, tell him a three-sentence anecdote, and then go, ''Hey, while you''re here, mind if we do a photo shoot?'' That''s so unprofessional." "Jess, if you''re being targeted by a Qi-user¡ª" She scoffed. "To get me to do what, open an unlocked door for them? Were their hands full?" Annie opened her mouth to respond, but she was struggling to compose her thoughts. As a novice to the Martial World, she had nothing but vibes to share. She had no facts or examples to point to, no reasons to suspect something might be afoot. Her roommate tilted her head to the side. "Though¡­that does make me feel better, thinking of it like a Qi thing. Did you know Alexander''s army heard bells tolling in every direction for days as they approached India? It turned out to be the sounds of two Kshatriya warriors dueling. And people see and hear all kinds of things at martial arts tournaments that don''t get picked up by cameras and mics. I was actually reading an article yesterday about recent improvements to lens technologies aimed at bridging the gap between what a human eye can see and what a camera captures." Annie stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Why did people, her past-self included, feel so comfortable putting Qi techniques into these neat little boxes? Was it a coping mechanism, a comfortable fiction normal people had to construct for themselves in order to function? Oh, Qi, that was how martial artists moved so fast and how they could control the elements. If a Qi-user was projecting a sound or a thought to open a door, then they must have been trying to get you to open the door, right? Wrong. Anything was possible through Qi. Perhaps the act of opening the door would have primed Jess''s spirit and mind for some follow-up technique, or maybe that had been her brain''s way of informing her that someone was trying to read her thoughts. Or, Jess was right and it was an unintended consequence, like how Annie had accidentally lit her shoelaces on fire this morning while trying to tie them telekinetically. It was impossible to say without looking into it. Maybe there had been a thief unsuccessfully trying to crack a safe using their Qi on the roof, and Jess had scared them off when she''d gone up. Anything was possible after all. "At least let me text James. He might already have an answer." Jess put her hands on her shoulders and smiled. "Annie, relax. If it happens again, I promise I''ll take it as seriously as a heart attack. But I work from home a lot, you know? I''d like to keep working from home without jumping at every sound I hear. Overfocusing on this sort of thing is the fastest way to drive yourself crazy." "Alright," she said with a sigh, "if that''s what you want. But tell me if anything freaky happens, not just those specific sounds, okay?" "Of course. When have I ever kept a good story from you? Now, are you going back to your not-boyfriend''s apartment, or do I actually get to spend time with my best friend?" "Ha ha. My ''not-boyfriend'' is busy on a ghost adventure tonight, whatever that means." "What, like Zak Bagans style? He''s walking into dark rooms and challenging ghosts to fights? Getting blinded by a demon? Cry-yelling at his friends while having meltdowns?" "It''s unclear, definitely not the last one, maybe on the first two. He might have just been teasing me; I couldn''t tell." "Huh, okay. Well, damn, now I want to watch Ghost Adventures. Should we do an old-fashioned wine and trash TV night?" Annie giggled, remembering the unintentional comedy of Zak Bagans and friends falling over themselves in supposedly haunted locations. "I''m down. I''ve got Taekwondo class tonight, but for sure after." Jess looked taken aback. "Wow, you''re still doing Taekwondo? You''re pretty serious about this martial arts thing, aren''t you? I sort of assumed this was just a way to get dicked down by your crush." She shrugged. "It scratches an itch for me in a way that gymnastics and cheerleading never did. You should give it a try; it might change your life, you never know." "What, getting dicked down by your crush?" Annie blushed at that, only ensuring that there would be more jokes in the same genre in the future. Jess laughed; it was her solemn right and duty to tease her best friend. "I''m kidding, fighting''s not for me. I''m a lover, Annie. Speaking of, are you taking the subway to class? I got you some heinous romance novels from the used bookstore. They''re horrible, you''ll love them." For as eager as she was to get as much use out of her van as possible, she ended up taking the subway after all. She had tried to stretch the math to justify the van as an economical choice, but no amount of daily driving would recoup what she''d put into it. In the end, she decided it was best to treat it as a luxury she could semi-afford herself and nothing more. She enjoyed working on cars and always would, even if life in Black Harbor was slowly making her hate driving them. Taking public transport was exponentially less stressful, and the only danger of reading on the subway was that you''d miss your stop, whereas you could barely listen to an audiobook while driving next to New Jersey''s most psychotic commuters. The most reasonable of them took ''One Way'' signs as suggestions here, while the rest considered them challenges. Jess had embarrassingly bought her three books in the poly-romance genre, finding a way to tease her non-verbally over the recent looks that Annie had been giving her. At least she was being cool about it all, but still, like the brunette with her phantom door sounds, Annie was trying not to think about her suddenly fluid and confusing sexuality. She''d gone from being the most vanilla girl in the friend group to having daydreams of laying on top of her roommate while James took turns fucking them both. And never before had she wondered what Jess''s bellybutton piercing would taste like, or if she''d be able to feel it when James'' cock pushed it up into her mouth. The recurring intrusive thoughts made it difficult to get into the book she was reading. Which was a shame, because it was delightfully unhinged in a way that only niche romance could be. Jess had struck gold with this one; it was the story of a woman who moved back to her rural Canadian lumberjack town to start a high-end cupcakery only to fall in love with her former gym teacher, a were-bear, and his fairy queen wife. It was a trainwreck of a plot that would have been perfect ''so-bad-it''s-good'' entertainment if it didn''t constantly make her mind wander to all the forbidden threesomes she could be having in real life. A scene in which the protagonist, Grayse, joined the two love interests in their pool after catching them mid-blowjob during a cupcake delivery made her so uncomfortable that she opted to get off at an earlier stop and roof-hop the rest of the way to her gym. She should have rightfully been reading jaw agape at the total lunacy, but instead, she found herself casting different friends in the role of Denisse, the Fairy Queen veterinarian, and her beloved himbo master as Jerald, the were-bear high-school rugby coach. The sting of raindrops on her face as she raced across the roofs, ran along telephone wires, and used hanging signs like stairs, helped snap her from her unwanted reverie. Annie had always loved movement, sprinting, dancing, balancing, leaping, those were her drugs of choice. When her body felt light and free, her mind followed. She was smiling when she arrived at Master Kwon''s Korean Fighting Academy, the burdensome thoughts replaced by a desire to show off her gains and Black City Kung Fu. Kwon''s KFA was a chain of dojos boasting over sixty thousand concurrent students worldwide, many of whom were working as stunt actors in Hollywood. She had joined for that reason alone even though there were closer and cheaper gyms, and stayed for the networking opportunities despite her initial disappointment. The KFA had been overly corporate for her tastes from the start, and everyone was just a little too cultish about the eponymous Grandmaster Kwon, whom she had never actually seen in person and didn''t expect to anytime soon. But cynical opportunism had won the day, and she continued to pay monthly even as she attended fewer and fewer classes. There were still twenty minutes left of the kids'' class when she arrived. A ''disadvantaged'' teen working the front desk perked up when she entered. Kwon''s offered a work-study program for those who couldn''t afford the two hundred dollars a month. "Shit," she said to the girl at the desk. "I forgot my key fob." Her subconscious must have been trying to spare her the pain of carrying a Hammo-less keychain. "O-oh, hi, Ms. Shine," stuttered out the girl, flashing her braces with an awkward smile. "That''s okay. Do you remember your membership number?" "Um, sure, let me pull up the join email." Annie expertly kept the annoyance off her face and out of her tone. The girl had recognized her, and since Annie was sure they''d never shared a class, she was probably a fan. That said, this ritual of signing in was more annoying than ever after the laid-back attitude that James took with Black City. She doubted he''d ever be so formal, even if they did one day grow to have tens of thousands of members. She made idle chatter with the women in the changing room, steering the conversation quickly to her training in Black City Kung Fu. It was an even split between lifers, those whose parents had brought them in young and who had stuck with it, and women just here for the workout and to feel a bit safer walking around at night. The only real friend she''d made so far, Kerry, was a stewardess who had joined specifically because the KFA had locations in all three of the cities that she overnighted in most frequently. She was absent today, leaving her with only her friendly acquaintances, or as she liked to think of them, her future friends. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Naturally, like a parody of an influencer, she shamelessly pulled up her own videos for the others. Did it help that she was self-aware? She had to hope. The responses to their partner forms, the elaborate, tightly choreographed fights James designed to teach specific lessons, were unanimous. First, was horniness. Politest of these was a simple and breathless, "Oh. Wow." There was also, "Lucky girl." And, "It would be helpful if we could see more of his quads¡­and hamstrings¡­and maybe glutes," followed by shared laughter. Least polite was the, "Does he charge by the hour?" She had to force herself not to glare at the woman who made that remark. Jess would definitely be hearing an angry rant about it later though. Don''t objectify my shifu! UGH. The second universal response came in several tones, but it boiled down to, ''I don''t think that''s for me.'' She tried to defend James'' vision and reassure them that his goal was to make an art that could elevate anyone from any starting level. This was the product of what they could do together, she said, and you had to remember that they were both professional athletes. The argument fell flat with the casuals, who couldn''t imagine themselves reaching that level of fitness, but the lifers were the most annoying. They didn''t see the practicality of it, the explosive brutality lurking behind the veneer of absurdity. One of them, an American-born Korean woman around her age, even had the audacity to laugh and say, "Annie, I''m glad you''ve found the novelty style for you, but there''s a reason Taekwondo has millions of practitioners, and Martial Arts Badminton doesn''t." There was nothing she could say to that, so she plastered on a tight smile and resolved to let her fists do the talking for her during sparring later. I''m going to beat your ass, Cathy. Class started with Annie standing next to her fellow green belts. She had cringed tying the belt around her waist tonight. It was supposed to signify that she was at an intermediate level in Taekwondo, a completely ridiculous claim that she felt embarrassed to be making. She had considered asking for a white belt, but she didn''t want to make a scene of things. Maybe next time she''d conveniently ''forget'' her colored belts and dig up her old white one. They ''warmed up'' with high-knees, a little jog, and some dynamic stretching, a relaxing change of pace from the sheer agony of what James considered to be a warm-up. It was here that she realized the problem with enrolling in a dojo with sixty thousand members. If Grandmaster Kwon included even one class one day of the week for his students where they truly trained at the level required to develop their Qi networks, many would die. Every year, there would be a handful of deaths, and you didn''t make it to sixty thousand members if you had people publicly dying in your classes. She assumed that the training that she was after, as a professional athlete, was gatekept to the small group sessions, running in at $75 per, or private lessons, which started at $150. Presumably, if she joined as an instructor, she could also work her way up the ranks slowly and be given that training for free, but that would require her to spend years in the system to get to 1st-dan black belt first. After the warm-up, the gym was big enough to allow the class to split into skill levels and begin drilling for different aspects of their next respective belt tests. The drills were fun! She got so much more out of them now that she had her own goals in mind. Practicing the hop step hook kick and the jump front-leg side kick was entirely pointless; James had already pounded the muscle memory of the kicks into her nervous system through what he called the ''deliberate application of pain''. But this was the first time she''d been able to gauge where she was at in developing the man''s true ultimate technique, his ''eyes'', the ability to visually internalize body mechanics in seconds. Annie wasn''t, it turned out, close at all, but she could finally see the path up the mountain, and the first step started with assisting her peers. The green belts partnered up under the supervision of a second-dan black belt named Garrison, and while he was enthusiastic and supportive, he obviously had no idea how to coach. Well, that wasn''t quite fair. She had been spoiled by James, who was an alarmingly good teacher ¨C alarming, as in, studying under him could make an athlete reevaluate the entirety of their careers and every past relationship with former coaches. It was up to each instructor how they went about teaching a skill or move. Garrison, who wasn''t much older than her and had real sales-guy energy, focused on the thwack a good kick made against the pads and pushing his students past the physical pain with high-rep drills. As long as the kicks were thwacking, he didn''t so much care about the form. Annie and James used the methodology themselves; rote repetition would help train the nerves and toughen the tendons so long as a student continued to train the motions regularly. However, as her shifu emphasized many times, in their limited time together it was better to focus on proper technique and skill building. He trusted her to get the reps in on her own time. "Hey, Garrison, hold the pad for a sec," she said, frowning at what she was seeing from her partner. Casey, the girl who had been working the front desk, had run over and excitedly asked to join their group despite being a red belt, under the excuse that she needed to practice her hook and side kicks. "Sure! Need a break?" She ignored him and stood behind her teen partner. "Okay, Casey, throw the kick again." Casey, who couldn''t have been older than sixteen, had been anxious from the start, respectfully holding back a fan-gasm by opting for a cool, casual demeanor instead. She stiffened under Annie''s attention but did as she was told. Annie hip-checked the unexpecting teen as she hopped forward into the hook kick, sending her flying forward into a surprised Garrison. "Woah, Annie¡ª" She ignored the instructor again. "Alright, now try it again, but hinge your hips an inch." A mortified Casey quickly extracted herself; she looked like she wanted to say something, but Annie gave her the old ''German gymnastics coach'' stare she knew so well from her childhood, and the girl returned to position, a bit paler in the face. Annie put a hand on the girl''s hip and moved her gently into a slightly lower, more stable stance. Both girls looked at Garrison expectantly. "The pad, Garrison." He jumped a bit, having forgotten himself. "Oh, yeah, sorry." Casey threw the kick again. This time, when Annie hip-checked the teen she was able to sink down, take a second hop forward, and land the kick. There was no satisfying thwack, she would have to learn how to throw with power from the new position, but her balance was night-and-day. "Feel the difference?" "Yes!" The girl beamed. "Wow, thanks, Annie! Was that something new you guys are working on?" She felt herself blush and waved it off. "Oh, ha! Aww, it''s nothing at all. And kind of, James and I do work on balance but that one was all me. Not to brag, but I was once Queen of the Beam in gymnastics." "This is so cool! I can''t believe I get to train with you! My friend and I have been following along to your videos. She''s going to die when I tell her about this." "What! No, that''s so cool! Send me a video of your next practice and I''ll stitch it!" "James?" asked Garrison. Casey answered before she could, a little louder than she might have. "James Li! He''s making a martial art that''s straight out of a movie or video game, and Annie''s his first student! It''s based on kung fu, right Annie?" Annie gave a nervous laugh at the small frowns she received from many of the higher-ranked students and instructors, silently admonishing James for downplaying the reaction to her being a part of two schools. "Yep! James left his Eagle School Kung Fu school because he said his family style looked too villainous for a chivalrous hero like him. Funny, right?" The joke seemed to break the tension as people returned to their drills, but she could sense that she''d be hearing small jabs and pointed comments for a long while. She had bucked that cultish devotion towards Grandmaster Kwon''s methods by taking another master, and the gym''s more militaristic culture by stepping on Garrison''s toes. James had told her that people in the modern era changed schools and disciplines all the time. They either moved for work or were looking to incorporate different techniques into their personal style, something more acceptable now with the rise of MMA gyms. But he probably hadn''t had in mind an organization like Kwon''s; the KFA had gyms all over the country, with one in almost every major metropolitan area, and it also taught Hapkido and Ssireum, traditional Korean wrestling. Those excuses didn''t apply to it. Worse, Annie hadn''t moved, nor had she bothered to try to take lessons in the other styles, she had instead joined a new school in the same city. She could see why some of them might take it personally. It was still annoying though and by the time the class moved to the sparring sessions, she had decided to make the cancellation appointment ¨C because, of course, the KFA made you schedule your cancellation. She''d wait until a few days before the next month''s payment to keep things from being unbearably awkward, but she wasn''t leaving the gym tonight without adding an alert to her calendar. With that in mind, she felt completely comfortable with ignoring the accepted rules of the club and walking over to the black belts, who were the only ones allowed to do full-contact sparring. "Hi! Do you guys mind if I join you tonight? I''m not going to get much out of point sparring with the lower levels." One of them, a middle-aged man shaped like a barrel, started to answer, "Sorry, kiddo, but it''s black belts only for a reason. Rushing the proper methods is how people get hurt. But, hey, you''re less than two years away now." "Yeah, I don''t think she''s sticking around that long, Bill," said Garrison. Bill, who had been working the bags in the corner of the gym during the drills, looked confused and a little offended on her behalf. "Sorry to hear that. If it''s a money¡ª" "Are you planning on sticking around Annie?" interrupted the head instructor, smiling neutrally. "What does James Li think of you continuing here? I know his background is extremely traditional." Jeanine Bottaro was a compact, very short, Italian woman of indeterminate age with the skin tone and rigid musculature of a bronze statue. She had seven yellow bands on her black belt and while this may have been a Master Kwon''s Korean Fighting Academy, the gym on 478 Gully Avenue was firmly Jeanine''s domain. Annie put her hands up, not immune to the little spike of fear that the little woman''s superficially friendly tone inspired. "James was the one who said I should continue here, actually. He said that two of the primary aspects of martial arts were building community and developing friendships, and since it''s just the two of us¡­" Master Bottaro let out a dramatic sigh of relief and mocked wiping the sweat from her brow. "Little James grew into a wise, sensible man, did he? How he managed that with his parents is nothing short of a miracle. I can only imagine what a nightmare he might have become ¨C I''ve been quietly worried about that since his birth." She chuckled and shook her head. She didn''t know how to feel about the dig at her master''s family but at least it had been paired with a complement for the man himself. "You know the Li''s?" "Not the Li''s, no, but I''ve had the misfortune of calling his father a¡­friend for almost thirty years. Dog of a man¡ª" she scowled, before smiling and continuing. "I won''t hold it against his son though, especially if he chose to rebel by becoming reasonable and responsible. I''m honored that James Li would entrust us with his senior student. That''s high praise," she said; Annie realized that it was more for the benefit of the others than her, and indeed, the mood shifted completely, the rest relaxing at the words. "As for sparring with us, am I correct in assuming that if I make you go through the belt progression before allowing it, you will find another school to build a community and develop friendships with?" She scratched the back of her head. "Haha, uh¡­not necessarily?" Jeanine smiled knowingly. "Then I have no choice but to say yes. I can''t deprive my students of the opportunity to train with the senior student of¡ªwhat''s he calling it?" "Black City Kung Fu, ma''am." "Hm, good name." She bowed. "Then, for the purpose of training with the senior student of Black City Kung Fu, please join us in full-contact sparring." Annie bowed low. Maybe she wouldn''t quit the KFA after all. "Thank you! I''d be honored to." Bill the barrel bristled. "But Kwan Jang Nim, the Grandmaster¡ª" "The rules of a sixty-thousand-person organization must necessarily allow for exceptions, Bill. Besides, I might have to fight James Li in the Qualifiers next month, are you going to deprive me of the chance to study his style up close and in person?" To everyone''s surprise, Bill didn''t back down. "I''m not trying to be a rules stickler, Jeanie, but they do exist for a reason. The last time we let someone spar early, he left with a fractured orbital bone and his mother tried to sue." Jeanine shrugged. "That''s fair. Well, Annie, would you be willing to show off your skills for us to ease Master Bill''s mind?" "Sure! Can I use anything, or do you want me to stick to taekwondo rules?" "I insist you use everything you can." She looked at the gathered black belts. "Would anyone from the first-dan like to volunteer?" Annie mentally fist-pumped when Cathy stepped forward, a confident and dismissive look on her face. "It should be me. Annie''s been wanting to hit me since I laughed at her Art in the locker room." She gave the woman a toothy grin. "Guilty." Cathy rolled her eyes. "I stand by what I said, Annie. You''re wasting your time with a novelty Art for some himbo. He''s hot, but is he ''throw your life away becoming the martial arts equivalent of a clown'' hot?" "Oh, Catherine, sweetie, bless your heart. You spent your life taking kickboxing-for-fitness classes. The first thing my shifu taught me was to attack with the intent to kill." Jeanine Bottaro barked a laugh. "It sounds like one of you is about to learn an important lesson. Go on, everyone, give them some room. I''m putting five minutes on the clock." The black belts formed a semi-circle around the two while the rest of the class watched out of the corner of their eyes like voyeurs. They should have just paused to watch; the spectacle wasn''t going to last long. Cathy squared up in a traditional, balanced stance, ready to kick with either rear or front leg. Annie crossed her arms, unimpressed. If James was in that stance, it could have meant literally anything, he may have been about to cartwheel into a knee to the clavicle. Cathy was going to kick, and since her head was unguarded, she was going to throw it high. Wait ¨C holy shit, was this how James saw the world? That had felt so natural to her. The beep of the clock went off, and sure enough, Cathy took a second to see if she was really just going to stand there before entering with a huge step into a haymaker of a roundhouse, trying to kick the head off her shoulders. Annie jumped ¨C Cathy had made the timing easy by overcommitting ¨C and used her opponent''s ankle as though it was terra firma, jumping again into a front-flip turned axe kick to the woman''s shoulder. She doubted even James as he currently was could have mimicked the feat; it required the same superhuman balance that allowed her to run along clotheslines and telephone wires. Cathy had enough instincts to turn what could have been a shattered collar bone into merely a dislocated shoulder, and the grit to keep fighting through the pain. Annie landed in a low crouch and had to immediately use her elbow to block a front kick to the skull. The taekwondo fighter was quick though; she pulled the kick at the last second, and turned it into a fast low roundhouse to Annie''s temple. The redhead was suddenly, for the first time, grateful for how hard James hit her in practice. She was unfazed by the pain or the burst of visual static from the kick, and had the wherewithal to recognize that Cathy was momentarily off balance. Annie wrapped the other girl''s rear leg in both arms and jumped straight up as hard as she could. Cathy fell forward on top of her as her foot left the ground, putting herself between Annie''s skull and the ceiling. The loud boom and rattle of two women rocketing into the ceiling was followed by the horrible cracking of ribs as they came back down. Annie not only spun them around in the air, but kicked off the ceiling as she did in a semi-mirror of her master''s most famous fight, and landed knees first onto her opponent''s abdomen, one elbow striking her sternum. She rolled backwards away, doing one of teenage James'' reverse kip-ups for style, the ones she''d watched a dozen times over while stalking his socials before they''d met. Looking around, there were still over four minutes on the clock, and unfortunately, no one had been able to get a phone out in time to record. "Should I keep going?" she asked Master Bottaro with a faux-innocence. "I don''t think Cathy''s enjoying the clown show." Little Sister I was death-wish-tired stepping out of my childhood bathroom, showered and with a freshly ruined, blood-soaked towel around my waist. The adrenaline crash had done to my migraine what gamma radiation had done to Bruce Banner. The Injury Threshold pain was one thing, but it wasn''t until the dust had settled that I could feel what my mother''s fighting spirit had inflicted upon my Qi network ¨C a thousand paper cuts on my soul, was the best I could think to describe it. There had been no intent or technique behind the damage, mere proximity to her battle aura had done it. I could see why she''d sent Ami downstairs and away from the battle. I needed a vacation or at least a weekend, but at this point, I''d settle for a break of any kind, preferably one in which I could fully relax and be blissfully unbothered by the mounting consequences of my actions. None of New Jersey''s beaches were far enough away from the city to be entirely safe, but maybe Annie and I could head down to Rehoboth, Delaware in her minivan, surely nothing that mattered could be happening in Rehoboth. We could get fat on its inferior saltwater taffy and shoot the shit with the local retired gays over pitchers of margaritas¡­ Goddamn, I was really fucked up right now, wasn''t I? I needed a break that wasn''t coming, not today, maybe never. I could just barely hear Ami in the kitchen clearing a space amongst the wreckage over the ghastly sounds coming in through the broken windows of what must have been hundreds of crows and seagulls fighting. Throwing on a pair of old boxers that should have been thrown out years ago, I joined her with an awkward, "Yo." Unlike the living room, which was no longer inhabitable due to the holes in its outer wall, floor, and ceiling, the kitchen was only half destroyed. The oven had been on the far wall, i.e. not the one that I''d been nearly headbutted through, and had survived undamaged, which was exceptionally lucky considering the gas stove. Ma and I had nearly blown us both to hell, what a surprise that would have been. Somehow, Ami''s lotus root soup was still contained in the heavy, tall pot she''d been using, though, unfortunately, all of the bowls had been in the cabinets that had been knocked clean off the wall, and there was a maybe inedible amount of drywall dust in the broth now. People used gypsum when making tofu, didn''t they? It would probably be fine. "Hey," said Ami. My mother''s new closed-door student held up a tin of medicinal paste labeled in Madame Wang''s handwriting. The old crone was unarguably the best moxibustionist in the city, but I preferred Doc Pham for my medicine. He was cheaper by far, and still insisted on giving me a lollipop anytime I stopped by ¨C it was the little things, you know? "Yeah, one sec." I stepped around the shattered ceramic and fallen cabinets, picked up the soup off the stove, and took a long drink straight from the scalding pot, its heat harmless to my Fire-natured body. "It''s good," I said, coughing. "You can barely taste the dust, kinda adds a zing to it." She glowered at me ¨C good, I thought with a grin, as her older brother it was my job to annoy her. I settled down next to her on one of the two surviving chairs with a heavy groan. There was just about no part of me that didn''t hurt, but I was waiting to use my Circular Breathing until after the medicine had been administered; I wanted as many charges as possible going into my meeting with Cranes. Ami handed me a metal pill bottle; on it was the traditional Hanzi character for Qi in handwriting that I didn''t recognize. "Shifu says you have to take all of them." Inside were five ugly grey, pressed tablets that smelled vaguely of bone marrow and herbs. I dumped the contents in my mouth and paused, nearly spitting them back up, not from the taste, which was awful, but from the spiritual sensation coming through my tongue as they began to dissolve. Good lord, these must have cost thousands of dollars each. "All of them," repeated Ami with a pointed glare. I could see why Ma liked her; they shared the same prickliness. I dry-swallowed the five pills with a grimace. They had the texture of spiky chalk, and the flavor lingered at the back of my throat, but they held true to the old maxim of the worse it tastes, the better it works. Their effect was immediate and absurd, with each adding five guaranteed Successes on my next Qi maneuver. Forget thousands of dollars, they must have cost Ma some form of favor or promise to secure ¨C that may well have been bull elephant bone marrow I''d tasted in them. "For the love of god, please tell me she wasn''t keeping those in the medicine cabinet." She shook her head. "Floor safe downstairs." Ami unscrewed the tin, scooped two fingerfuls of the noxious paste out before I could stop her, and paused, at a loss for where to begin. I sipped my teeth. "That''s probably unnecessary now." "Shifu said¡ª" "Yeah, yeah, I know. Just focus on the worst of them." Ma had left a lopsided star-shaped gash on my sternum from the repeated, targeted blows and had shattered two of my ribs to the point that parts of them were poking through my skin. I''d picked the longest of the wooden splinters out of my back in the bathroom, but the rest of it had been so thoroughly flayed that it was hard to tell which of the slivers were made from plastic and glass, and which were meant to be a part of my bones. Ami was gentler than I expected as she got to applying Madame Wang''s jelly to my chest. If she carried any grudge from what had gone down last Friday with me and Kuze, then I couldn''t tell. I was about to roll a Charisma check to try and figure out how she''d gone from Tanaka''s lackey to my mother''s closed-door student, but she spoke first. "I''m sorry for the part I played in the dojo challenge. I could tell that something was wrong going in, but I¡­" I switched to Japanese and replied in a low tone, "Speak Japanese; don''t know who''s listening. And it''s all good. I''ve got nothing against you or Tanaka." Her head snapped up, and she responded in kind. "Eh? Your Japanese is stupid! It''s better than mine," she grumbled, not being entirely fair to herself. Ami spoke the language like someone raised in Japan, she just had a slight Hokkaido accent and a tendency for slang. "Thanks, I''ve been getting into languages recently," I semi-lied. "Learning new languages teaches your brain to think in new ways and makes you better at problem solving." "You think it makes you better at fighting?" She sounded hopeful; Ma was probably teaching her Mandarin and/or Xiang, the language of our province of origin, Hunan. I grinned. "Everything makes you better at fighting if you let it. I could spend a few days reading Winne the Pooh and think of a new technique or two." "Huh. You''re the same as Aniki. ''Everything is training, Ami. Put some rocks in a backpack and mop the floor with a rag if you don''t believe me.''" She smiled sadly and trailed off into silence. "My kind of guy. Man, in another life, eh? How is the big lug, anyway? Hope I didn''t kill him yet. I want to get in at least one more fight before one of us dies." "I don''t know, we''re not¡ª" she cut herself off, shaking her head. "He''s on a training trip outside the city." "Oh great. Tanaka''s going to come back with some bullshit, I just know it. He''ll probably punch me into the Undercity two weeks from now with pure fighting spirit. I wouldn''t worry about him if I were you. Kuze''s my rival so he''ll always be strong enough to keep things interesting." She squinted at me skeptically. "I don''t think it works like that, er, Aniki¡ª" "Gege," I said, using the Mandarin term for older brother. "Or James-ge or just James, those are fine too, never been one for formality. You can call me Zhiqiang, but only in Chinese ¨C anytime I hear it by itself, I feel like I''m about to be scolded. Kuze can be your Aniki. I don''t want it to get confusing whenever he shows up." Ami nodded seriously. "Gege. Okay." I let her continue in relative silence with my eyes closed and would have meditated if it weren''t for the racket of crows and gulls outside. The poor vegetable-cart granny was yelling at them to stay away in Chinese ¨C I cursed Funikugami in my head on her behalf, certain he was responsible in some way or another for the scavengers. Ami''s hands, which had been gentle but indifferent to begin with, started to move with grateful tenderness. I got the impression that for all of her cactus-like exterior, beneath the surface she was in bad need of real human connection. A bone-deep weariness called on me to revel in this quiet, comfortable atmosphere, and my sense of brotherly protectiveness insisted I let Ami acclimate to our relationship on her own time, but she knew too much about the Tigers to let the moment pass. My eyes still closed, I rolled a Charisma + Empathy to try and tease out what I could without coming across as an asshole. Three Successes was a little under the average for the Pool, but it would do. "You don''t have to tell me anything you don''t want to, and I don''t want any of Kuze''s secrets or nothing, but I got to ask, how the hell did this come to be, with you as my mom''s apprentice? Why did you come back on your own?" Ami was quiet as she continued to work the paste into the star-shaped wound over my sternum. The medicine stung, but it totally stemmed the bleeding and, mechanically, I could sense that it would automatically convert one of the points of Murderous Damage into the regular sort the next time I made a Recovery Check. Once the first major injury was finished, she began to speak, moving on to where my ribs were poking out. "I think that when all is said and done, and all that''s left to do is count the bodies, people will look back on that duel between you and Aniki as the end of the Triangle-Truce, the night it all went to shit." "Triangle-Truce?" She looked surprised by my question. "I''m not really a part of that world," I explained. "The current agreement between the Tigers, Cranes, and Dragons to never escalate beyond small-scale confrontations and to operate with plausible deniability, to keep the war cold, in other words. Of course," she let out a bitter laugh, "their greed and ambition means they''ll never stop killing each other, but the old way o'' thinking was that it''s more profitable for everyone to keep things to a low simmer. Now the whole damn kitchen''s about to go up in flames, all ''cause of that dipshit, Junior ¨C no, it''s not all his fault, Guangzhou''s to blame too. Assholes." "What, the whole city? I''ve only been there once for a few days, but I thought it was alright. The opera house looks cooler in person, you know." "Tch. It can all go to hell if it means Tiger leadership goes with it." Her finger slipped and accidentally jabbed my jutting rib. "Ow!" "You alright?" She examined her finger, a little line of red was beading out of a cut. "It''s fine, the paste sealed it up." Ami tried for a reassuring smile ¨C not an expression that looked at home on her face. "We''re blood relatives now, Gege." "Neat." Ami continued applying the medicine, this time much slower. "I meant what I said that night, the Tigers do only care about strength. Power and respect are all that matter to them. They aren''t like the Sicilian mafia, ethnicity means nothing; they were born from political ideology and a rebellion. The only reason you don''t see more Japanese in the Tigers is because those Yakuza cunts have a dumb strong presence here, but in New York, you''ll see anyone, blacks, whites, it doesn''t matter to them ¨C so long as you can speak Cantonese, of course. Can''t have people at the table who can''t understand the orders. That''s why Ro and I weren''t allowed to officially join." She sighed. "All that time wasted; I''ll have to start all over again with Mandarin." You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. "Pah!" I said, waving it off. "Give me a few days with you, and you''ll be able to follow a conversation fine. That''s about all that most of the kids born in Chinatown can manage anyway." "A few days?! Really?" "Maybe only one if we spend the whole day on it," I said, thinking of my teaching Feat. I''d be investing in some more of those before the ''Training Montage'' with Annie too. "I don''t think that''s possible, Gege, not for me at least." "Dare to dream, little sister." She blushed, and stammered out a "Maybe," before switching back to a safer topic. "Anyway, like I was saying, Ro and I never officially joined or nothing, so I don''t know any details or secrets. Aniki got paid a salary and he hired us as his contracted help. That''s the way it works for the most part. You got a boss who pays their captains, captains pay their lieutenants and whatnot, all the way to the bottom. It ain''t a family, like the mafia, or a Black Society like the Dragons, more like a¡­" "Corporation?" I ventured. It sounded pretty mercenary to me. "Ha! They''d dress it up fancy, call it a movement, but pretty much. I''d probably still believe their horseshit if Boss Gao was still alive, but this new guy, Junior," she shook her head, "just a shark in a suit is what he is." "What happened to Gao, anyway? I didn''t even know he died. Last I heard, the old man was living on some golf club in the Greenbelt." Ami looked genuinely sad for a moment. "Nah, he was dying for a while. They used to fly him out to different clinics around the world, but it comes for us all in the end, big and small, rich and poor. Don''t know why they kept his death under wraps though, I bet half the neighborhood would of wanted to pay respects at a funeral. Word on the street is that you''re like a hero or some shit, but Gao did some good too, you know? Ro and I were pulled out of a Yakuza shipping container with a lot of other people, by Aniki and his master, but at Boss Gao''s orders. Fucking Yakuza dogs would of killed us all to cover their tracks or save face if the cops had done the rescue, but Gao found places for us to work in the organization, and not as slaves neither, real jobs. I was thirteen and figured I''d end up in a brothel after all, but Gao gave me a job as a corner scout ¨C one of the kids that goes running when the cops show up." "How generous of him." She glared. "It''s not like that. I had no home to return to, and the Yakuza would have raped me to death for revenge if I''d just been sent to some school or some shit. Gao looked after me for long enough for them to move on to the next grudge." I growled a deep grinding sound that came from the center of my chest. "If anyone ever so much as thought about killing somebody I rescued, I''d turn their world into fucking ash. Shit, sorry." My voice had gone echoey there, uncomfortably close to the way Funikugami sounded outside of his crow-headed child form. Ami had frozen in place wide-eyed and turned stark white. A single tear started rolling down her face. I did breathing exercises to wrangle the killing intent that had ripped out of me, but my knuckles only gripped the handle of the Hakkotsu no Ha, the Bleached-Bone Blade, harder¡ª The Bleached-Bone Blade? "What the fuck?!" I jumped, startled to see the white metal of the wakizashi in my hand, and threw the thing into the sink. "Stupid, goddamn sword. Showing up unannounced¡ªWould it kill you to knock?" I turned to Ami, extremely apologetic. "I am so sorry about that." She pointed down, finger shaking. "It-it came out of you, f-from your rib. You pulled it out, you, I saw, b-behind you¡ª" she shivered, her whole body now trembling. I looked down at a massive ¨C and new ¨C gash in my side, just now aware of the fact that I''d taken another three points of Murderous Damage. Had I lost some time there for a bit? "Oh yeah, look at that." I shrugged. "Eh, what are you gonna do? Shit''s cursed and made from the god I champion for ¨C blech, I hate how that sounds. Where were we at? Right, I remember. Okay, so I get why you were working, or subcontracting, for the Tigers, but how and why are you here?" Ami wiped the tear away and cleared her throat. "Y-yes, sorry. I, uh¡­" "Take your time." "I''m fine. Right, so, after Gao died," she gulped and took a deep breath to center herself. "There were plenty of captains that got skipped over for the position from Black Harbor, but Guangzhou sent this annoying social climber dumbass from New York, as though he could do for here what the Tigers did in Manhattan. Like, most people are from South China in Manhattan, it''s a totally different culture and history. So braindead. Turn around." She sucked in a breath as I sat on the chair backwards like a youth pastor trying to look cool. "Tss, Gege, I''m not sure where to start here. Shifu did a number to you, hm?" "Just slather it on as you please. I''m only letting this happen so Ma doesn''t yell at us for ''skimping''. What happened after this ''Junior'' came?" Ami started working a line down my spine. "Not much to tell beyond that. Junior set about shaking things up, trying to put his stamp on things. Obviously, he didn''t want to share power with the Cranes and Dragons, but he couldn''t just outright start the war because then they''d team up, so he''s just been poking at stuff, stirring the pot. Aniki started getting worse and worse jobs; he''d get paid more for them, but not like that matters if you''re dead. Then there was the ''dojo challenge'' ¨C tch, what a fucking joke. Sent him to his death, they did. He got lucky that you were teaching that night and not your mother ¨C everyone knows it too, knows you let him off easy. He hates that you didn''t kill him, but honestly, I think he kind of likes you. Aniki was more pissed that you got dragged into this whole mess than at you specifically. I think if he had his way, he''d be a hero like you, and not a gangster like his master. Maybe if it had been you¡ªwell, that''s his story to tell. Ah¡ª" She paused, and after an awkward silence, said, "I forgot to thank you." I heard her get off her chair and the next thing she said came from beneath and behind me. "Thank you for sparing my Aniki''s life. I owe you big time, anything you want, just say the word." I sighed. "Ami, if I turn around and you''re kneeling on the ground, I''m going to burn one of your eyebrows off." She scrambled back into her chair. "Just look after my mom, alright? She might seem invincible, but she''s still human. Talk to her about her C-dramas, she''ll love that. Play mahjong with her. I could never get into it." "Of course, Gege. I¡ªI don''t know why I came to her, maybe I was looking to die. Technically, I was here to apologize, but, I don''t know. Aniki told us to get out of town after we dragged him back to safety, but this is the only place in America that I''ve ever lived, and shit, it might suck sometimes, but it''s my home. Ro went up to New York; his Cantonese is way better than mine, and he always dreamed of being a hotshot gangster. Pussy''s in for a rude awakening one of these days. I just," she cleared her throat, "I just wanted anything, man, a life, a family, anything ¨C something that was mine. When I came and saw shifu, the woman who cut a hole out for herself right in the middle of three different gangs'' territories, she was everything. One look and I knew right then and there that I''d die to be like her, do anything. I finally got it, what Ro saw when was looking at higher-ups, that dream. I got on my knees and begged her to take me as a student, thought she''d beat the shit out of me for the dojo challenge, but all she did was ask me one question¡ª" I interjected, smiling. "How do you feel about pain?" Ma had no less than five different speeches that started with that question, the goddamn psychopath. "What did you say?" "Nothing, I broke my finger - snapped my pinky back flat to my hand." I laughed. "No wonder she adopted you. That''s hilarious." Ami chuckled. "Yeah, guess it is. She cuffed me on the ear and asked, ''Why did you do that, idiot girl? Now I''ll have to take you to the healer before we can start training!'' The rest is about what you''d expect. Jiejie was really nice, by the way," she added, using the Chinese for older sister, despite being if not the same age then older than her, I was pretty sure. "We did a video call. Your whole family''s so pretty." "Our family. And what the fuck, Crystal knew Ma adopted you? Does no one tell me anything?" I could hear the mirth in Ami''s voice, a pleasant change from earlier. "She asked me to get a video of your face when you found out, actually." "Typical," I grumbled. "Well, Meimei, you can let her know that I''m going be real creative with the pranks when she gets back from school." She laughed. "But wouldn''t you prefer if I didn''t warn her? We''re out of jelly by the way. Hold your arms up. I''ll get started with the wraps." "Don''t bother. Watch closely, this is our family''s primary fast healing technique. It has some weaknesses, I was able to keep Ma from using it for a while in our fight by keeping pressure on her diaphragm, for instance, but it''s pretty strong otherwise." I took a deep breath, using a single Circular Breathing charge to return myself to complete health, the wound jelly and the twenty-five guaranteed Successes from the mystery pills absolutely carrying me. The migraine was gone, and I could no longer feel the soul pain left over from Ma''s battle aura. "Ahhh, so much better." I stood and stretched my back with a satisfied moan. Without the crushing headache, my day was back to being excellent, all things considered. Ma was immortal, I''d won the Viewer Popularity Poll, got a new sister, and had earned an outrageous amount of Experience from Quests that I wasn''t thinking about. Ami ran a disbelieving hand across my newest scars, mouth slightly open, before snatching it away with a blush. "Where did the blood go?" "I''m freshly showered, you see," I said, totally failing to explain anything about the Special Feat that was actually responsible. "But, what? I¡­huh?" Man, that would never get old. I patted her on the shoulder condescendingly and smiled. "I should get going, but let''s meet up for Mandarin lessons. Let me get your num¡ª" A sudden realization made me palm my face. "What''s wrong?" "Just give me a second." I put my hands on my knees and groaned. God, I was so tired. "Do me a favor and grab my ruined pants from the living room." "Sure." I kept my eyes closed, listening as she went and returned. "In the right pocket, there should be a phone." "Oh, umm¡­" "It''s broken, isn''t it?" "Yes." "Mhm." I nodded and walked over to the stove. "What are you doing?" "Stress eating," I said, picking up the pot. "Want me to save you some? Speak up quickly, or else I''m downing this shit." "Oh no, Gege, there''s so much dust¡­" "More for me, then." I tilted the pot and poured the contents into my wide-open mouth. Ami watched horrified with her hands atop her head. The soup tasted like pond mud, but it was nice to have a sister in town. I''d missed that look. Kingfisher Kingfisher? "What do you mean it isn''t covered? It''s called a Total Protection Plan. How can we possibly have different definitions for the word ''total''?" I was at a small tech shop near my apartment, the same one I''d bought my replacement phone from out of a, clearly misguided, desire to support local business. Since I hadn''t been looking for a laptop and cameras this time around, I figured it would be fine to go to whatever was closest. The man at the counter was somewhere in his late forties and looked like he had probably been bullied by guys like me in high school. Thick, bulletproof glass separated the two of us and forced us to speak through a small, perforated vent that let only the barest amount of sound through. His name tag read ''Denni'' below the word ''owner'', and he was wearing a cruel little smirk, happy to wield what little power he had in his life over me. "It covers all repairs, sir, and there''s just¡­no way we could repair this." He held up my mangled phone. Fragments of the screen flaked off. Internally, I conceded that he wasn''t technically incorrect, but that was beside the point. "Dude, you, personally, sold me this phone not even twenty-four hours ago. I asked you if the protection plan actually covered everything or if it was a marketing speak and you said, and I quote, ''Total Protection means you are totally covered. Anything happens, bring it back, no questions asked.''" He shrugged helplessly. "The contract you signed was very¡ª" I slapped the counter and pointed my finger at him threateningly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was happy for the opportunity to test out my new, all-original stealth Stance. "Motherfuck the contract, man. You gave me your word, that''s what matters here. ''No questions asked,'' remember?" "If I misspoke yesterday, then I apologize, but I still can''t help you out." Deep breath, James, I told myself. Just be glad the new Stance is working as intended. "Look, Dennis¡ª" "Denni," he interrupted, pointing to his nametag. "Denni. Sorry, I thought you might have been too stupid to spell your own name. Do you really want to do it this way, Denni?" He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. "I don''t follow, sir." "I don''t judge a man by how he treats his betters, Dennis¡ª" "D¡ª" "Shut up, it''s a dumb name anyway. I judge a man by how he treats his peers and his subordinates, so I''m going to ask you again. Do you really want to do it like this? ''Cause I don''t live far from here, brother. Are you really about to fuck over a neighbor for twelve-hundred dollars?" "First of all, I don''t live in this dump of a neighborhood. Second, are you threatening me?" Denni lifted up his shirt, exposing a pistol on his hip. "Because I don''t think you want me to start feeling threatened, brother." "Ha! Believe me, you''d know if I was threatening you. I''m going to ask you one last time, and then what happens, happens. Are you going to be a dickhead about this?" Denni said nothing, drew the gun, and placed it on the counter in front of him as a response. I shook my head with a smile, genuinely grateful he''d made this decision so painless. "Whatever, man. I suggest you don''t let me catch you on your way out of Harbor Hill." Flashing a gun at a martial artist, eh? Well, if he wanted to play like he was in the Underworld, then it was my duty as a youxia to let him know what to expect. Hopefully, he''d reevaluate his life and turn things around before it was too late. Still shaking my head, I walked out of the store. "Read the contract next time, dumbass!" He yelled as the door was closing. Other members of the Underworld ¨C most of them, I''d hazard ¨C would have done physical harm over such an insult. Denni had not only lied and screwed me out of what was a significant amount of money to me, he''d invited me to fight him by flashing a gun, and he''d shown me absolutely no face. I was in my right to kill him over that by many standards, but I was a nice guy, and he was only acting like this because of my new Stance. I left Chinatown in a hurry after the mess with the Peach, using the Crouching Tiger Stance and my Sash to get the hell out of there without further incident. Outside of the blocks my mother claimed as her sovereign territory, the roofs had been crowded with Triads and a few more ominous figures I would have liked to investigate under better circumstances. One of the latter had been standing atop St. Lucia''s, a two-century-old, stone cathedral that loomed over the edge of the neighborhood. He, or maybe It, had looked like an elderly man in a plain brown robe, but the lighting cast on him had a subtle wrongness that put the creature firmly in the uncanny valley. I paused on a lamppost nearby to squint at its strangely shadowed face, but when its head had begun to slowly ratchet towards my direction in little, almost mechanical jerks, I decided that, nah, it wasn''t worth it and fucked off as fast as I could to Harbor Hill. The Hakkotsu no Ha had seemed to project disappointment and hunger from where it was tied to my back, further reassuring me that I was making the right decision. The sensation of being watched chased me all the way to Harbor Hill and I could almost hear the creaking of that thing on the church''s neck anytime I made a sharp turn. Once in the comfort of my basement apartment, I, somewhat desperately, scanned through the Base Upgrade Catalog and wasted no time in throwing all five of the Tokens I''d received from the Producer Care Package, as well as another 50 Experience for a sixth, to buy the Upgrade ''Suzakumon, the Burning Gate''. It was a spiritual ward, a gate between my home and the Divine World capable of incinerating uninvited spirits and injuring or turning away lesser gods. More importantly in that moment, the fires of Suzakumon were said to burn bright enough to blind those who tried to see beyond it. I liked the security and the thematic cohesion enough to justify the purchase. It meant that the apartment, while still fairly rinky-dink in the physical realm, was now nice enough to no longer receive any discounts on Upgrades, but the peace of mind was worth it. With that, the ''Peach Incident'' finally felt finished. Oh, I was sure the consequences would continue to roll in, but for now, I could put it aside and turn to the matter at hand, my meeting with the Crane Triad. Tonight, I was invited to a club opening downtown where I''d be meeting with the elusive higher-ups in the Cranes. Unlike Boss Gao, the former leader of the Tigers, who had been a staple and an open secret for over fifty years in the neighborhood, the leadership of the Cranes was unknown to me. I didn''t even know who their current street-level Captains were ¨C an impressive feat of operational security in a community as tightly-knit as Chinatown''s. Last I''d heard, from back when I was in high school with some junior members of the org, ground operations were handled by ''Tan'' Liu and ''Fat Frog'' Hsieh, but I didn''t know if either were still in the city or even alive for that matter. The Cranes didn''t post their business on social media, and the junior members had all grown up and learned to keep their lips sealed, or were dead and had no choice in the matter. In my Meditation Chamber, I contemplated my glaring weaknesses going into the meeting and identified the following, in order of most to least pressing. One, I was obnoxiously noticeable to anyone with spiritual senses, sometimes from miles away. Two, I couldn''t hide my Qi without using the Crouching Tiger Stance and the moment the Tigers learned I''d stolen it, they would fast-track my assassination. Three, I was not socially equipped to maneuver Triad politics on my own; that was supposed to be Davis''s character''s job. Four, because of my flashy Aura and recent adventures, I was becoming a known quantity, a huge problem for a fighter who relied on being unpredictable. After an hour of moving meditation, I used Style Maker to create a solution that played to my strengths, making Black City Kung Fu''s first Stance. I called it the ''Happy Idiot'' and its fully realized version made the Crouching Tiger look positively bitch-made. It did unfortunately require an outrageous amount of Experience to buy into, but that was fine because, unlike the Crouching Tiger, the Happy Idiot was made to be modifiable and personalizable. My future students could build on it just like I had. First, was the base stance, on its own a powerful defensive tool.
[Minor Feat (Black Harbor Kung Fu)] Happy Idiot Stance While in this Stance, you may add 3 Dice when dodging, and your total Dice in Presence to any attempts to disguise your intelligence or competence. Attacking while in this Stance instantly breaks the effect and prevents you from reentering it for the remainder of the Scene.
Because of the rule changes that had come with the first Patch, I only needed a total of 3 Dice in Deception and 8 in ''physical-based Performance Skills'' to create the next Feat, which I accomplished by finally buying Performance (Acting) to 2 Dice. Since Dance counted towards the total, Annie would only need to be taught how to lie and cheat in order to learn the Feat.
Major Feat (Black Harbor Kung Fu)] Blissful Assassin Modifies the Happy Idiot Stance. In addition to the usual effects, when in the Happy Idiot Stance, reduce all incoming physical Damage by 2, and you may add your Presence to any attempts to disguise your intentions. Attacking still breaks the Stance, but you may double your Base Damage if the Attack lands.
Finally came the last two in my Tree, which required buying yet more Skill Dice, including in Meditation. I wasn''t sure where Annie would take the Stance in her journey, but I remained focused on Stealth and defense. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
[Major Feat (Black Harbor Kung Fu)] Innocuous Oaf Modifies the Happy Idiot Stance. In addition to the usual effects, when using the Happy Idiot Stance outside of combat, you may attempt to make a Stealth check while out in the open. Use your Presence or Charisma in place of the usual Attribute when making checks in this manner. [Master Feat (Black Harbor Kung Fu)] Empty-Headed God Upgrades the Happy Idiot Stance Tree. You have found a path to Nirvana in Ignorance, becoming immune to many psychic effects while in the Happy Idiot Stance, and improving it in the following ways. It becomes impossible to determine your intelligence, competence, or intentions while in the Stance, you may reduce incoming Damage of any type, and your supernatural presence is considered unremarkable unless you are being directly scrutinized in person. Additionally, you may choose to set your Base Damage to 0 in order to remain in the Stance when Attacking. Choosing to break the Stance with an Attack doubles all Damage dealt if it lands. Click to expand...
All in all, between the Skills and the Feats themselves, it had cost me a staggering 515 total Experience to become the Empty-Headed God, Archon of Himbos, but the Stance worked well enough that an out-of-shape, untrained mortal had felt comfortable openly disrespecting and threatening me. Within the very specific parameters I had set for myself, that was a roaring success. I relaxed my muscles into a slouch, put a stupid, hapless expression on my face, and made my Aura blend into the Collective Unconscious, embodying the Innocuous Oaf. It was similar to the Crouching Tiger''s shifting Qi cloak, but instead of focusing on material reality, it was based on a more ephemeral, greater ''Vibe''. With a casual wave of an Eagle''s Talon, I jumped up and destroyed the camera mounted above the door. The system, I was happy to learn, informed me that such petty vandalism didn''t count as an attack. Next, a test of the Feat''s limits; Peeking through the dusty, steel-bar-covered windows, I fed my Sash underneath the door and guided it to the camera in the corner of the room, crushing it and yanking it down to dangle from a wire. Retracting the Sash, I watched to see how Denni would react. Because my Steel-Silk Sash was infused with my Qi, it seemed that he was only capable of noticing the damage once it had withdrawn from the area, though I wondered if that would hold against more capable witnesses. The bell above the door chimed as I walked back into the store. Denni, who had walked around past the bulletproof glass that protected him from robbers, was inspecting the dangling camera with a look of total confusion. He glanced directly at me as I entered, but his eyes slipped off my face, dismissing me as unimportant and harmless. He had other things to worry about, like what the hell had just happened to his camera. The steel-reinforced door out of the tiny customers'' section into the employees-only area had been left slightly ajar. Smiling widely to myself, I walked through and grabbed a few bags from under the counter, stopping for a moment to pop open the cash register. Placing my Black Card against the cash, I absorbed what little there was inside; it seemed Denni was diligent about not leaving large sums in the register. I''d have to find the safe to get my money back. That meant it was probably close enough that he didn''t need to go to the back with the money. I looked around under the counter and tried the floor tiles until I found one that lifted up with ease, revealing a floor safe. Finally, I could make my dad proud and roll a Lockpicking check! Ma had never let him teach me, but the system had rewarded me with Skill by random chance for my lengthy sex scene with Maki. Putting my ear to the metal, I spun the wheel until I could hear the click of the pins. I probably could have simply extended a telepathic ''pick'' inside, but this was much more fun and felt more appropriate for my first time rolling the Skill. It took three tries, during which Denni actually walked right past me to the backroom, but I got it in the old-fashioned way. The asshole must have been doing good business selling pre-loaded cells and burner SIMs to drug dealers because there were almost twenty-thousand dollars inside. Or he was too cheap to pay for weekly armored bank van pickups, but I didn''t think even he was that stupid. I really had to get myself inside a bank or casino vault, because the Black Card, my very first gift from the Producers, was busted for robberies. It took less than two seconds to absorb the contents of the safe into its secure extra-dimensional storage; the moment it came into contact with the bills they simply ceased to be, leaving in their place a puff of dirt, dust, and whatever microscopic amounts of drugs had been trapped in the fibers. With my money back and then some, I headed into the backroom, stepping to the side to let Denni pass me as he returned, carrying some tools and a step ladder. He had enough selection that I couldn''t just start dumping the contents of the room into my bags, but after a few minutes, I was loaded up with as many of the highest-end phones of various makes and brands that I could carry. My Electronics Skill pinged a few things as odd, there was a rig brute-force decrypting a hard drive for example, that implied Denni was up to more than just repairs and sales, but I was here as a harsh winter storm punishing his hubris, not as an investigator into his wrongdoings. For good measure though, I stomped through the server his cameras and computers were linked to, and crushed his house and car keys into a ball out of spite. He could sit in the fear of retribution as he took a bus home out of Harbor Hill, not only from me but from whomever else I had just doomed him to let down. "Hope you got good insurance, Dennis," I said as I passed him on my out. He didn''t register the comment, too busy replacing the destroyed camera. Seeing that, I paused and delicately pulled the gun out of his holster, a little worried that he might get jumpy and shoot someone on his way home. I didn''t have Pickpocketing and had to rely on Finesse alone, but Denni was a mortal with no business in my World; two Successes were enough to beat out his perceptive ability. Making sure the safety was on, I bent the trigger out of place and put the gun down, smack dab in the center of the store, with the barrel pointed in his direction to make sure he got the message. ''I''m letting you live, dumbass.''
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Conduct a successful heist. Reward: 15 EXP, +1 Lockpicking, +1 Electronics Bonus, Over $50k worth of property stolen: 5XP [Recurring Quest Discovered] Conduct more heists to earn unique rewards depending on the value of the stolen property. Click to expand...
I started laughing maniacally once I was a few blocks away. "Behold, I am the Buddha of Buffoons! Hahahahahaha!" Holy shit, what a rush! I finally understood why my dad never got a real job or cleaned up his act; that was exhilarating in a completely different way to a fight, and I''d made more than I had in two years of non-union stunt acting gigs in ten minutes. But back home, with my haul sprawled out on the coffee table and the adrenaline having faded from my system, the guilt came creeping in. Sure, the tech guy had fucked me over and was certainly doing the same to his other customers in similar ways, but all that had been...beneath me, hadn''t it? Or was that what the neighborhood needed, some non-violent comeuppance for those exploiting its chronically exploited residents? Had I been Zeus and Hermes visiting him in disguise to test his commitment to hospitality, or was I just another asshole? "Ugh, where are you guys?" I asked, directing the question at my missing party members. This was a discussion I could only have with them. There was Maki, but I had told her to relax for a little while. I couldn''t put this on her, or she''d never loosen up and learn to focus on her own well-being for once. "I''m losing it over here." The more I reflected on what had happened in the store, the more I felt like I''d been slightly unhinged. Petty revenge was perfectly in character for me; I was a youxia and a hidden master, but that was just it ¨C it was in character for me. Why had I given him exactly three chances without trying to actually talk him into being reasonable? It had been as though I was testing him from the start, and I''d been pointlessly vindictive towards the end too. Like, why hadn''t I taken the server with me? There had been an obviously stolen hard drive in the middle of being decrypted; what if Denni was up to much more serious crimes? Maki thought I was becoming a god, and the more I learned, the more inclined I was to believe her. The Immortals of mythology were tempestuous, fickle creatures, both more and less than human. Funikugami, my only reference in the real world for what a god was like, was completely alien, monstrous even at his most amicable. Would others say the same about me one day? I checked the clock on my DVD player ¨C there was no time for ruminating. "You''re overthinking this, James. Just be normal, idiot." Right, just be normal, I could do that¡­probably. If I tried really hard, then, yeah, sure¡­ "Or stop worrying for now, dummy. Ego death is slow, death death is not and is a much more imminent danger." I exhaled and relaxed into the couch, envisioning the anxiety leaving my body. Hell yeah ¨C not thinking about it? Now, that I could manage. "I am the Empty-Headed God. I am the Empty-Headed God," I repeated to myself like a mantra. "Get your head in the game, James, the Crane game. Tonight, you grill, and you chill. Ego Death? What''s that, a type o'' hot sauce?" Kingfisher 2 The Hartwood was in the category of restaurants I would have normally walked past without bothering to check the menu posted outside, one where the prices were set by its inordinate rent and not the quality of the food. It looked like a good gig for a waitress though; the cheapest appetizer was $22, and the menu had a line at the bottom about how gratuity was added automatically ¨C a necessity in a touristy neighborhood like North River. Annie must have really liked me or really hated the management considering how laissez-faire she was about losing her job here. I used to dream of living in North River. It was, with its gorgeous Italian-style architecture, narrow cobblestone roads, and endless series of small, mom-and-pop shops, perhaps the only good thing the ''Ndrangheta had ever done for this city. But the new money that had come in since Mayor McFadden''s crackdown on the Italians had sucked the soul from this place. The Hartwood was a symptom of that rot; it was too big, too expensive, and too American to fit in with the old-school aesthetics. Without the ''Ndrangheta elites and their relentless xenophobia keeping the neighborhood tidy and to their sensibilities, it was a matter of time before the steakhouse became the standard and not the exception ¨C a small price to pay to be rid of those ghouls of course, but still, I''d miss the ambiance. The door was locked when I arrived ¨C the restaurant closed for two hours between lunch and dinner ¨C but that was no impediment to me. I turned the bolt over with a flick of my mind and let myself in, locking it again behind me in the same way. My hands were full with the large bouquet I''d been using to obscure my face from cameras on the way here. Was that necessary? Probably not, but I wasn''t taking any chances after the day I''d had. The hostess looked up from her phone at the sound, but her mind rejected the idea that I was worth paying attention to and she returned to her screen with a bored sigh. I swiped a mint out from in front of her as I passed with my Sash for no reason in particular. I didn''t even like the things to tell the truth, but I was trying to get into the pointlessly chaotic headspace I wanted to carry into my meeting with the Cranes. Annie was at the bar eating a salad with her headphones in, looking mildly annoyed to be working a tip-based job that kept her there during its down hours. I tapped her on the shoulder and dropped out of Stealth, though not the Happy Idiot; it was too soon after the Peach Incident to be flashing my Aura around town. "Hey there, gorgeous. Whatcha listening to?" "Ah!" Annie nearly fumbled her fork in her surprise before whirling around on me with it in her hand like a knife, palming her headphones in a panic. "James? Is that you?" she asked, blinking at me in confusion. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at the fork pointedly. She blushed and dropped it in her bowl. "The one and only. Who else would it be?" "You look¡­different?" she quirked her head skeptically. Pursing her lips, she added, "What''s our plan for the next week again, remind me." "Nice, operational security, I love it. We''re training and then going off to beautiful Crucifixion, Missouri to investigate the strange circumstances of your conception." Annie visibly relaxed. "Sorry, all the talk about ghosts and things has made me jumpy. What are you doing here? Not that I''m not glad to see you. You should have texted me. I would have had Raul make you a salad." I paused to think about that ¨C why hadn''t I texted Annie? I hadn''t meant to surprise her, there had just been a lot on my mind. The Happy Idiot did require a sort of laidback ''take it as it comes'' attitude. Perhaps it was interfering with my ability to be forward-thinking. "I wanted to surprise you with flowers," I lied, passing them over. "Aww!" She hugged them to her chest. "This is so sweet! No one''s ever brought me flowers at work." I smiled, nodded, and decided not to mention that I''d primarily been using them to obscure my face. "Only the best for my senior student!" Annie wrapped me in a hug. Over her shoulder, I saw that we''d attracted the attention of a few of her fellow employees and a woman who had the frantic air of a manager. "Thanks, James! But I thought you had that," she eyed her incoming manager, "meeting tonight." "I do, but there''s no way I''m inviting them to my place. Friends or not, they''re still triads. I told them to pick me up at Octavio Square; Cory wants to take me to a tailor around there anyway. Plus, I was hoping to strategize with you before the¡ª" Annie''s boss interrupted us with a loud "Hello!" and extended her hand out to me. I took note of her diamond tennis bracelet and gaudy rings, mentally elevating her from ''manager'' to owner. "You must be James! I''m Augusta Hart, so nice to meet you. I''ve heard so much about you, but seeing you in person ¨C well, I can certainly see why Annie''s been coming in late in the mornings now." She said, laughing at her own joke. "Nice to meet you. And sorry about that, I lose track of time when I''m training." "Training, huh?" she said, eyeing the flowers. "That''s what they''re calling it these days?" Turning to Annie, whose smile had become frigid and eyes piercing, she added with an appeasing hand on her shoulder, "I''m just joking, darling, relax. How about I make you and your training partner a kalimotxo? Ever had a kalimotxo, James? It''s so refreshing, you''ll love it." I took one look at my student''s barely reserved anger and decided to crank up the stupid. "Hell yeah, we used to half fill up a two-liter of cherry coke with box wine and take it down to the skate park all the time as kids. One time my buddy O''Reilly chugged the whole thing and threw up on a bike cop - shit was hilarious," I said with a distant, idiotic expression on my face. Augusta nodded slowly and shot Annie a half-admonishing look. It said, at least he''s cute, hm? "Uh huh. Well, I think I can definitely treat you to something nicer than cherry coke and boxed wine. We use a hand-made traditional soda from the Amish and, of course, the wine comes from a bottle ¨C With a cork, if you can believe it!" "Does that make a difference? I like the twist-offs cause they''re easier. And sometimes you gotta push the cork inside when it breaks and it''s, like, a little nasty, no?" She winced at that and started moving a little bit quicker. "Aha. Yes, it sure is. You know, some people wouldn''t consider it wine at all if it doesn''t come from a corked bottle¡ª" "How come, get''s you drunk, don''t it?" "Hm, youth! Ahhhhh¡­oh, you''re being serious. You see, honey ¨C well, have you noticed that when wine gets aerated it tastes a little fuller? The cork-" I put my hand up. "Wine with air in it is champ-pain." Augusta stared at me, clearly trying to tell if I was being serious. Too bad for her that I was the Empty-Headed God. "Yyyes," she said slowly. "That''s right, dear." For whatever reason, she didn''t stick around after pouring us our cocktails, making an excuse about doing paperwork before quickly retreating into the back. I raised my glass to Annie for a cheers but she was busy being flabbergasted, mouth open at the audacity. "Too much?" I asked. "What the hell was that?" I gave her a little bow. "Our school''s first Stance, I call it the Happy Idiot. Pretty neat, right?" She clinked her glass to mine. "It was incredible! Aggie normally sucks up all the air in the room; I was saying goodbye to the rest of my break when she walked over. But I still don''t get what you did, other than play dumb obviously. It''s like you''ve become a black box ¨C if I didn''t know you personally, I would have totally believed you were that stupid." "I was just vibing." I shrugged and took a sip of the wine cocktail. "Damn, this is way better than cherry coke and box wine. Who would have guessed." "It''s the only drink she can actually make. Also, don''t compliment her. We''re like ninety percent certain that she and her husband are skimming tips." "Sorry, must have misspoke. I meant to say this shit is dog water. Ima chug it real quick so I don''t have to have it on my tongue for too long." I slurped down the rest of the objectively delicious kalimotxo. "Peh. Nasty. Needs more slightly warm cherry coke." Annie hid a giggle behind her hand. "Seriously, how are you doing that? Even with the context, my brain was still like, ''Wait, does he actually hate it?'' It''s not natural ¨C oh, it''s a Qi technique, isn''t it?" She looked amused and jokingly chided, "No, you invented a Qi technique to get better at playing dumb? Really, James? Maki is going to hate that." "Yeah, it''s going to drive her nuts; I can''t wait. And don''t sound so disappointed ¨C it was the only way I could think of to still film all of our training while remaining unpredictable." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. "True." She frowned. "Wait a minute. How often do you play dumb anyway? Because the first time we trained¡­" "What about it? Oh hey, did you tell these guys you were taking next week off?" "Fuck no. I hate this job. I''m kind of hoping that if I do a no-call no-show then Aggie will have to serve tables during lunch rush. Might do her some good. If I have to hear that woman say she works in the service industry one more time ¨C ugh." "Sick, so this is cool then." I vaulted the bar and started making myself another kalimotxo. "James!" hissed Annie. "What? She already opened the bottle, and you know she would have offered me another if she''d stayed out here with us." "I''m trying to make it through the weekend!" "I thought you were editing our MeTV stuff this weekend." "That''s not the point! And I''ll find the time to do both, don''t worry. But unless they go viral, we''re only going to make like two hundred bucks this month off the videos. I need to get all my ducks in a row before our training montage, and the van needs new tires and brakes if we''re taking it to Missouri. Not to harp on it, but you really have to start sending me daily vlog clips by the way. With your looks and talent, and my established audience, we''ll be doing numbers once we get properly going." I made a face at that. Annie had made a compelling argument before for why we needed to engage in some more casual regular content for our JinJin, but I wasn''t feeling it. My Alan half had more attention than he wanted just from being on Love Fight. He was barely tolerating what Annie and I were already doing for the sake of my James half''s lifelong ambitions. "Here. How about instead of forcing yourself to edit, train, and work a job you hate, you take this and focus on the first two for me?" I pulled ten thousand dollars from the Black Card in my pocket and discreetly put them into Annie''s hand, making sure to keep my palm over the money for the sake of the overhead cameras. She had enough sense to lower her hand beneath the bar before checking what I''d given her. "Holy shit. I can''t take this. Where did you even get this from?" I shrugged. "It fell off the back of a truck." Annie narrowed her eyes. "And do I have to feel bad for this truck in question?" "No way. Believe it or not, that truck scammed me, and when I confronted it, it flashed a gun at me! Then it called me the dumbass ¨C outrageous!" She nodded slowly in understanding. "Ahhh, the new Stance has some downsides. I guess you do look weirdly normal; can''t imagine anyone would scam you otherwise. I thought it was strange the way you weren''t radiating power. Anyway, it does sound like that truck had it coming, but still..." "You got to be careful who you fuck with in this city, Annie. For example," I said, gesturing with the bottle of wine in my hand, "skimming tips from my senior student ¨C that''s a big no-no. The Hartwood is getting off easy with only losing a bottle of wine and you pulling a no-show a few days earlier than you were planning to." She grimaced, looking down at her lap. "I get it, I''m not judging you. It''s just¡­I don''t know, James." I said something that even without a Social roll, knew she wouldn''t be able to ignore. "Annie, don''t think of it like an illicit gift. Think of it as an investment in our future." "Oof, low blow, shifu." She sighed. "Fine, make me another too then." I saw her surreptitiously slide the sheath of bills into her shoe. With a grin, she added, "You know, I once stole a girl''s makeup bag and threw it into a bush because she was making fun of my hair, so I''m kind of also a badass bitch if you think about it." "Sheesh, remind me not to cross you." "I did feel really bad about it after though." "Same, honestly." Her entire expression changed to one of sympathy and concern. "Hey, come on, you shouldn''t feel bad. That guy threatened you with a gun, he absolutely got ¨C wait, you didn''t, you know, ki¡ª" I waved my hand. "Nah, nothing like that. Didn''t touch the, uh, truck. Scared it shitless maybe, but didn''t do any harm." Annie pouted. "You went too easy then. A thug flashing a gun at a martial artist is like, how ten percent of 80''s Hong Kong thrillers start. I would have ¨C well, next time someone, I mean, a truck flashes a gun at you, let me know." She pounded her fist into her palm. "I''ll freaking get its ass." "That''s what''s up." We high-fived, like the very serious badasses we were. "So, last day of work, anything else you wanted to sample?" I pointed my thumb back at the shelves of high-end alcohol behind me. Their wine rack alone stretched an unwieldy fifteen-plus feet to the ceiling. Her eyes widened in panic ¨C still the good girl at heart. "James, do you only have one speed? Stop. You''re going to give me a heart attack. Didn''t you come here to strategize or something?" I laughed and hopped back over the bar. Over Annie''s shoulder, I could see more of her fellow servers working up the courage to come over. They were whispering to each other and occasionally hiding their smiles behind their hands as they glanced at us. I rolled an Acting check to exude the air of an intimate scene and prevent another unwanted interruption. We were two lovers enjoying a quiet moment alone together, emphasis on alone. Annie reddened, as sold by the four Successes as her peers. "Your friends looked like they were about to come over. Play along." "Right, of course," she said a little too quickly and leaned in closer. After my admittedly impulsive decision to rob the phone store, I thought it might be nice to have a sounding board to bounce ideas off of before meeting with the Cranes. Any question to Maki was an invitation for her to lose herself in research, asked for or not, and Ma was busy dealing with the fallout of our fight and was a homicidal maniac to boot, so I''d come to Annie. The former cheerleader may not have had any experience in the Underworld, but she was a fundamentally decent person and more importantly, was one-half of Black City Kung Fu; she deserved a say in its future. I gave her an abbreviated rundown on the Triads including what I''d learned from Ami. The Triangle Truce between the Cranes, Dragons, and Tigers was effectively over, if not officially so as of yet. War was coming to Chinatown, and thus the rest of the city, as a result of the Tiger''s newest boss and his prideful desire to lay claim to the entire neighborhood. "You have to stop it!" exclaimed Annie, which was a fair reaction to learning about a city-sized ticking time bomb. "Or, sorry, that''s probably too much to put on one man. Could you, though, as in, like, is it¡­possible for you to stop them?" I groaned and hung my head. "Unfortunately, Annie, now that a beautiful woman has asked me to, I''m obligated as a youxia to try. That''s just how that works." "Ha, sorry." "Don''t be, I needed the push. As for whether or not I can do it, anything''s possible. If the Truce happened once, there''s no reason it can''t happen again. These people are all self-serving at the end of the day; it was obviously what was best for their pocketbooks at the time, but that was after years of horrifying bloodshed. I''d like to avoid that this time around." "Can you go¡­beat up this Junior guy? Tell him to knock it off?" "Beat him up?" I said incredulously. "He''s a psychopathic, power-hungry mob boss. I could kill him, but who knows how that would play out. Even just weakening his operations might lead to the Cranes and Dragons swooping in to consolidate power. No, I just don''t have enough information right now, which leads me to why I''m here. The Cranes are either going to give me info that furthers their own goals, or are going to gatekeep a more honest picture of what''s happening behind some favors or having me outright join. We need to figure out how comfortable we are with a working relationship with them and how far we want to take it." The redhead looked at a loss for words. "Gosh, James, I don''t know the first thing about all this. I''ll follow your lead though." I nodded, figuring as much. "Well, I''m not joining a gang, that''s out right away." "Of course." "And I''ll crush them if they try to play with us." "Naturally." "And I definitely don''t want to teach them Black City Kung Fu¡ª" "Woah, why not?" "Come on, we can''t have the first ambassadors of our style be organized criminals. It''s a terrible look. Black City is for the people so that they can break their chains and take their lives back from their oppressors, not for the ones holding the keys." She gave me the polite smile one normally reserves for young children when they''ve said something completely ridiculous in total earnest. "James, we''ve literally put out all of our forms on the internet for free. The cat is out of the bag." I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off. "Think about it this way. You might be the best coach in the country. Any athlete who is serious about their stuff would do just about anything to train under you again once they''ve experienced what you can offer them. If they know you won''t train them if they''re running around doing violent crimes, then they''ll definitely think twice before doing them." Annie started to get more animated. "And, if you take students from opposing factions, you can make them train with each other if they want to study under you. Then they might become friends, or at least be less willing to kill each other on the streets! You can Romeo and Juliet them!" That was absurd, but quaint and charming in a way. "You have a very idealized worldview, Annie." She pouted. "Am I wrong?" "Probably. But," I added quickly at her disappointment, "I like the way you think. I should prioritize the non-violent solution. In that, you''re right. Doing it with the plot of a 90''s teen sports movie, I''m less sure of." "Romeo and Juliet them, James!" "Annie, that play ends in a double suicide." "We''ll make sure to teach everyone basic first aid. All Romeo had to do was check Juliet''s pulse! I''ve been saying that for years!" I laughed and pulled her in for a side hug. "Okay, I''ll give it a shot, but no promises. Got any other distinctly Annie Shine-esque takes for me?" "Hmm," she scratched her chin. "If you do have to start flipping out and beating up bad guys, you should film some of it. That would go crazy on JinJin." "You want me to post the gang war?" "I want you to avoid the gang war with the power of friendship, but if you''ve got to do it, we might as well get some content out of the mess." "Huh." It was usually easy to forget that Annie had been an influencer since she was eighteen, and then there were moments like these. She wasn''t narcissistic or superficial like the rest of her ilk, but that didn''t mean she hadn''t been brain-broken by internet poisoning just the same. "That sounds insanely dangerous and is exactly what got me into this situation in the first place." "It sounds iconic, James. How else are you going to show the world you''re a real-life action hero?" I pinched the bridge of my nose. Damn it, she''d nailed me; that argument was buttoned up tight. It was completely insane, but it was insane in a James Li sort of way, perfectly so. Now I had to do it. "Oh, Annie, what are you doing to me today?" She elbowed me in the ribs. "Ha! That''s what you get for using that ''investment in our future'' line on me with your ''truck'' money. Turnabout is fair play, shifu. I mean," she said with faux innocence, "you could just send me consistent clips of your day-to-day life so we could build a parasocial relationship with the audience, but that would require way more filming on your end." I groaned. "I get it, jeez. You win." "Woo!" She pumped her fist. "And you''re going to be more conscientious about sending me the clips to get edited too, right?" "Yeah, yeah, of course." "Aww," she cooed and wrapped her arms around my neck. "You big baby, you look like my little brother when we had to force him to eat his vegetables. Tell you what, let''s celebrate with a little of that champ-pain. It''s wine with air in it, you know." I perked up. "Really? Got your permission then, do I?" "Yeah, screw this place. They can take it out of the tips they owe me. Now, do whatever you did to sneak up on me, climb your cute butt up to the top shelf, and grab one of the bottles with the gold wire around the cork. I''ve always wondered what those taste like. I''ll meet you on the roof." Kingfisher 3 I drunkenly meandered my way to Octavio Square out of my gourd on ludicrously expensive champagne. There were still four to six hours before any important politicking would occur, and while that wasn''t a lot of time to get my shit together before my mission-critical meeting, I, uh¡­ Okay, so I didn''t have a follow up to that thought yet, but I could improvise. More importantly, this was one of those rare occasions where I was fully in tune with all aspects of my personality. Back at the Hartwood, my tripartite selves, as in Me, James, and Alan, had all metaphorically turned to one another and said in unison, ''Man, I could really use a drink. How about you?'' I had to listen to them. Who were we to deny ourselves an earnest plea? The restaurant kept rows of bottles with gold foil on top to go with their overpriced steaks, but only a few with solid gold wire. After ''getting lost'' on the way to the bathrooms and disabling all the cameras I could see with telekinetic shoves, I scarpered to the very top of the wine rack, grabbed one at random, and left via a convenient skylight. The bottle was enormous, a jeroboam Annie had called it, and was from some vineyard that had burned down during the French Revolution. She said it was listed on the bottle service menu at a jaw-dropping forty-five thousand dollars. Evidently, their idea of theft protection, beyond the fact that it was a heavy, four-liter glass bottle, was the large, wooden ladder that took two people to carry out from the basement, the only in-house method available to bring it down. Frankly, they were asking to be robbed; I could think of more than a dozen people in the city capable of doing a one-armed descent from that height. If you thought about it, I was doing them a favor with this security audit. Annie got cold feet on actually seeing the champagne, but I told her that we were either sharing some drinks from it or I was chucking it off the roof for the crime of stiffing my senior student. I wasn''t against luxury and having nice things, or even spending frivolously, something I did all the time, but stealing tips from your employees as a millionaire was grotesquery. That was the sort of Greed that deserved its own Circle of Hell. I''d returned downstairs for two glasses and then twice more to get the bucket, kosher salt, ice, and water to chill the champagne appropriately, as per Annie''s instructions. "It costs as much as a muscle car, James; we''re going to do this right," she had said, putting her foot down. There was some confusion amongst the bored staff about why the cameras were suddenly facing the walls or directly up at their mounts. But the theft itself had gone unnoticed, so I leisurely took my time, coming down again for snacks while we waited for the bottle to cool. Neither of us had meant to drink as much as we had, but the company was good and the wine tasty. It was easy to pass the time with Annie, chitchatting about the industry, gossiping about our peers, and just talking about nothing at all. I told myself after the fourth glass that, no, actually, I wasn''t drinking irresponsibly; I was intentionally destressing after a brutally long day. By my reckoning, arriving at the meeting with the Cranes tonight a little drunk would only sell my image as a Happy Idiot better. No sir, don''t gotta worry about me - I''m but a loose goose, day drunk and silly off the juice. The only reason I''d cut us off before we''d dusted the whole thing had been the intense spike of undirected killing desire from below, a sure sign that someone who cared had noticed the missing bottle. I had become very good, very quickly, at ignoring homicidal wishes. Funikugami had obviously granted me the power to drive me mad or twist me to his way of thinking, and so out of spite, I had adapted. They had become like the drone of cicadas in the summer to me, loud but ultimately so ever-present and constant that it became background noise. People wanted to kill each other all the time; that was just what they did. There was no harm in wanting to kill someone ¨C that was the difference between intent and desire. What I had felt from below, though, was like an air horn through the noise, too sudden and violent to ignore. It was time to leave. Annie had been seen leaving the premises on camera, and while what I had done, wandering about while the cameras all failed one-by-one, was incredibly suspicious, I was an incompetent fool, incapable of such guile. But, sooner or later, someone would, in their panic or because Augusta was haranguing them, come up to check the roof for evidence. So, I sent Annie off with the glasses and silverware and swept up a little with my sash, pausing only to impulsively fire the champagne bottle like a cannon down into the engine block of the Mercedes sitting in the Hartwood''s reserved alleyway parking spot. I giggled, thinking about that insurance claim and dodging a bus by inches. To work off the alcohol, I''d walked to Octavio Square in the middle of the road, weaving through traffic with my Innocuous Oaf in full swing. When the congestion got too bad and the cars too slow to be fun, I took breaks by picking up and petting extremely confused pigeons. I stole men''s wallets and phones and returned them to different pockets. I stopped by a book vendor eating chicken and rice from the halal cart nearby, purchased two of the same meal, and stood over him, slowly replacing what he ate until he finally noticed, made the sign of the cross, and started praying. It was a fifteen-minute walk. My phone buzzed and I almost pulled it out to check but caught myself at the last minute. I wagged a finger at the sky, "No, no, no. Not getting me twice in the same day, you bastards." Vaulting over an oncoming taxi, I sensibly walked out of the middle of the road to the sidewalk, and then checked my phone. This one was going to survive for at least a week, maybe two, if miracles were possible. Cory had texted me ten minutes ago. I must have missed it while trying to surf on top of that truck. ''eyyy ima be late'' ''plug problems lol'' The new one read, ''where you at? tryna get you fitted b'' I sighed; the fun was over. Also, scrolling up, I realized that Cory had disabled the auto-capitalization feature in his messaging app; that annoyed me for reasons I couldn''t place. My metabolism, powered by Fire-Qi and my supernatural Endurance, kicked into overdrive to burn off some of the booze in my blood. A little drunk was fine for a meeting with triads; ten to twelve drinks in was not. Looking around for one last lark before I had to drop my Stealth and get serious, I spotted an elderly Asian panhandler with a dirty face, matted hair, and a scraggly beard lying on his side chewing tobacco. He had two bowls in front of him, one for his spit and the other for cash, and a battered old crutch at his side. I shrugged and walked over to drop a few hundred dollars on top of the handful of change he''d collected and a few pigeon feathers to make it look like the money had come from a particularly generous bird. My only problem with giving panhandlers money wasn''t what they would do with it¡ªI gave no shits about that¡ªit was receiving the obsequious gratitude. I still did it when I could, but being thanked so profusely for so little made me feel icky; luckily, the Innocuous Oaf was perfect for that. Or, it should have been, at least. "Yaaaah! You''re too, too kind, boy," he said in Mandarin as I turned to walk away. "And some feathers too! How''d ya know I collected those?" I paused and pointed at my face. "Er, are you talking to me?" My Stealth effect was still up unless I was too drunk to notice. "Who else just gave me money and feathers?" "You can¡­notice me?" I asked dumbly, wobbling on my feet a bit. Hopefully my metabolism could pick it up a bit. He spat out some of his chew. "Man, you''re really drunk, huh? I like that. I''m drunk too." "Oh, nice. Yeah, I stole some champagne from a lady and threw the bottle through her car. It was a blast," I admitted, taking him for a man who would appreciate such shenanigans. "Sorry to bother you, but are you really sharp, or are you using a technique to see through my Stance? It''s new, you see, and I don''t know its limits yet." "That''s your Stance, huh? I thought maybe the Pigeon Queen taught you one of the Hobo Arts. She likes to bounce around between here, New York and Philadelphia." "Hobo Arts?" The old man looked pained. "Chyah! What are they teaching you kids? Well, no bother, no bother. Tell you what, ride the rails with me for a few months and I''ll train you up in all the North American Hobo Arts." He slapped his knee and laughed. "The Hobo Emperor will hate that! Pah, arrogant shit!" I put my hands up. "Ah, that''s very kind, but I''m afraid the train hobo lifestyle isn''t for me." Jabbing my chest with my thumb, I proclaimed, "I''m James Li, the youxia of this city. If anyone''s harassing the homeless, you feel free to reach out to me." He threw his head back and laughed hard and long until spittle was flying out from between his cracked teeth, and he was all but wheezing in pain. I didn''t think it was that funny. "Is that right?" he asked, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Well, I''ll be damned, a youxia. What century is it, eh? That''s good to hear though. The Wheels a''turning. We got the same family name too, ain''t that a kick." He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. "Get on then ¨C I won''t keep you from yer heroic duties." I gave him a bow, unsure why, but it felt like the right thing to do. "Thank you, and, uh, good luck with being a hobo. I hope to see you around, uncle." "Live long enough and you might." He spat into his bowl, and reached a hand into his voluminous ratty jacket. "Here, take this for your collection - be kicking yourself when ya figure out where''s it from. Call it a trade." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. It was a small, red feather, no longer than my thumbnail. There was a Qi residue of some kind and something faintly familiar about it, but if it was special beyond that, I couldn''t tell. I pocketed it to be polite and bowed once more before leaving. Cory and a few girls I recognized from high school were by the fountain in the middle of the square. There was the sound of wings flapping nearby, as though a pigeon had passed directly behind my head, but having just spent some time pseudo-harassing the birds, I ignored it and kept walking. "t''was pretty funny, by the way," said a voice in my ear. "Never seen someone fight to give away one of the Peaches before. Had us all dying ¨C that''ll be a thousand-year story. I''m going to go trade it for some treats while it''s still fresh." My heart rate tripled, and my stomach did flips. I spun around, but there was no one there; the man was gone, as I knew he would be. His spit from where he''d missed his jar was still thankfully there, so at least I knew it hadn''t all been in my head. "Fuck, I can''t handle this right now, man." I groaned. "Did he say ''us''?" Had I seen that man before? How many beggars had I passed¡ªNo. I shook my head and gave myself a few hard slaps. There was no time in my day to worry about this or even properly register what had happened, if I was being honest. Was it colder all of a sudden? It must have been because I was shivering something fierce. "Head in the game, James. You grill, you chill. You grill, you chill." Cory Ning and I had known each other forever, too long for us not to be friends, as unfortunate as that often was. I didn''t remember the first time we met, but it must have been at neighborhood parties or a daycare because we were already hanging out first day of elementary school. Cory had a lot of positive qualities that kept him around in various circles; he was a high-energy social butterfly, was always happy to see you, never had a mean thing to say, and was overwhelmingly generous, like a labrador puppy in a man''s body. He was also an unreliable dumbass. Though, to be fair, we hadn''t hung out since my twenty-first birthday and not regularly since high school, so there was a chance he''d grown up since I''d seen him. It had effectively been years, and a lot of change could happen in that time, especially in one''s late teens, early twenties. "What''s good, Cory?" I said, dropping my Stealth once I was behind him. "Hey, Jewel and, uh, Meredith, right?" The girls jumped a little; Cory did not. He had a look of surprise, but his body stayed calm. He didn''t even tense his muscles, just turned and gave me a hug. "Yo! What up, big sexy? Daaaaaamn, dog, you been mewing or some shit? Haha! Look at you, fuckin'' killing it, bruh. You been making everything gains." I smiled, fighting back a sigh and relying heavily on the Happy Idiot to maintain decorum. There would be so much more of this tonight. "Thanks, man. I noticed some new muscles under those clothes too. Someone''s been training." "Ah, shit, ain''t nothing like what you do. Best believe that. I been watching your videos with that fire shawty, bruh! Yo," he slapped me on the shoulder, "you and her got mad chemistry, and what''s crazy is she doesn''t even seem mean at all. That''s big, big gains for you, J-boy! Known you your whole life and I ain''t never seen you date a girl who isn''t real fucking mean to you." He shook his head in amazement, genuinely proud of me. I hated when he was genuine; it made it impossible to be upset with him. "Oh my god, Cory, can you not?" said the blue-haired girl with him. Jewel pushed Cory aside, nearly into the fountain, and wrapped herself around my arm, molding into my side. She was barely recognizable from all the pharmaceutical and surgical enhancements she''d had done; her breasts were bigger, her lips fuller, her cheekbones more pronounced, her nose no longer bent from breaking it that one time in parkour, and even her eyes had been color-changed to a crystalline blue to match her hair. At least it was quality work. I could have believed her to be God''s gift to Black Harbor if I didn''t know what she''d looked like before. "Hey, James. Guess who''s your dates tonight? Don''t worry, we volunteered. Come here, Edie." Jewel beckoned to the other girl who I only vaguely recalled from high school. Edie, to my surprise, went for a confident handshake. "Hi! You were really close by the way, I''m Edith Mann. Meredith was the other tall, blonde Jewish girl in our year." "Oh shit, I''m sorry." She laughed. "It''s okay! You aren''t the first to get us mixed up. The names, the looks ¨C it used to happen constantly. You and your sister saved me from getting bullied once, I don''t know if you recall." I tried unsuccessfully to remember, but Crystal and I had used any opportunity we could to practice our martial arts in school. "Honestly, I don''t at all. You''d have to be a lot more specific." "You pinned a man to the wall with your foot and told him he''d be able to count his teeth on one hand if you caught him at it again." I shook my head slowly. "I think I used that line kind of a lot." Cory chimed in, "It was a go-to, for sure." "Your sister suplexed his girlfriend¡ª" "Through a water fountain!" I shouted. "Yes, now I remember. That so sick. How you been? You were like a big brain, weren''t you? Figure you''d be getting a second PhD or something, not hanging out with these two. No offense, Jewel." "None taken, babe." She shrugged, doing interesting things to her breasts pressing against my arm. Edith smiled. "You have Cory to thank. I moved back home while applying for research and chemistry PhD positions when Cory managed to headhunt me for HuaGen. When you confirmed you''d be coming to opening night, he remembered that I used to have a big crush on you and texted me if I''d like to come with. It''s technically his early birthday present to me." She giggled and nervously played with her hair. My bullshit-Geiger counter started clicking up. "I hope that''s not awkward; you wouldn''t mind if I accompanied you, would you? I promise to be a well-behaved, perfect lady." "And I promise to be a messy slut," added Jewel, much more believably. "We''re going for a fire and ice sort of thing." "Shit, a date with two baddies," I said, grinning to the clatter of dice as I rolled my Empathy + Insight. "How could I turn that down?" In actuality, this was raising huge red flags. One, this was obviously a honeytrap. Two, Edith Mann was probably here to show me that there were more to the Cranes than just gangsters. But the problem with that was, Three, Edie was not nearly as good at subterfuge as she thought, nor was she good enough to pull one over on me. I had worked in the film industry for long enough to spot when a girl was doing her makeup to look quietly pretty and when she was trying to make a splash at a big event, such as a high-end nightclub opening, for example. She shouldn''t have tried to improvise that early birthday present line. It didn''t call her whole story into question, but there was deception afoot. But I had also meant what I said; I wasn''t in the position to walk away. I did have to raise my estimation of Cory, though. Incredibly, unless I was mistaken, he had headhunted Edith for HuaGen, a biotech firm in the Greenbelt ¨C she hadn''t been lying there, according to my Insight. It wasn''t strange that they knew each other; I could assume they''d met through party or drug circles. Some of the biggest Adderall fiends on the planet were stressed college kids. Besides, Cory''s real superpower was that he wasn''t just my most annoying friend, he was everyone''s most annoying friend. No, what was crazy was that Cory fucking Ning, lifelong dipshit was in a position where he could headhunt research positions for chemists. What the hell? And he was running games on me! Double what the hell?! What else could I call this ¨C I mean, he was clearly taking the lead on the honeypot plan. The Cranes could have waited until I was at the club, but they''d instead given the task to Cory. They''d been right to as well; had I been solely the twenty-two-year-old James Li that he had known, this might have worked. He had brought two girls, both of whom I already knew to some extent and hadn''t seen in a while, which meant that I couldn''t blow them off without feeling like an asshole. One of them, Jewel was the sort of woman he had known me to date, very fit, with a great body, and a slightly prickly personality. And the other, Edith was what he probably imagined Annie to be like, a clean-cut college graduate who, I was pretty sure, had been told to play up the girl-next-door vibes. Who was I kidding? This absolutely would have worked on me. Goddamn it! Cory Ning, my old friend, was running an op on me! That idiot. That dummy. That stupid motherfucker. Was he trying to get himself hurt? We weren''t kids anymore. I could, would, and frequently did, forgive a lot from him, but this was different. This was the Underworld. He was a member of the Crane Triad, and I was a youxia. I''d punch a hole through his chest if it came down to it. "Thank you," said Edith, blushing. "May I take your other arm then?" I extended it out to her, pulling her tight to me as she approached. Nine Successes on the Seduction ¨C she had no idea what she was in for. None of them did. "My arm and more," I said with a wink. She looked amused at the audacity but ready to play along. Cory held his hands out wide and beamed. "Y''all ready to get dripped out? We about to drop bands on ''em." "Sure. As long as you''re paying, man." Kingfisher 4 The upstairs of Garibaldi''s Couturier, est. 1896, smelled of wood polish, sandalwood, and the indescribable remnants from a century''s worth of cologne spritzes. It was a manly place for manly men like me, as the little Italian assigned to me had told me multiple times in the brief time I''d been here. I handed my t-shirt to Cavalcante Garavaglia, who sneered at the cloth. According to the tailor, a princely fellow like me should dress like an aristocrat at all times. It was a sin against God and an insult to nine generations of Milanese tailors that he should have to look upon me in such trash. "You can burn it if you''d like, Cavalcante," I said, finding the man deeply entertaining for reasons he would assuredly scowl at me for. "I would like! Guiseppe, throw this in the fire!" Cavalcante threw the balled-up shirt with force at his grandson and apprentice. Joey, as he''d introduced himself to me, gave me a startled look to check if I was serious. At my smile, he started to shuffle awkwardly away. "Si, Nonno." That left only the tailor and me in the room. Cory was with the girls, taking them to a few boutiques and a salon, swiping his card for them as they got ready. I pulled the platinum nunchucks out from where they''d been stashed away under my Sash and threw them onto a chair nearby, putting my finger to my lips in the universal ''shh'' symbol. A tight nightclub environment was the perfect place to finally test out the Platinum Nunchaku. Cavalcante shook his head furiously. "No, no ''shh'', no ''shh''. You see, gaze!" He pulled his shirt up from where it was tucked into his pinstripe trousers, revealing a small pistol in a holster at his side, and then turned around to show me a thin, long dagger in the small of his back. The weapons appeared to disappear as he tucked the shirt back in. "Woah. That''s crazy. Can I?" I reached my hand out, asking permission to pat the space where I knew his holster would be. Cavalcante nodded, smirking with pride. I touched him gingerly; I could feel the gun and even trace the outline of its handle, but I couldn''t see it at all. The tailor preened. "It is a trick of the eyes ¨C a trade secret. Garibaldi, he only hire the best, Master Li! As you are a top-class gladiatore, I, Cavalcante Garavaglia, am a top-class tailor. Tell me where you prefer to keep your weapon, and I shall," he snapped his fingers, "make it vanish! Presto! And then, you shall promise your friend Cavalcante that you will never again wear this horrible t-shirt sweatpant travesty outside your exercise time." I laughed. "Maybe when I can afford a Cavalcante Garavaglia wardrobe. But I can definitely say I''ll be wearing them less." "It will do for now. Your associate, Mr. Ning, has paid for two outfits, fully-insured for life, so that you may still dress sensibly if one is damaged. As you grow accustomed to their style, comfort, and grace, you shall return for more. Of this, I have no doubt." Two bespoke outfits from a tailor of preternatural skill would have cost a small fortune on their own, but to fully insure them was something else entirely. I assumed that meant I could bring them back in tatters and still be good, something I don''t think Garibaldi''s would have agreed to if they had a full account of my last week. It stung my pride to let Cory gift me the clothes, especially with his dirty money, but they looked super cool and useful, and I really wanted them, so¡­ Look at this way, James, I told myself, as long as you don''t let the gift impact how you treat the Cranes tonight, it''s kind of like you robbed them. And you''d be fine with that, wouldn''t you? Good point, me, I would be fine with that. Three hours later, I was, in fact, dripped out. Cavalcante had made me a formal, three-piece black suit with a matte black vest, cream white shirt, matching white jade cufflinks, and a tie in the same black and gold as my Sash. The tones were understated, but the brass buttons added a little flair, and the cut was immaculate. I would have looked good in anything, but, goddamn, was I fine as hell in this. You couldn''t tell at all that there was a pair of nunchucks at the small of my back either. I''d tried to convince Cavalcante to let me watch him work to figure out how he did it, but he''d shouted about trade secrets and made me wait downstairs. Watching the twin bumps of the Nunchaku disappear blew my mind. I was biased, but somehow, martial artists learning to break physics by training hard made more sense than tailors doing the same. There it was, though - something to watch out for in the future. You couldn''t underestimate anyone in this universe. The other outfit was something that Cavalcante told me was to be worn when I was ''out-on-the-town'' during the day or playing tennis. Guiseppe, aka Joey, was currently hand-delivering it to Kas''s house in Riverside for me. If they made a target of Kas''s place, they''d either find an empty home or a more than likely inebriated and pissed Combo Kahn. A business like Garibaldi''s had probably done enough orders for various mobs over the years to be trustworthy and tight-lipped, but I wasn''t risking it. Even if Joey didn''t rat out where I lived, the Cranes knew I would be getting multiple outfits today; who was to say they hadn''t put someone in the crowd outside to follow him to his destination? Cavalcante, after making his employers many tens of thousands of dollars tonight, had stayed long after the sun had set and waited with me for Cory. We were playing backgammon and sipping port, listening to the familiar sounds of the Black Harbor Gulls losing yet another baseball game on the radio when he and the girls returned. The three froze when I stood up. "Bro, what the actual fuck?" said Cory, laughing. "You don''t even look real, homie. Like the world''s worst wingman, namsayin''?" Jewel meanwhile looked at me like a hungry lioness, literally licking her lips. She and Edie had likewise leveled up, reminding me of the power of makeup and a professional hairstylist. They were in little black dresses that hugged and accentuated their curves. Both wore heels, but Edie''s were about half the size of her partners; not only was she naturally taller, but she was distinctly less comfortable in the shoes than Jewel, who probably could have run a marathon in her stilettos. Edith Mann looked out-of-sorts in general, I thought. She had walked in confidently, smiling and laughing at something Jewel had said, but had clammed up on seeing me. Was she nervous about her mission or self-conscious about her appearance? Either worked in my favor for the burgeoning ''reverse-honeypot'' plan I was putting together, but I''d feel less like an asshole if it was the first. I didn''t think I could take advantage of the latter in all honesty, as crazy as that may sound. Sure, I was a walking psychic hazard due to all of my Social Feats, but I had excuses for those. Actively being a dick to girl over her looks felt like crossing a line. It was silly, perhaps irresponsible considering the stakes, but a guy''s got to have some principles at the end of the day. "God, James, I''m going to need a towel for the limo seat. I''m dripping, honey," said Jewel, as shameless as ever. She made an X with her arms. "It''s officially illegal for you to go back to wearing shabby gymrat clothes. We''re burning everything you have at the end of the night." Cavalcante crinkled his nose. "Young lady, that was foul. Though I agree with your sentiment regarding Master Li''s fashion, I must ask you to wait outside. This is an establishment for gentlemen." "Everyone''s a gentleman until they get a taste of me, old man. But, fine, whatever. Come on, Edie. I need to dry off anyway." Cory had left a suit here that he''d dropped off for a repair, and changed into it in front of the standing mirror in the corner. His muscles were considerably more defined since we''d last played beach volleyball two years ago, and there was a new scar on his side from what could only have been a bullet. "Bounced off your rib, huh?" I said, making a casual remark. Cory looked down at the injury surprised, as if he''d forgotten it was there. "Oh yeah, we ain''t chilled like that in a minute." He clicked his tongue and shrugged. "Caught a stray. Is what it is. Good wakeup call a''least ¨C got my ass in the gym right after. Like for real though, standing on bricks in horse stance and shit, you feel me?" "All those years trying to get you into the martial arts and I could have just shot your ass." I shook my head. "How long was the recovery?" He gave me the old, patented ''check this shit'' Cory Ning smirk that preceded all of his most insane statements. "Bro, no lie, they had me doing jumping jacks the next day. I conked out for a good twelve hours and woke up stronger than ever. Like, for real though, stronger, faster, all o'' that ¨C sum''n about Qi or sum''n like that. We on some shit, James. Hunan got it goin'' on." "That right? Guess I don''t have to hold back if I ever need to beat your ass." Cory took it in stride. "Shit, be insulted if you did." The limo was an armored black SUV with a privacy wall and its seats rearranged to face each other, as well as a few other amenities like a humidor and a freshly stocked refrigerator. It was also, annoyingly, being driven by another old friend, Drake Lu, Cory''s cousin. I had nothing against the guy¡ªfrankly, I liked him better than his cousin¡ªbut these constant reminders of how many connections I had to the Cranes were beginning to chafe. They were really complicating my approach to this whole greater Triad situation. Cory was obviously leveraging old friendships to make me more pliable to the Cranes'' proposals or at least less likely to enter into open conflict with them. Unfortunately for me, that was, if not a winning strategy, then a very strong one. Alright, Alan, we''re going to be relying on you pretty heavily for this one, big dog. I got a silent but hearty thumbs up from that aspect of my psyche. We are the Three-in-One, the Empty-Headed God. Jewel sat on my right thigh, patting my left and making room for Edith to join her. The blonde did so with a nervous smile, her confidence more clearly a veneer as we approached the Kingfisher. She had the same tense, anticipatory air that both Maki and I had been emanating at Tamaki Grill prior to the Exorcism. If I had to guess, she had been given some task related to me, probably something simple like ''make sure he leaves with you tonight'', and was starting to feel the pressure. That made more sense than her worrying about her looks; Edith was only plain in the ''cast as the plain girl in a movie'' sort of way, which was to say, not plain at all by the standards of Alan''s Earth. "You ever think about stripping and escort work, James?" asked Jewel, ''accidentally'' bumping my package with her thigh as she did. "Not really, pretty committed to this acting thing." "You can do both ¨C I make doctor money and only work, like, sixteen hours a week, max. The prudes are totally out too, now that they''re getting rid of obscenity laws. Jersey''s first, but it''s only a matter of time before it goes federal. Hollywood''s about to get way dirtier. You''d be ahead of the curve with some sex work in your portfolio." How interesting, last I checked that news was gatekept behind Dark Media, as Kas called it, and tens of thousands of dollars. Jewel was setting the tone by casually dropping the info, probably probing me as well. "Huh," I said blankly before faking a sudden idea. "You know, I''d bet you''d feel a lot safer as an escort if you started training with me in my new style. If you''ve been stripping regularly, then you''ve definitely got the physique to keep up." "Cory vets all of my clients beforehand, gets me the best time slots at the clubs too. Thanks, bae," she blew him a kiss. "Got you, fam." "I do like the idea of getting all sweaty with you and that redhead of yours, though. Let me think on it." I ignored her hand drifting along my outer thigh. "Sure, it''s a standing invite. You''ve got my number." "Thanks, James. Do I get to join in on all the heart-pounding, sweat-dripping workouts?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "And will I have to run around doing heroics? Because that''s very not my style." I chuckled. "Whatever you''re comfortable with, Jewel." "How''s it work, being a modern day youxia?" The question spilled out of Edith, as though it had been aching to be released. "I mean," she added, blushing slightly, "I didn''t think they were even a thing outside stories." Jewel shot her ally a sharp look; no one had mentioned the word specifically, and the way Edie asked her question confirmed that they''d recently filled her in on me. Jewel chimed in to cover for her friend, "Yeah, tell us about fighting a Demon and burning down that warehouse on Bell Street. We''ve all been dying to ask about it anyway." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. "Woah, burning down a what?" I said, not even bothering to try and disguise the lie. "I don''t have a clue what you''re talking about, but I was for sure jorkin'' it whenever whatever that was happened." "Two-hand cranking it to Swan Lake, I assume?" teased Jewel. "Yeah, exactly. As for being a youxia, it''s simple. Decent people come to me with their problems, and then I go beat up the problems. You three best keep that in mind." I added, letting a little of my battle aura escape through the Happy Idiot. The girls froze, their breaths hitching, but Cory laughed and waved off the threat. "No shit, bruh. Same as it was in high school. I ain''t even trying to think you could be coming for me. You had me giving stern warnings to bullies back in the day. I said, ''Knock that shit off! Don''t you know who fucking goes here, dummy?''" I let Cory lead the conversation from there and relied on jokes and half-truths to avoid anything serious. For instance, when he asked if I had fought my mother earlier in the day, I dismissed it with a, "Just some family drama. You know how Ma gets." No self-respecting social butterfly, even one as ostensibly dumb as Cory, would dare push further on that. Not that I was fully bought into this idiot, wannabe gangster act of his. From one himbo to another, game recognized game. My mind turned instead towards the reverse honeypot I was working. The plan was simple, I would rely on the Happy Idiot and my Feat Charmingly Thick to drive the girls crazy. The former made it impossible to read my intent, and the latter would make my seeming disinterest in treating them as more than friends all the more tantalizing. If they thought getting done up and throwing themselves at a harem protagonist was enough seduce one, then they weren''t familiar with the genre. I needed to switch this around on them, gain some leverage to exploit for information and favors. If Jewel and Edie left tonight with a personal and professional longing, nay, need to see me again, then I''d have two strings to pull on to start unraveling the Cranes. I held Edie''s hand in my own, hers dainty in my large, calloused mitt, and rested my chin on her shoulder. It was maybe overly friendly or outright romantic from an outside perspective, but ultimately chaste. My other arm was wrapped around Jewel''s abdomen, keeping her still and comfortable in her position as we rode through Black Harbor''s bumpy streets. I had to split my Dice Pool to titillate them both simultaneously, 12 to Edie, and 12 to Jewel, but that was more than enough for two untrained mortals. The human body is an intricately connected web of tissues that all pull on and affect one another; anyone who''s relieved back pain by stretching out their hamstrings can attest to that. But to me, a master of the Martial and Marital Arts, those tendons and muscle fibers were like strings on a fine instrument in which I was a peerless virtuoso. I began to play my sonata, getting eleven Successes on Edith, and only three on Jewel after all bonuses were applied. That was fine. Jewel was an old friend; I could find excuses for further interactions with her. My fingers danced across her ribs, undoing some of the tension in her obliques by targeting the micro-knots, and pulled her down onto my leg in time with the car''s bounces. If she had asked, I would have told her I was only stopping her from falling off, but she didn''t ask. Had it not been for the Happy Idiot, Jewel likely would have seen through me, three Successes far from enough to fool the skilled temptress. But as it was, she had to settle for giving me playful, scrying looks every time Drake hit a pothole or accelerated sharply to catch a yellow light. Edie was my real target tonight, so I was glad to have excelled on her. I had a lot of questions about HuaGen, what her work was, and how she had ended up trying to seduce me tonight, and very few ins with her. Luckily, if this wasn''t enough to get her to come crawling to me after tonight, the experience would at least stick in her mind. I had done so well that I was discovering new pressure points on the hand in the course of the car ride. I worked my way down her thumb, striking points five at a time; there was a meridian there that responded to her breathing, and I used it to flood her body with oxygen without her conscious recognition. From there, I played erotic havoc on her wrist, finding a point between the tendons that when pressed with precise force, sent blood rushing to her core and sex, and another to its side that had her nipples throbbing, looking painful in the outline of her black dress. She stumbled out of the car behind me when Drake dropped us off in front of the new Kingfisher Restaurant and Club, clinging to my arm for balance and a another, more desperate need. Jewel gave us both a knowing look but let it go unaddressed, taking my other arm. The Kingfisher was in a prime location in The Heart, the only neighborhood to cut across the river, straddling the Beagle at its narrowest point. Named for the broad outline it took on a map, The Heart mirrored the densest parts of Manhattan except without the more sensible/boring grid layout of New York. It was a sprawl, a maze of high rises and skyscrapers, somehow both abjectly miserable to live in and the home of the city''s most expensive real estate. The Cranes had built themselves an ideal fortress, buying out a corner along two of the neighborhood''s wider streets and the land immediately next to it, putting up a beautiful six story glass-and-metal architectural statement piece and a private parking garage. To the other side was a high-rise apartment building that I was sure they had bought at least the majority of, and a tangle of alleyways to its rear. In total, this aggressive expansion of theirs into downtown had to cost at minimum one hundred million dollars. Crime paid well in Black Harbor. Fuckers. I resolved to rob criminals more often. "Damn, people are already lining up? Nightclub don''t open for another hour." said Cory. There was a long line of wealthy club goers in their finest black-tie attire behind a velvet rope that stretched around the corner of the building. The nightclub entrance must have been alley-facing. "It''s going to be poppin'' tonight." He turned to me, walking backwards as he led the way towards the front restaurant entrance. "Let''s get it, James. Dinner''s on the house and don''t know about you, but I''m trying to take advantage, baby. Get me some lobster, sample the espresso martinis, have me a dessert or two. I hope you ain''t gonna duck and be all proper about your diet and shit tonight." It looked like my behavior at Tamaki Grille hadn''t spread outside of Little Tokyo. I was sure he would have quipped about it otherwise. "Buddy, you have no idea." Let the robbing commence. Cory was already familiar with the building''s layout and the operation in general. He took us past a crowded waiting section decorated with expensive modern sculptures and paintings of brilliant birds to a private elevator behind the host''s desk, saying hello and making jokes to the staff as he did. "First floor is the caf¨¦, open kitchen, and the bakery; second, third, and fourth are all the restaurant proper. But," he said, switching to an abominable British accent, "the fifth and sixth are where esteemed guests, such as your badass self, sir, are treated to the finest of hospitality." "Neat. We''re going to want a table with some room, by the way." "Huh? Alright, sure. I can make that happen." If I hadn''t been submerged in the Happy Idiot, I might have found it depressing how many of the people on the sixth floor I recognized. These were a mix of the wealthy of Chinatown, using the connections they built amongst the Cranes'' network to their advantage, and middle-class business owners, likely being treated by the Triads for their years of protection payments and favors. It was a goddamn tragedy how entangled organized crime had become with the ordinary people of my neighborhood. The looks I received on the way to our table with two women on my arms were thankfully amused and curious rather than scared or disappointed. Hopefully, the rumors that came out of tonight would be limited to me being a playboy and not being associated with the Crane Triad. It was opening night, and I was both a very minor local celebrity and a friend to many of the people here; it made sense that I''d be making an appearance. I nearly kicked myself when Cory switched to Xiang to joke with the host leading us to our table. Oh my god, how had I forgotten to buy into Xiang? The Cranes were based out of Hunan¨Cmy mother''s entire family was from Hunan! Still, this was fine, more than early enough to correct the oversight. I had opted not to take the local Hunan dialect as one of my starting languages at character creation, going with Mandarin and Cantonese instead; they were both so obviously superior picks at the time. I groaned mentally. I had 28 EXP. Goddamn it, if I had just taken the time to get another 2 Experience points before visiting Annie, I could have bought 3 Dice in Linguistics (Xiang). It was fine, it was fine. 2 Dice and a familiarity with the other Chinese languages would get me through the night. I wouldn''t be impressing anyone, but they also wouldn''t be able to plot or talk about me in front of my face. The mistake had me feeling vindictive though when our waitress came out, a feeling worsened by the fact I recognized her as one of my sister''s friends. "Hi, guys!" she said cheerily. "So good to see you all on our big opening day! Can I start you off with anything to drink? We have three cocktails on special to celebrate the momentous occasion. They''re¡ª" "I''m ready to order, actually," I said, cutting her off with a hapless smile. "Of course, sir¡ª" "C''mon, Mary, really, ''sir''? I carried your hockey gear for you after you broke your leg." "Sorry. James, what can I get for you?" She giggled at the reminder and pulled out a little pad. "You''re probably not going to need that; this''ll be real easy to remember. Let''s get two of all the cocktails on the menu as well as extra straws so we can sample them as we like. And I''m going to be drinking kalimotxos all night, so just keep those bitches coming. Also, I''ve got a taste for champagne today, so bring out a few bottles in ice to chill - anything over a hundred years old will do." "Heeey! Kalimotxos!" Cory was beaming, fully on board with my nonsense. "Like at the skate park that one summer. Yeah, Ima do those too, Mary. And bring us out some of them fancy little sweet cherries too, so we can be all nostalgic and shit while staying classy." "Oh god," added Jewel. "Remember when O''Reilly vomited on that bike cop? That was so gross." Edith looked wistful. "Wow, you guys really make me regret not being a delinquent. I went to nerd camp every summer." I laughed, kind of annoyed at myself for having as much fun as I was. "For food," I continued, "real simple, give me two of every appetizer and side, one of every entr¨¦e and salad, and¡ªwait." I turned to Cory. "How long until the meeting?" He shrugged. "Long as you need, bro." "Sick. Yeah, two of every dessert as well. Oh, and we''ll need a pitcher of water with a lot of ice in it after the apps come out. You should actually offer that to every table in here ¨C it''s about to be very hot in this room. What about you guys?" Jewel shook her head. "I think I''m just going to pick off of yours. Kalimotxos for sure, though. Edie?" "Same." "Fuck that!" exclaimed Cory. "Give me the whole goddamn ocean! I''m eating two whole-ass lobsters and the swordfish special!" I reached over the table to dap him up. "Hell yeah. That''s what''s up, bro." "Dog, I just wish I could keep up. You fucking Monkey D. Luffy over there. I don''t know how you martial artists do it." "Mind over matter, Cory. Mind over matter. You can do anything if you put your heart into it." Cory nodded sincerely, starting to tear up. "Fuck, James, that''s beautiful. On god, Ima get that tattooed on my chest, bro." Damn, maybe he really was an idiot. What did I know after all? I contemplated dissuading him, but for tonight, that wasn''t me. We were two very dumb men here to gas each other up. "Fuckin'', that would be so sick, dude. You should definitely do that." Interlude 7: A Bards Life Interlude 7: A Bard''s Life? Wednesday Night Susy''s ADHD was in peak form tonight. High-energy remixes of K and J-Pop songs played at a respectful volume from her laptop speakers while she danced at her standing desk. Big things were happening in Susy Land. There was a pen in her hand (with another behind her ear that she''d forgotten about) and no less than five notebooks to keep track of all her ideas and exciting new projects. Look at her, she thought proudly, actually organizing her notes and not just scribbling them on whichever papers were closest! Next time, as soon as she filled these, she''d even limit each notebook to a single topic or project! Then she''d be, like, basically a professional note taker. Currently, thirty percent of Susy''s mind was occupied with her music theory homework, another thirty was spent selecting tracks and clips for her next James fancam, and the final thirty was passively directing spiritual energy towards the jade egg nestled inside her, which she had decided to awaken as her next tsukumogami. The remaining ten percent flitted unhelpfully from topic to topic and her phone, but hey, what were you going to do? Getting that part of her brain down to only ten percent was a victory as far as Susy was concerned. She had, of course, gotten her grandmother''s approval before deciding to awaken the Ben Wa egg, as awkward as that had been. Unlike her cousin, Maki, who liked to play fast and loose with her family''s techniques, Susy was nothing if not committed to the Sunada ways. Not that she blamed Maki for experimenting; the Ishida could be rigid and formal at the best of times due to their duties and specialty. For the same reasons, the Sunada were significantly less so. Plus, Maki was super smart, and organized, and hardworking, so she could actually do things like invent new methods and things, whereas Susy, she knew, was not any of those. If Susy had tried to experiment with her family techniques, she''d probably have exploded, or worse, turned into a horrible monster! She shuddered - how awful! Susy wagged a mental finger at her brain. Happy thoughts only, please! What would the little jade egg inside her be like when enough spirit energy and intent combined to form a new consciousness with a personality and opinions? What abilities would it have? Tsukumogami tended to have powers related to the nature and purpose of the item they inhabited and, when cultivated by her family, to the desires of their user. The egg helped develop her internal muscles and pleasured her as she moved around, something it was, sometimes uncomfortably, good at. She''d been directing the feelings it stimulated wholly towards the man who''d given it to her - In a roundabout way, if you thought about it, he would be like its father, and she, in a much more literal sense, its mother. Hopefully, it could one day lend her some ability to help catch James''s attention. She''d be thrilled to have the stamina and strength to follow along to the kata he posted without feeling like a clumsy, out-of-shape amateur. Susy needed some way to differentiate herself from her genius cousin, and while Maki was smarter, prettier, more confident than her, had much more spiritual power than her, and was, in general, vastly more capable, she couldn''t see the woman developing an interest in martial arts. Holy crap! One of James''s parkour friends had a video of them climbing onto the roof of Emtek Pharma Arena and sneaking into a Gorillaz concert ¨C that was way too good to not use as the start of a fancam! There was even a clip of him dancing dangerously on top of an I-beam with the stage in the background! But did she want to start all over again with a Gorillaz song or split her attention between two projects? She wasn''t very familiar with the band, and with her personality, she knew it would mean she''d be listening to their entire discography tonight if she did. Hmm¡­how much homework did she have left? Music theory was the only class she cared about; she would either succeed and become a professional singer or devote herself to the Shrine. College didn''t interest her at all. If she could knock out what she was working on with a few hours to spare, then it was game on. Getting two edits out in one night would definitely show the rest of the burgeoning fandom why she deserved to be the official unofficial James Li fan account. Speak of the devil, she thought, checking her phone. It looked like there was some annoying news on that front. Aditi, her bestie, had texted her, ''OMG that psycho bitch you kicked out of the discord started her own channel on another server!'' ''She invited me. I think she thought my meme response was legit or she''s just desperate'' ''These people are seriously mentally ill'' ''Sick stuff in here!!!'' There were already two James Li fan Discords? It hadn''t even been a full day since she started the first one! She immediately texted Aditi for more information and received a link in return. The psycho in question, Sillymander, hadn''t bothered to keep the server private, clearly trying to usurp hers as the official unofficial fan Discord. Kami-sama, never mind. Upon joining the server with an older account Sillymander wouldn''t recognize, it became immediately clear that this was not a fan Discord at all. This was an entire server for the na?ve narcissists that flocked to WitchJin and to the darker Wicca channels on MeTV. "Idiots! Ugh." Susy might have been a bit ditzy, but this just was plain stupid. Were they trying to get possessed? She''d banned Sillymander earlier today when she''d come into the Discord and asked if anyone was interested in doing a shared dreaming ritual with her to ''visit'' James''s sleeping mind that night. Susy wasn''t trying to be a tyrant on the server and may have let it happen if it had been nothing but roleplay, but Sillymander had posted real-deal instructions for inducing a hypnogogic state with a tea recipe for a mildly toxic spiritual aid that she recognized, and a personal sigil to find her in the Collective Unconscious. She''d tersely explained to the witch and the rest of the server that non-consensually ''visiting'' someone''s sleeping mind was better described as ''invading'' or ''assaulting'' them, kicked her out, and delivered a stern warning that any further activity of that type wouldn''t be tolerated. What she should have done was delete all evidence of the interaction whatsoever because there were more than a few of these names she recognized here. Taking it so seriously had probably primed some of the uninitiated into wanting to learn more. "Is no one allowed to be normal on the internet?" This place was messed up. There were hundreds of channels devoted to different celebrities, common desires like vengeance or envy, three separate channels for love potions, multiple introductions to different schools of magic, and more. Scanning through it, she could safely say that, overwhelmingly, most of the people here were just roleplaying or enacting some wishful thinking, but there were so many of them. If any real witches, like Sillymander for example, were to get their claws in these dummies, they could do real harm ¨C and probably already were, somewhere amidst all of the noise, memes, and creative writing exercises. Susy started pacing around her room, quietly freaking out to herself. She had to do something. She had to do something. James was in danger! She paused. Actually¡­was he? Someone was definitely in danger, but it may not have been James Li. They''d taken a few selfies together at his place, and Susy had felt his power when he''d wrapped his arms around her ¨C volcanic was the only word she could think of to describe the energy inside him; explosive didn''t do it justice. There was a significant possibility that any mortal trying to enter his mind without permission would find themselves burning from the inside out. Her teachers in the Shrine had drilled into them time and time again that high-level martial artists were a class unto themselves and best left alone if you could help it. Unless interfered with, they would tend to consume themselves with whatever drama was afoot in their own Martial World, much like the Kami did with the Divine World. Every lesson on charms, wards, and rituals for mortals would end with or include an "unless they are martial artists, of course." As a child, she was led to believe that they were somewhat silly and strange, the real-world equivalent of anime characters. It wasn''t until recently that she realized the real lesson had been to treat them like dangerous wild animals rather than people. Still, James was her cousin by adoption now, and the fans lured from her server were innocents, very dumb, sure, but undeserving of whatever consequences they were walking into. Yes, she decided, she did have to do something. Luckily, Susy had been exposed to a horror movie much too young and was thus uniquely well-suited to handle a dream witch. She honestly couldn''t have hoped for a more ideal first real mission; was this Fate? She gasped. Was this one of the special episodes where Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon rescued Tuxedo Mask? Were the stars aligning for a Susy X James ship!? Susy struck a pose in her full-length bedroom mirror, giving herself two peace signs. "Operation Sleep Well, James: Go! First step," she did a few dance moves before settling into a different pose, one hand on her hip, the other in a big thumbs up. "Ask for help!" The Sunada Clan owned three rowhomes that stood next to each other across the street from the Ishida''s, their long-term allies, turn-of-the-century, renovated apartment building. These represented unthinkable wealth by today''s standards, but the Clans had come to America back when Little Tokyo was considered a racial ghetto. After the Internment Camps, many Japanese had scattered, afraid to be so easily identified again; the Sunada had taken the opportunity to buy the rowhomes next to theirs and had helped the Ishida to buy out the lower floors of their building so that they owned it outright. Susy loved the living arrangements. She had social interaction whenever she wanted just by walking out her bedroom door, and she felt like a princess in a castle here. She ran down to the combined backyards where she knew her grandfather and granduncle would be having their nightly shogi session and drinking their nightly sake in defiance of their respective wives'' wishes. The patriarchs of the Sunada and Ishida were where she expected them to be, her grandfather in his Meiji period formal kimono he insisted on wearing daily and her granduncle in a Western business suit. They sat kneeling under faux paper lanterns on a simple wooden deck they had built together decades prior. "Ojiichan, can I borrow Sasumata-sama?" Her grandfather nodded and waved her away, not looking up from the shogi board. "Sure, sure. Give him a polish before you put him back, yeah?" Oh wow, she hadn''t been expecting him to say yes. "Thank you! I will!" Her granduncle expelled an exasperated breath. "You''re kidding, you old fool. At least ask her why she wants a polearm. She''s a teen girl." "Mind your business, idiot. I''m sure Susy-chan has a good reason. Now stop distracting me, I''m almost ready to make my move." "Hah. Unbelievable. Susy-chan, please, for my curiosity, tell me why you want your grandfather''s legendary staff." She nodded enthusiastically; her great-uncle could help her too! "James is in trouble from a mean dream witch who is obsessed with him and is tricking innocent people into helping her break into his mind so I''m going to ride Baku-san into the Dream World to teach her a lesson!" "See," said her grandfather, "I told you she had a good reason! Wouldn''t you have rather heard about that after the fact, when she had the time to put it into a good story with a beginning, middle, and end?" "By James, do you mean my newest grandson?" "Yes! We have to protect him!" The Ishida patriarch scratched under his chin. "I felt his soul rage from my bed last night. Unless that dream witch is extremely experienced, I''m not sure it''s him we''d be protecting. He is Funikugami''s Champion, too; that boy could inflict such horrors upon her that her mortal mind would stop her heart to make them cease. But I like your attitude. Come along then," he said, rising to his feet with a groan. "Oi, where are you going? This match is barely started." Her granduncle simply rolled his eyes and sighed. "How your Clan survived for the four hundred years before we joined is ever a mystery to me, Daigo. I''m equipping your granddaughter before her mission into the Dream World so she can better help my new grandson." "Yare yare, you''re such a worrier, Hiroaki, like an old hen. You should change your name to Minori!" said her grandfather with a sharp laugh, making an obscure joke based on the Kanji spelling of her granduncle''s name. Or she assumed at least; most of her grandfather''s jokes sailed over her head. "Well, if you''re going, I''m going too." "Yay!" She said, jumping and kicking her feet back in the air. "I''ll definitely win now." The old men led her in and out of their homes, knocking on doors and explaining her mission. It was somewhat overwhelming, but for James''s sake, she held out and remained patient. From the Ishida, she received so many charms and wards that she couldn''t possibly carry them all, but that was fine, because one of the tsukumogami her family gave her was a bag that would faithfully belch out whichever item was most needed at the time. Susy did have to considerably limit how many tsukumogami she was taking into battle compared to how many were offered, but thankfully, Ojiichan was there to help her with the selection. While the Sunada awakened item-anima were unusually docile and loyal, they were Kami all the same. She simply didn''t have the spiritual capacity to go in fully equipped like one of her aunts or her mother could; there was too great a chance that she''d end up possessed by a curious tsukumogami as it took her body for a spin for a few days or years. Finally, with Sasumata-sama, the famed man catcher staff in hand, they led her to one of the basement shrines where a bell was rung, an offering of bread was given, and the dread Lower Guardian of the Shrine, Funikugami, was summoned. It was the first time Suzy had interacted with him directly; during festivals, he could occasionally be seen standing in a corner ominously as a tall black mass hidden by shadowy robes, but this was the first time she would hear him speak. He was¡­ He was cute! One moment, there was nothing there, and the next, a little crow-headed child was sitting on the offering table, kicking his legs and examining them curiously. "You have need of me, humans?" he asked in an otherwise normal, boyish voice. Crows were able to mimic sounds ¨C was that why he took this form for their meeting? Susy stayed completely quiet, allowing her granduncle to speak. The Ishida''s specialty was in entreating, binding, and, when necessary, fighting Kami. It was part of why the union between their clans was so successful. On the occasions where one of the Sunada''s menagerie of tsukumogami did run wild, the Ishida were on hand to wrangle it back. And when a threat was too great for humans alone, the Sunada could call on one of their heavy hitters for them. "My niece has uncovered a plot to attack your Champion''s mind, oh great one," said the Ishida patriarch. Funikugami sounded amused. "Only the one? If you had seen his hordes of enemies as I did last night, you would find this to be expected, or even disappointing." Her granduncle bowed his head amiably. "I''m not surprised to learn of that. My grandson made himself known to the city in a spectacular fashion. Are you keeping watch over his mind then?" "I am not. He has dismissed me." "And why is that?" "He wishes to find his own means of protecting himself." "And why is that?" "My Champion enjoys challenges. They make him stronger." "For what other reasons has he dismissed you, great one? Please name all that you can think of." The crow-headed child threw his head back and let out a harsh cackle. "You were always so perceptive, human. He has dismissed me because he finds my nature distasteful, because I have tricked him in the past, and because he can in his strange, alien way monitor the effect that I and my blade are having upon his soul. Your grandson is a curious entity, of a kind I have not seen in all my existence. Isn''t that interesting?" It was! She was dying to know more. But Ishida Hiroaki dismissed the bait. "How lucky for the both of us, great one, that we may still encounter such novelties in our age. Before James Li dismissed your protection, you desired to protect his mind from intrusion. Does this desire remain?" The Kami quirked its bird head and scrutinized the old priest with a black, glassy eye. "Somewhat." "Will you give my niece some protection or aid during her venture, then? We offer nothing but your own satisfaction in return." There was a long silence in which Susy began to worry that the old man had offended the death god. Finally, he spoke, turning his head to her. "Which of the plots have you uncovered, young Sunada?" Her uncle nodded to her, so she answered as best she could. "A dream witch, great one. Um, I believe from the way she writes that she''s around my age. She''s also roped in unsuspecting, uninitiated people into helping her." "Ah, the girl, yes, I remember her. Her power could turn you to dust, child. She is a wicked star set down upon this world by the cruel Fates. Even mighty Sasumata-sama could break under her grasp if she learned to properly bring her gifts to bear. Only in her inexperience do you stand a meager chance of success." Susy felt the slumbering Sasumata-sama in her hand raise his head in annoyance at those words. She hesitated to speak, unsure what to say to such a warning. Did he want her to ask for alternatives? Her teachers had told her to watch out for such things when conversing with Kami; that was how you ended up in their debt. Thankfully, her granduncle spoke for her. "You forget, Susy-chan has her Baku-san as well, great one. How does the dream-eater influence your estimation?" He hummed in a throaty bird-sound. "Then yes, she can beat the witch handedly." "I sense hesitation in your words. What else do you know of this girl''s nature or abilities that might cause Susy to fail?" Funikugami crowed once more. "Ah, yes, forgive me. You know how I yearn for the funerals of the spiritually gifted, human. I mean no malice in the desire, but it remains nonetheless. The witch is one part of three. But do not fear, I will answer your next unspoken question. I will shadow her mind and keep her from calling for aid from her mother and sister, but in exchange, do me this service. Wait until the witch girl arrives at the gates to my Champion''s mind and place there a talisman that I will give you upon the threshold. It will summon me should an intruder approach, and in this way, I will be able to honor my promise to my Champion while still protecting him from both outside threats and the hubris that led him to dismiss me. It will not work on his mind or soul in any other way ¨C most generous, no? Should you fail to place the talisman and earn my service, and the girl summons her family, then you will surely be doomed." Susy looked to her elders, but they watched her expectantly, leaving the decision up to her. She didn''t see much of an alternative if what the Kami said was true, and she knew it was bound by ancient tradition to never lie to them. "I just have to wait until she''s almost there? I think I can do that. But will the innocents she''s using be harmed?" Her grandfather laughed in approval and patted her on the shoulder. Funikugami leaned forward. "If they join in an assault on my Champion''s sleeping self, then what is it that they are innocent of in this context?" "Um, I don''t know, but most of them probably don''t even believe magic is real. I don''t think it''s fair to condemn them for being curious and, admittedly, a little creepy. It''s not like the witch framed it as an attack. They probably think that they''re going to end up sharing a dream with James and get to see what he dreams about." "Hmm, I understand not this argument. But know this, they will only die should they open the gates into my Champion''s mind, for on the edges there lurks my bound blade, forever hungry for more death and unwilling to share its home with other outsiders. Beyond that is the ineffable eldritch mind hiding in his psyche, and the caldera of power that is his Qi. Prevent them from opening the gate, and you will have saved their lives. Now, will you accept my aid and agree to my terms?" Susy really wanted to know more about this weird eldritch mind and the general alien references, but judging from her uncle''s reaction earlier, it felt like a trap laid by the death god. And considering it had admitted to yearning for her funeral earlier in the conversation, she was much more reticent about the crow-headed child than she had been. So, after one last glance at the patriarchs, she nodded and gave the Kami a thumbs up. "Okay!" Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Once the god had been respectfully dismissed, her grandfather clapped her on the shoulder. "Well done, Susy-chan! You managed to finagle some crucial information out all on your own. You see that, Hiroaki?" "Indeed, very well done. And you avoided its trick as well. Listen closely, dear niece. Any time a Kami¡ªany Kami¡ªis exceptionally eager for you to ask about something, always ignore them." Susy blushed a bright pink and hid her smile by looking down. "Hehe, thanks." All that remained was to drink a tea prepared by her mother and to fall asleep, which, with all of the excitement of her task, was difficult. She ended up having to get back up, grab her textbook, and return to her homework while in bed, dressed in her miko robes with her family''s staff at her side and fully adorned in charms and wards. A good thirty minutes of solely focusing on her homework later, she hugged Baku-san tight to her and finally yielded to the tea induced semi-sleep. A Baku was a supernatural creature that ate nightmares, with the appearance of a furrier Malaysian Tapir with a longer snout and claws. Her Baku-san, on the other hand, was a large stuffed animal in the shape of a Baku that she''d slept with every night for as long as she could remember. After sneaking down past her bedtime when she was five years old and catching the latter half of Ju-On: The Grudge, she had been wracked with nightmares. A few sleepless weeks later, Susy had managed, in her fear, to awaken her first tsukumogami at a much, much younger age than most of her family. As a result, the dream spirit which inhabited her stuffed animal was one of the strongest if highly specialized guardians in the Sunada clan, and, she suspected, the reason she was made miko despite her otherwise lackluster abilities. In physical reality, the only indication that Baku-san was special was that her stitching remained perfect and her fur clean even after years of nightly use. In the Dream World, however, Baku-san really put the Kami in tsukumogami. Susy glomped onto her beloved guardian''s thick purple and green fur in a hug. "Baku-saaaaaan, mmmmm, I missed you!" A motherly laugh filled the space. There was nothing but shifting, technicolor landscape around them, moving from grass to carpet, to forest and beach the longer one looked at it. They were certainly not in any of Susy''s dreams, that was for sure. She had been on a K-Pop kick lately, setting herself as an additional member of her favorite Idol groups, with Baku-san as her manager/producer. The dream god''s long, elephantine snout wrapped around her waist delicately and placed her atop her massive, mammoth-like back. "Hello, my little one. I missed you too, though it has not been very long at all. Nor has it been very long since she''s fallen asleep in you, has it, MiMi-chan?" Susy''s miko robes, the only other tsukumogami she had personally awakened, were as shy as ever, muttering a barely audible greeting and waving a sleeve at the greater spirit. "And my formal greetings to you, Lord Sasumata. We often monitor your rest, but no nightmares would dare trespass upon you, hm?" The man catcher leaped from her grasp and flew down to the ''ground'' in front of them. The staff itself was a polearm with a U-shaped end made from two black horns of some unnamed Yokai, with spikes at the far end of the shaft to prevent an enemy from wrenching it out of your hands. The tsukumogami manifested, however, into a hulking samurai in full armor who must have stood over three feet taller than her, his polearm like a walking stick in his hand. Not an inch of his skin was exposed, with a white cloth hanging over his helmet obscuring even his eyes; it boldly proclaimed in Kanji, ''Deliverer of Justice'' in bright red ink. This was the great Lord Sasumata, who had guarded their bloodline for three centuries, only ever appearing like this for those in her Clan that he deemed worthy, being famously stingy with his blessings. He spent most of his time asleep in her grandfather''s closet these days. "Thou art a beauty divine, Baku-dono. We are honored to enter battle at Thy side." He slammed his staff down on the ground for emphasis, speaking in hyper-formal, archaic Japanese. His head tilted towards her, and she could feel the weight of his attention upon her. "Girl, thou art to be judged tonight by Lord Sasumata. Thine infatuation with the Carrion King''s samurai is burdensome, but fight well, and we may deign to appear again." She nodded, eyes wide. "Tha¡ª" Before she could finish a word, Sasumata disappeared into his staff and snapped back towards her. Susy almost failed to catch him, but Mimi-chan conjured a wind to slow his movement. The man catcher felt heavier in her grasp than he had. "Are you ready, little one? Hold tight to me as we travel. There are dangers in this place, and some may be fool enough to test us." Baku-san needed only a glance at the sigil that Susy had printed out and placed into her Auntie''s bag to lead them to the dream witch. The bag, like the slippers on her feet and her beaded wooden necklace, were not fully conscious tsukumogami, still in that early phase of awakening before their personalities had developed. While lacking in power, they were, in a way, at their most useful in this state, before they had prides that needed to be appeased. How long they traveled was impossible to determine, as were the sights they encountered. Susy found the memories of this place to pass from her thoughts faster the more she tried to grasp at them. She could vaguely recall Baku-san sucking up the darkness around them as they moved, leaving only gentle shifting pastels behind, but beyond that, there was nothing. Eventually though, the landscape grew more concrete and, strangely, into one she recognized. Of all places, they had arrived in the suburbs of Black Harbor, its skyline visible against the night sky in the distance. The stars above, brighter than was possible and dancing in an imperceptible pattern, gave away that they were still in the Dream World, but other than that, the only tell that they hadn''t stepped out onto a suburban neighborhood in the Greenbelt was that the letters on the signs were nonsensical and shifted as she tried to read them. A shame, she thought, if this was the real neighborhood of Sillymander, then Susy might have been able to confront her in waking life, but she hadn''t spent enough time out this way to recognize which of the small towns they were in. A crow perched atop the roof of a house flitted down to her with a wooden charm in its beak, dropping it onto her lap before returning. Susy could sense the man catcher in her hand bristle at its presence. Baku-san crept them around the side of the house, her footsteps completely silent and her fur shifting around them in a wispy cloud. Once they were close enough to the edge of the building, the dream eater stretched her snout out and pulled the corner of the home away as though it were a curtain so that they could see what was happening in the backyard without exposing their heads. Such was the nature of dream logic here. "Oh my, she can enthrall so many at so young an age. She is capable for a human." Arranged in a circle were six women and one man, kneeling naked in the grass, holding their hands and sobbing in pain. From their eyes were streaming mist-like tears coalescing in the center as they listened to the words of a beautiful girl with freckles and dark brown hair, as naked as the rest. "He is burning, our god, in a great pillar of golden flame," said the figure of the girl as she circled, idly braiding her hair while she went. The words seemed heavy in the air, and Susy could feel them weighing down on her like a blanket, lulling her into a sleep. "You can feel the heat as you walk towards him. It is painful and growing more painful with every step¡ª" Her borrowed necklace began to vibrate, and suddenly, she could no longer hear the girl''s words, though her lips continued to move. In the cloud of tears at the center of the circle, the shadow of a torii gate beginning to form shape. Susy whispered to her mount, "Baku-san, do you know what she''s doing?" "She is guiding them through a clever bit of hypnosis, describing the image we all saw of James Li during his fight with the Hungry Ghost. I''m sure the vision is still quite vivid in her mind, but more importantly, it disguises the pain they must be feeling as they connect to the warrior''s burning soul." "If I throw Funikugami''s talisman into the middle, will it work?" she asked, anxious to interrupt. Those people looked like they were in agony. "No, not yet. The gate must appear solid." "But, will they be¡­okay? If we wait?" "None of them are yet infirm or young enough that they will die, but they will suffer in their waking lives for some time." Susy bit her lower lip, unsure of what to do. She wanted to help them, she really did, but she''d made a pact with a Kami to wait, and everything she had ever, ever, ever been taught told her that breaking such a pact was inviting a fate worse than death. Worse still, she could feel the patient anticipation from Sasumata-sama in her hand. The Lord of Justice had witnessed her deal, and she knew he wouldn''t agree to assist her in violating it, even if it was with one of his enemies. She took a few deep, calming breaths and centered herself. There was only one option for her, and unfortunately for the hapless mortals caught up in this mess, it didn''t favor them. Well, she thought angrily, she''d warned them explicitly, hadn''t she? And Funikugami had been right! They were assaulting James in his sleep; they weren''t innocent; they were basically rapists! They might not have deserved to die since they had been tricked into it, but they definitely deserved some sort of punishment. With a clear mind and a still somewhat troubled heart, she climbed down from Baku-san. "The moment that gate appears, we''ll move decisively. I''ll place down the talisman, and you guys will hit her as hard as you can without killing her. I don''t think James would want that, and we don''t want to start a blood feud with her family." Sasumata-sama manifested at her side in a crouch, taking the man catcher from her with an approving nod. The next few minutes were the longest of her short life. Her necklace continued to protect her from the hypnosis, so all she could do was stare in silence, watching as the gate slowly came together and the circle of people grew more and more wracked with pain. Sillymander ¨C and she really needed a better way to refer to her at this point ¨C was unbothered by the harm she was causing them, increasingly consumed by a zealous fervor. For once, Susy''s brain came to a total alignment, all one hundred percent committed completely to the plan. I can do this. Finally, what had appeared to her as a torii manifested fully as two towering, carved cathedral doors; this was, after all, Sillymander''s dream. Susy could feel the wretched killing intent leaking out from the cracks in the doors, and like a deer in headlights, she froze. I can''t do this! Luckily, her tsukumogami had no concept of mortal fear. Lord Sasumata leaped straight into the air with so much force that he appeared to vanish into the sky above in a fraction of a second, and Baku-san jutted her snout out towards the witch responsible. Susy''s body jumped shortly after, moved not by her will but under the power of Mimi-chan, her robes, and the slippers she had borrowed from one of her older cousins. Mimi and the slippers sailed her gently over the top of the circle of heads, giving one a little kick as they passed. She was still frozen when she landed before the gate to James''s mind, blinking down at her hand and the twisting seal script on Funikugami''s talisman. Behind her, like thunderbolt from heaven, Sasumata-sama came crashing down to Earth, eliciting a shriek of pain from the witch and one of surprise from Susy. She fumbled and dropped the talisman, watching with gratitude and embarrassment as the slippers moved her feet for her and kicked it part way underneath the doors. The effect was immediate; ashy dead vines came crawling up from the wooden talisman, swiftly covering the gate in swaying, grasping branches. What now? She thought to herself. Did¡­we do it? Did they do it? Her mind cruelly corrected. Susy hadn''t done a thing save be here. "Behold, wretched one! No mortal child can match Lord Sasumata''s strength!" She turned around to see the tsukumogami pinning the naked witch to the ground, pointing up and shouting at the crow atop the house. The girl looked terrified; crackling, uncontrolled power was pouring out of her eyes and hands, but the lightning was being sucked into Baku-san''s snout, along with all of the color in the dream. Within a few seconds, the sky and ground itself joined along, as though Baku-san was vacuuming up the canvas of an oil painting. They were left in short order, back in the Collective Unconscious. Briefly, the world appeared to be black, blasted earth and the sky a roiling mass of black clouds, but these too were swiftly sucked into Baku-san until all that remained were the shifting pastels that they had traveled here in. Only the tsukumogami, the gate to James''s mind, and the two girls remained. The rest of the humans had fallen through the ground beneath, hopefully to their beds where they''d be waking up with a newfound fear of all things magic. "W-why?" choked out Sillymander through the staff pressed against her throat. She had stopped fighting back altogether, simply lying there in shock, weeping. "Thou hast made an enemy of our Clan, witch! The mortal thou attacked is an ally of ours by Law!" "W-what? I-I don''t¡­speak¡­Japanese." Lord Sasumata raised a foot to stomp down on the girl''s ribs, but Susy finally felt herself capable of action. "Wait!" she yelled out. "Wait, Sasumata-sama!" He paused mid-stomp, but she could feel the weight of his judgment upon her once more, letting her know that he was ready to continue his thrashing should she fail his test. Susy ran to the witch and kneeled by her side. She was crying as well, though she couldn''t rightfully tell why; disappointment with her own performance, perhaps. "Sorry, sorry! Are you okay?" The girl gave the slightest shake of her head, pinned as it was. "N-no." "Me neither," said Susy honestly, wiping away her tears. She tapped on the man catcher to give the witch some slack so they could talk. Lord Sasumata to her surprise, obliged, lifting his weapon from her neck. "I didn''t want to do this, you know? I was supposed to be editing fancams tonight. You''re Sillymander, right? I''m eXscusyMe." "O-oh," said Sillymander, rubbing her throat and eyeing the hulking samurai above her. "You can call me Sally. Wait," her gaze snapped to hers, "you''re eXscusyMe? What the fuck?" "Haha, yeah. You can call me Susy. This is Lord Sasumata, and that''s Baku-san. They''re Kami of the Black Harbor Shrine. We''re here because James is a member by adoption, and we couldn''t let you break into his head. The crow sitting on top of the gate to James''s mind is Funikugami, or a representation of him, maybe. James is his Champion and he super, absolutely, definitely would have killed you if you had opened that door. He loooooves killing ¨C would have got the people you recruited to help you too. They would have stood no chance." The crow cawed in agreement. The color drained from her face. "I''m sorry. M- My sister said it would be fine as long as I called for help if something went wrong. I-I''m really sorry. I wasn''t going to do anything - I just wanted to know, you know, more about him." Oh hey, that was pretty fucked up of her sister, wasn''t it? It implied a laissez-faire attitude towards mind magic that Susy was entirely uncomfortable with. But, for the sake of this specific conversation, she put it aside. "Diiiid you tell her the boy whose dream you wanted to visit was a martial artist?" She shook her head. "Um, I sort of implied I was checking up on my boyfriend to see if he was cheating on me. Does that matter?" Her jaw dropped. "Eh! Are you serious? But what about that shared ritual and everything?" "I was just doing what I thought would work." Her voice started to crack, and Susy saw a new fear appear on her face, not directed towards them but inwardly. "It-it felt natural, came easily to me." Susy groaned. Kami-sama, she was an amateur witch with generational talent and the power of a demi-god. This was a nightmare. "You had to see the pain the others were in, didn''t you? And I don''t know how well you know my cousin, but James would have hated you doing that to them. You know that, right? Please tell me you know that was wrong." Sally started to open her mouth to respond, but only a loud sob escaped her. She buried her face in her hands and began crying uncontrollably. "I know. I don''t know what''s wrong with me. This ¨C it, it keeps happening. It''s like, I do these horrible things without even realizing it until after." The miko rubbed her temples. She was at a loss for what to do here, and there would be no help from her tsukumogami. According to the old traditions, the penalty reserved for being unable to control your powers as a witch was either death or being bound inside a Shrine. That wasn''t going to fly, she didn''t think. The former was a blood feud waiting to happen, and she doubted Sally was trying to move into the Shrine for the rest of her life. With a sigh, she followed her instincts and pulled the crying girl into her arms, holding her and rubbing her back as she sobbed. Susy repeated calming reassurances as Sally continued her stream of apologies. "Please don''t tell him," asked a shaking Sally once she could more than say ''I''m sorry.'' "I promise, I really promise I won''t do anything like that ever again." She made a face, not entirely sure she believed her. "Uhh¡­not just to James, either, right? No more invading minds?" "Yes! Yes, I swear!" "And no more roping in regular mortals into dangerous magic rituals." "Never. Honest." "And you''ve really got to stop lying to your sister and mother about what sort of spells you''re doing. I know you''re strong, but you have no idea what''s on the other side of that door. If you had opened the gate, I don''t think Sasumata-sama, Baku-san, and I together could have saved you. Martial artists and Kami, er, no offense, you three, they''re like untamed beasts, basically. If you don''t know exactly what you''re getting into, you will get hurt." The witch eyed the crow leering down at her. "I promise, really. I''ll be way more careful." Susy bit her lower lip. Was that all? Was she really going to just let her go? That didn''t seem like the right option. For one, she had no idea if Sally would have another psychopathic episode, and for two, the girl seemed¡­lost. She needed help clearly, and more than just the magical sort. She sighed. What would Maki do here? No, never mind. She couldn''t even fathom how her cousin''s mind worked. What did James say in all of his instruction videos? ''You''ve got to focus on your strengths first. When you''ve pushed them as far as you can, then you can worry about weaknesses.'' What was she best at? Music and being a good hang wouldn''t help her¡ªor, wait, actually¡­ "Okay. Here''s how this is going to work. I''m going to unban you from the Discord, and then you and I are going to moderate it together, got it? You''re also going to monitor that other mega-creepy server to make sure no one else is trying to mess with James. Is that, I don''t know, okay with you?" The witch rubbed her face with her forearm, wiping the snot and tears away. She blinked at her and then again at Sasumata-sama. "Is ¨C really? I mean, you don''t think I''m a freak?" Susy shrugged. "It''s cool. We''re all freaks in the Underworld. Plus, my cousin Maki is a total maniac, and James is head-over-heels for her." "Okay." Sally let out a little disbelieving laugh. "Okay, yes. I''d like that ¨C I''d really like that, actually. I had some¡­dark thoughts when you banned me. Thanks, Susy. What now?" Susy looked at the assorted Kami helplessly. "Um, can you guys send her back home? I¡­think it''s fine now." Lord Sasumata waved his hand dismissively, and the witch vanished. Kami-sama, she really hoped she had made the right call. Sally had been a mess, but maybe a little purpose in her life, even something as small as moderating a Discord with her, could help. "We judge thee to be feeble in mind and body, girl, but noble and merciful. Call upon us as thy need be," said the Lord of Justice before returning to his sleep inside the staff. "Come, little one," said Baku-san, scooping her up in her snout. "Let us return you to proper slumber." Susy yawned. That was exhausting, and she hadn''t even really done anything. How did the others manage? "Thanks, Baku-san. Do you think I did the right thing?" "Only time will tell, little one." "Yeah¡­guess so." Cage Fight Cage Fight? There was a cat on the roof above us, lazily wishing death on every bird it could perceive. The longing grew more intense as the birds flew nearer, which was to be expected, but also lazier in equal measure. For cats, I''d noticed, the desire to kill was forever at war with the desire to nap; I found that oddly relatable. You''d think that being able to sense the constant and universal feline affinity for murder would have made me like them less, but on the contrary, I was never more sure that they were God''s creatures. When people wanted to kill, it was always steeped in some tiresome psychodrama that existed in a complex context I couldn''t read. Cats just loved killing. It was pure and stupid, and I loved them for that. Paying half a mind to the stray cat on the roof made it easier to sell my act as a fight-brained meathead. Partially present was ideal for me; I wanted the Cranes to be overt in their machinations. I knew too little about the state of the Underworld to do more than react tonight. Compared to the Yakuza''s private room at Tamaki Grille, the atmosphere on the sixth floor of the Kingfisher was jovial and open. At Tamaki, the unspoken rules forbade even stray eye contact, let alone out-of-turn conversation. Here, it wasn''t long before people stopped by our table to make small talk, comment on my bottomless stomach, and check in on how I had been doing since moving out of the neighborhood. Everyone was friendly and polite, in their own ways at least, but the rumors about my love life and conflict with the Tigers were spreading, and people were understandably curious. I pretended to miss the subtext, acting distracted by literally distracting myself with the cute kitty livestream in my brain.
[Meal Bonus!] Reduce incoming Damage of all types by 1 for the next 24 hours. Add Successes equal to your Injury Threshold to your next Recovery Check.
I sighed with relief at the message. Finally, I was worried Edie would pass out if it took any longer to digest dinner. I had accelerated my metabolism higher than ever before, trying to power through food as soon as it hit my stomach, converting it directly into energy through Fire-Qi alone. On the night of the Exorcism, I had hours to kill between the meal and our hunt, and I''d still gotten warm enough that Maki needed at least a foot of space to stay comfortable. Tonight, not only did I not have as much time to metabolize the meal, but I was stronger and capable of burning significantly hotter. My body temperature had risen high enough that people a few tables down were sweating profusely, and my friends had taken to chugging ice water at a marathon pace. Luckily, most were taking it as a part of the show, the in-person mukbang I was putting on for them. Watching me shovel down the entire menu like I was Goku was entertaining enough to tolerate the heat, and the heat itself was a rare display of superhuman prowess right out of a carnival act. It suited me to be tomorrow''s comedic anecdote they could mention any time someone asked how the Crane dinner went. I wanted, ''Did you hear James ordered the entire menu at the Crane event? What a cad!'' and not, ''James Li accepted the Crane invite ¨C what do you think it could mean?''. "Hey, everyone!" I said to the room with a goofy smile. "I''m finished digesting the entrees!" There was a loud applause and cheer from the tables nearest. "Who thinks I should try the desserts?" I laughed at the mix of groans and shouts of encouragement. "Hm, pretty mixed level of enthusiasm from the crowd. What do you guys think?" Cory threw his hands in the air. "Bro, what do you mean? You got to do the whole circuit now! A''least one of e''rything on the menu, namsayin''?" "Shut up, Cory." Jewel kicked him in the ribs with the pointed toe of her shoe. "James, baby, I love hot yoga as much as the next girl, but unless we''re skipping right to where you wrap my ankles behind my head, I''m vetoing another round. We haven''t danced to a single song, and my watch says I''m in zone 3 cardio. Edie might actually die!" The blonde shook her head weakly. "I''m wine¡ªuh, fine with whatever," she slurred. She had gone through about six kalimotxos before switching over to exclusively water, and the drinks had not mixed well with the extreme heat. I patted Edie''s arm reassuringly. "It''s all good, lol. I was just joking. We can head out whenever you guys are ready." "Aw, bummer," said Cory. "I''ll let ''em know, though." Jewel slapped the table with both hands and sank back in her chair with a long, tired breath. "Thank fuck, that was brutal. No offense, James; I''m just not cut out for that sort of endurance challenge. Come on, Edie, I need to use the bathroom." "O-okay, sure." "Hang on, let me borrow her for one sec, Jewel." I frowned at the tall blonde; she was in a rough shape, worse than I''d realized. My initial plan had been to reveal none of my abilities outside of those that had already been publicized. Anyone who mattered already knew about the whole fire tornado thing, so it was fine to show off something related and minor, like the accelerated metabolism trick. If anything, I wanted my enemies to associate me with a mastery over Fire. Fire was terrifying. Erotic sorcery, on the other hand, beyond being a bit embarrassing to know, was supposed to be one of the aces up my sleeve. But it was my only way of quickly helping Edie, and she was in bad need of it. Wasn''t this the whole point of a honeypot, i.e., making me feel bad for a pretty girl and revealing information I otherwise wouldn''t? Yes ¨C however, I had a plan. If I did this correctly, I''d get way more than I gave in the long run. For my reverse honeypot to work, I needed the Cranes to keep Edie assigned to me, and if I didn''t give her something actionable, she''d be replaced with someone more competent. Edie was an amateur, and I was a semi-professional actor; I could lie to her. That wouldn''t be guaranteed with her replacement. I scooched my chair over to hers and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I''ve been working on some secret pressure point techniques. They can help with the heat and the drink, but you''ll have to promise to keep them to yourself, yeah?" As close as I was to her and as drunk as she was, it was easy to discern her emotions; the system even gave me a bonus Die on the Insight check. My seven lucky Successes were revelatory. Edie experienced, before anything else, a deep release of fear, the same fear that had been rising in her since seeing me at the tailor''s. Not only had she, in her mind, completed her assigned task for the night, but she''d avoided whatever terrifying consequences of failure they had leveraged against her. Then came guilt, which was nice to see ¨C it meant she wasn''t a total sociopath, at least. And finally came a second, smaller relief at potentially not having to be so physically miserable right now. "Yes, of course," she lied. "Alright, but don''t judge me. I didn''t put the pressure points where they are, I just discovered the things, alright? This might hurt, by the way. Bear with it." I''d anticipated an Acting check, but it appeared I didn''t need one. The Happy Idiot and my himbo act had bamboozled her to where she wasn''t trying to scrutinize my words. My hand reached between Edie''s legs and grabbed hold of her inner thigh, so far up that my knuckles brushed against her silken underwear. The act was hidden by my chair and the tablecloth, but she gave the game away by squeaking and reflexively grabbing my wrist, hunching slightly over my arm. There was a small series of gasps from the tables around us ¨C ah, well, more grist for the rumor mill. The Producers had assured me that being known as a sexual deviant would only benefit me in the long run. I wasn''t sure how, but I was tentatively taking their word for it. I dug my fingers in at random locations on her thigh, even using my pinky to poke her other leg to sell it better. The placements were meaningless; I wasn''t going for pressure points. Instead, I converted the pain of my grip into pleasure through Slut-making Strikes. With that jolt of sexual energy, I rolled an Erotic Sorcery to wrap some of my Qi up and send it into her dantian, allowing her to make an immediate Recovery Check. It was one of the simplest uses of the Skill, and I did well enough to grant the relatively frail mortal the additional Dice necessary to make the Check count. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.Edie threw her head back and moaned very loudly, a healthy color returning to her face before immediately being replaced by a scarlet red of total humiliation as she realized what she''d done. I let go of her leg, patting her knee and putting a hand on her back. "Feel better?" I whispered. She nodded quickly, not trusting her voice just yet. "A secret, right?" Edie studied my face and my innocent smile ¨C the system forced the Acting check I''d anticipated earlier. She turned and looked away, guilty and ashamed, fooled utterly by my mere three Successes. I almost felt bad for her. A barely audible "Yes" escaped her lips. "Cool," I said. To Jewel, I added, "She''s all yours." Cory gave me a huge, shit-eating grin after the girls left. "You are a dog, brother. Hahaha! Can''t take you nowhere¡ªoi, hey. You alright? What''s up?" I had frozen with my mouth open. The cat on the roof stopped caring about the birds and, all at once had directed every bit of its murderous feline rage down towards something in this room before sprinting out of my sense''s range. Worse still, the killing desire had been colored by existential dread, not something I felt often in animals. I scanned the room, trying to find anyone or anything out of place. They said that cats and dogs were in tune with the spirit realm; presumably, something had come close enough for the stray to feel it and respond with all-consuming, hateful terror. Unfortunately for me, all I''d been able to get from the cat was a broad direction and the idea of a singular entity. It had to be someone or something new. Two men were pushing around a drink cart of complimentary champagne flutes ¨C had I seen either of them earlier? I couldn''t tell. Dr. He, the dentist, and his new, young wife were being seated, but somehow I doubted either of them could be involved. There was a different hostess now too, deferentially greeting an elderly white man and his wife. It was a strange time for a shift change; the restaurant had only been open for a few hours. But it was the elderly man who stuck out. He was hitting the villain checkmarks hard: He had an ornate cane with a golden ram''s head that appeared to be purely decorative since he was walking fine. He had instantly turned to nod at me with a look of dismissive half-interest as though he could sense my gaze on him. And his wife was wearing a long mink stole. Granted, that last one had nothing to do with him, but she looked like a lady who would marry a villain. "Yo. James." "Huh?" I said, slipping back into my role. I''d just have to stay vigilant for now. "What''s up?" "You good, homie? What was that?" I leaned forward, chewing on my bottom lip. "Hey, man, you don''t think anyone here''s going to tell Ma I was touching on a girl in public, do you?" Cory laughed. "Bruh, think about that shit before you do it. Got damn, bro!" "Nah, think about how much less fun life would be if we did that." "True dat." He dapped me up before checking his phone. "Aight, we Gucci. They ready to meetcha. Shit, dog, I''m excited for this. You ''bout to make some money moves, James." "Nice. Hey, Cori, who''s that rich white guy that just walked in, by the way?" Cory craned his neck to look and jerked it back, clearing his throat. Oho, was that fear in his eyes? Had I found my man? "Eh, some hedge fund guy, I think. Don''t know him personally, only seen him around." He stood up, cutting off any further questions. "Chill here for a bit. Ima tip out Mary and take a piss." Hopefully it wasn''t that obvious when I tried to get out of a conversation. "Sure. Think about me when you''re shaking it off." "Gah! Nasty, bro. What''s wrong with you?" "Just looking out for you, man. No one likes a damp spot." "Ugh! What the fuck, James. Hahaha! You know what? You right, you right. That''s my bad. I appreciate ya, homie." "Anytime." See, Cory, that''s how you defuse someone''s interest. Amateur. All I could think about on the way to the meeting was how done I was with today. I was counting the minutes until I could get out of this godforsaken building and back to my dark, concrete hidey-hole in Harbor Hill. Fuck the reverse honeypot, I''d done enough by healing Edie earlier. My Social Feats would needle into hers and Jewel''s minds, and I could cash in later, after they''d had a few James-themed dreams to soften them up. I had a date tomorrow with two girls who weren''t trying to ensnare me in a criminal conspiracy anyway. As soon as I could get some actionable information about the Tigers, I was out of here. The longer I had to consider whatever Lesser Evil had scared the cat away, the more impatient I became. I did not want to care about it. The Hungry Ghost had nearly killed me, and that had been with years of preparation from Maki and the Tutorial Rules being active. If the Cranes had their own equivalent of the Egui haunting their new fortress, then they could deal with it themselves, the bastards. Lot of innocents here, my conscience murmured unhelpfully as we passed a few waiters. So what? The Cranes were literally charging protection money from the majority of them. Shit, wait, that made it way more likely the Evil was an outside threat here to destabilize things. I''d been sort of hoping they were just keeping one as a pet. Still, these assholes, what would they have done if I hadn''t come? But you did come, said my conscience. I frowned. It was true. Responsibility and blame counted after the fact, for now, what mattered was that I had come. Heh, come, added the Happy Idiot. Jewel tapped me on the temple. "What''s going on up there? Nervous?" "I was thinking about coming," I answered honestly. "Cool. I''ve been thinking about that too." The sounds of pumping dance music were felt more than heard as the private elevator we were in descended, the club''s subwoofers penetrating whatever insulation they had and vibrating the car from below. I had no idea how many floors the elevator had access to. Unlike the one we''d taken to the sixth floor, this one was operated entirely from somewhere else by the building''s security. There wasn''t an emergency key for firefighters on the inside, nor had there been a button to call it or even a visible door on the outside; an inconspicuous section of wall had simply slid open as we approached. We exited onto a mezzanine lounge and private bar above the nightclub, which could be seen from the floor-to-ceiling glass on one side of the level. The music was coming through its own speakers at a more reasonable, conversational volume than what could be felt shaking the building from below, the room''s thick, probably bulletproof glass doing some work. Opposite the windows was a wall full of the sort of art that I expected to see in a Crane fortress, thousand-year-old vases, ink paintings, calligraphed poems, and other assorted decorations, all related in some way to red-crowned cranes, Immortals, or Hunan. Upstairs, the d¨¦cor had been bird-themed but generic; here, they hadn''t bothered with plausible deniability. If you made it into this lounge, the Cranes wanted you to know exactly whose house you were in. Cory stepped in and bowed to a plain-looking man in glasses and a simple tuxedo. Speaking over the music in extremely formal Xiang, he said, "Mr. Mao, I''ve brought James Li." In English, he added, "James, this is my superior, Joseph Mao. He''s been working on ways to help you out with the Tiger situation." Mao shook my hand. He had dark bags under his eyes and a naturally tired set to his shoulders that told of overwork and undersleep. "James Li, Cory has told me much about you." I smirked. "Anything good?" "Exclusively, Mr. Li. Your friend thinks very highly of you." "Nice." I slapped Cory on the shoulder. "Thanks for leaving out all the bad shit, bro." Cory code switched without missing a beat. "Nah, dog, you only bad like the baddest bitch alive, ya feel me? Or like, uh, what was that one song you showed me, Mr. Mao? With that old pedo dude. You know what I''m talkin'' about, James?" My Alan half really felt his age right now. "What, man. Do you mean Michael Jackson''s ''Bad''?" "Uhh, maybe?" Mao sighed the long sigh of a man who''d been forced to tolerate Cory Ning on a daily basis for several years; I knew it too well. "Yes, Cory, you were thinking of the song ''Bad'' by Michael Jackson." "Oh, word? That''s tight." "Mm. Why don''t you and the girls help yourselves to a few drinks while I show James to his meeting? Mr. Li, if you would please follow me. While I would help you personally if I could, I am a logistics man. You will need to discuss solutions to your problem with leadership." "Okay! See you ladies in a minute!" Jewel blew me a kiss. "Keep us in your thoughts!" "Good luck!" added a rejuvenated Edie. Cage Fight 2 I couldn''t imagine how the Cranes would defend this place in court if it ever got raided by the police. The door Mao led me to was lacquered a traditional red and carved with an elaborate relief of a great crane spearing a snake with its beak. It was awesome¡ªand if the Cranes ever did start beef with me, I was absolutely stealing it for my bedroom¡ªbut it did lack any subtlety whatsoever. All six-and-a-half feet of ''Fat Frog'' Hsieh greeted us on the other side of the doorway with a long, steely stare. I knew the man only by his grisly reputation of brutal street fights and a now legendary bank van robbery. Hsieh was said to have tanked the moving armored truck head-on and held it still while his men went to work. He let Mao slip past him but clapped me on the shoulder, stopping me in the threshold and filling it with his bulk before I could even get a good look at the room beyond. "Gotta pat you down, kid." "Huh? What for?" I blinked up at him, genuinely confused. "I could kill you with a shoelace." His grip tightened painfully. "That a threat?" "No? What are you, fucking stupid? If you''ve got to ask if I''m threatening you, then I''m obviously not threatening you, or else it would be a terrible threat. Duh." I sighed. "Fucking Triads. Look, I''m only here because I was invited. If you guys are going to be assholes, then I''m leaving. I don''t even like you people." I moved to push Fat Frog''s hand off, but a male voice from behind the big man came through before I could make the contested check. "It''s alright, Hsieh, let him through. He''s our guest." The giant let go of my shoulder, stepped aside, and nodded amicably at me. I guess after a lifetime of heated confrontations on the streets, you stopped taking them so personally. The room was half private office, half quiet parlor ¨C a space where leadership could spend their time free of pounding bass beats, silent the moment the door closed behind me. "Uncle Hou!?" I exclaimed incredulously. The man who had given the order to let me in was the most conspicuously inconspicuous person here, wearing a suit I''d seen him wear a thousand times before. Albert Hou, or ''Uncle Hou'' as he was known in the neighborhood, was the owner of UltraFresh Groceries and More, a local store that had grown into a chain of several dozen that could be found all through Central and South Jersey. Despite being a millionaire at this point, for as long as I could remember, Hou could be found for six hours a day, most days of the week, working in a doorless office in his original location, not four blocks from my mother''s place. If he wasn''t there, then he was typically puttering around the neighborhood, chain smoking and doing the gossip rounds as just another friendly, wrinkle-faced uncle. Hou clapped and gave me an excited double wave of his hands. "James! You look wonderful, my boy. How do you like my daughter''s club? She''s done a beautiful job, and most of it while studying for the Bar Exams! Have you met Vanessa before, James?" He gestured to his gorgeous daughter, who was sitting behind the large, primary desk at the far end of the room. She stood and gave me a nod and a breathtaking little smile. "James Li, welcome to the Kingfisher." My mouth went a little dry just seeing her, but thankfully, the surge of attraction washed harmlessly over the perfected Happy Idiot like a wave against a breaker. I hadn''t met Vanessa Hou before except in passing, but teenage James had dreamed of her many a time. Vanessa must have been half the guys my age in Chinatown''s sexual awakening, and that had been prior to her fully maturing into the beauty she was now. So, this was how other people felt when they saw me in person. Must have been intimidating ¨C for lesser men, that was. I suspected that was her purpose here, her beauty a cudgel in Social Combat. Even if she said nothing, her presence alone was enough to eat up attention. "Ah shit," I said with a goofy grin, "Uncle Hou and his smokeshow daughter are running the Cranes? This is going to make it a lot harder for me whenever I got to start cracking Triad skulls. What''s up, Vanessa? I love the dye job," I said, pointing to her platinum blonde, straight hair. She laughed lightly. "Thank you, James. And it''ll break my heart as well, for the record. Though, I''m not running the Cranes, I''m running the Kingfisher." "And we aren''t Triads, either," added her father, "but we can get to that in a moment. First, let me introduce everyone; they''ve all expressed an interest in being here to meet you after all." I had a strong suspicion that most of the people Hou introduced had only wanted to be here on the off chance I freaked out and started a fight. Foremost of those was Vincent He, the head of security, standing in a bodyguard''s stance near Vanessa. He silently but clearly disapproved of my presence in the room; if I had to guess, his inability to penetrate the Happy Idiot had upset him. The other two martial arts masters were both women, and neither said a word, merely watching quietly. I didn''t need to be told that they were masters; to my supremely analytical eyes, it was as clear as the sky was blue. Their skill and talent were present in every micromovement, written on every line of their bodies, projected with every breath. On a couch next to her student, looking like a couture ghost in her designer dress, wearing all white everything, from shoes to the silk wrap hiding her hair, was ''Falling Leaf'' Lin, an extremely pale half-Asian woman with an eerie calm about her. Her student, Eleanor Xin, was one of Hou''s nieces and a very recent transplant to the city from Paris. She was around my age and, unlike her master, had the decency to at least say hello. In the corner of the room was the other female master, ''Blink'', a short-haired woman with wrapped knuckles who looked uncomfortably similar to my sister Crystal. She sat smoking next to a vent that wicked away the smell completely, dressed in a finely cut sparkly blue pantsuit, avoiding eye contact in favor of examining the ember at the end of the cigarette. "I should point out that neither Falling Leaf nor Blink are associated with our Sect in any official capacity. Falling Leaf Lin is a friend of our Founder, paid to teach my niece, and Blink is a mercenary and a messenger, paid per job." The word ''mercenary'' was sticking in my brain, giving me that tip-of-the-tongue feeling that I was missing something obvious. I decided to ignore any subtext for now, though; it was a cheap trick to get Hou to give me more information. "Uhh¡­okay? What do they got to do with the Tigers though? Cory said you guys could help me out with that." "Yes, of course, and I can help. Please, sit. I will explain." I sat down across from Uncle Hou on a leather couch. Behind him was a painting of the famed Eight Immortals with their red-crowned cranes, the old symbol of immortality. Xian, Daoist Immortals, were said to be able to turn into the birds and were frequently depicted riding them in art. My hand reached into my pocket and twirled the red feather the homeless man at Octavio Square had traded me; at the bottom of the scroll was an old, dirty-faced, disheveled hermit with a crutch. While the other immortals were riding, sleeping on, or feeding peaches to their birds, Li Tieguai, or Iron Crutch Li, was giving an injured Crane medicine from his gourd. I''d been too drunk to put two and two together earlier, but it was painfully obvious now who I''d met at the Square. For the love of God, please let today end. I''m begging you, I pleaded to the Producers. This had better be a normal meeting, guys, or else I''m going to lose it. Please, please let the Evil on the sixth floor be foreshadowing for another day. "Do you guys have a cat down here?" I asked Uncle Hou. He looked amused. Hou had only known me as James Li, the rambunctious kid who liked to do risky parkour stunts with his friends and frequently got into scuffles; this ADHD act of mine was well within his expectations. "Alas, we have yet to fill our mouse-hunting position. Why do you ask?" "Ah, man, that sucks. I''m trying to adopt a cat so I can teach it martial arts and make the most viral video series of all time. It''s going to be sick; you should follow me if you haven''t already. Hey, it''s kind of weird that everyone''s just here watching us talk. Don''t you think?" "You underestimate how interesting you are, James, though Vanessa is here because it''s her office. And I should have been clearer as well earlier ¨C part of the reason that I agreed to Falling Leaf and Blink''s requests to sit in on this meeting was to make you more comfortable, so that you didn''t feel outnumbered. Both are in their own way, more interested in your safety then they are mine or my daughter''s, and certainly more than they are Vincent or Fat Frog''s. Though, I''ve agreed not to speak on their behalf. Would you two like to say anything before we get into the Tigers?" The ghostly pale Lin whispered, and the ambient sound in the room seemed to cut away, leaving only her voice. "The Winds chatter of you, tell me fascinating tales. I am Their witness." "O-kay." I twirled the feather in my pocket. "I''d really love to not know anything more about that right now, no offense." "Sensible." She put a hand on her student''s inner thigh and squeezed. "See, girl, sensible ignorance. You will learn as he has in time, or you will die." Eleanor scowled, muttering something in French that I didn''t understand. "Blink?" asked Hou after a beat. I turned to look at the mercenary, who had lit a fresh cigarette. She flicked me a searching look before glaring at Hou. "These cunts are rich," she said in a mixed Australian-Chinese accent. "Richer than rich. Take ''em for everything you can, then come back for more." "You think?" I asked. "Alright, Hou, you heard the lady." I snapped my fingers twice. "Order me a smoothie, old man. I skipped dessert ''cause my date looked like she was about to pass out, and now I want a smoothie. Actually, I want," I looked up and thought about it, "every possible smoothie combination you can make with the fruit you guys have in the kitchen. Put some vodka in them too ¨C only half though, so I can drink responsibly. And also you guys are going to want some ice water potentially, but I don''t know, depends on how many kinds of fruit you have in the kitchen." Uncle Hou smiled knowingly. "You always did love my UltraFresh smoothies. Very well, this is certainly possible; they are on the caf¨¦ menu. I''ll even have them add protein scoops." "Ha!" I pointed at him. "You''re going to regret not negotiating on the protein scoops, Uncle Hou. Now I want all the relevant information you can give me about the Tigers, and I don''t want to do or give you anything for it!" Joseph Mao broke into coughs, Vincent He and Fat Frog loomed angrily at me, and all but Hou gave me searching looks to see if I was serious. Hou, though ¨C Hou laughed. "Okay, I''ll do this too! It''s only fair; I invited you here under that premise." "What, really? Oh, then, uh¡­" My hesitation was genuine this time ¨C I hadn''t expected him to agree that easily. What else should I ask for? There was only one thing I could think of at the moment under the circumstances. "Then I want a kitten to adopt. But, like, right now. I want a kitten on my lap for this whole conversation, Hou." I am getting through tonight, goddamn it. I am making it to the weekend. Hou''s eyebrows rose, and I saw for a millisecond flash, fast enough that I barely caught it with my Insight, the gang boss hiding under the fa?ade. "Ah, ha, James, that certainly can be done, but the speed¡ª" I could feel my mother''s blood rising in me ¨C blood in the water, time to go for the kill. I didn''t have the Negotiation Skill and I wasn''t trying to Persuade them of shit, which left only one option. The Dice of a Charisma + Intimidation check rolled somewhere in the ephemeral ether, a Skill that I''d been slowly mastering without using even once. It wasn''t normally a James Li-type beat, but these were Triads. How fucking dare they not immediately find me a kitten to adopt? I wanted my goddamn cat, assholes. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Time slowed as I panicked. Four Successes ¨C only Four Successes! Shit, that was good, but it wasn''t going to fly against a Triad boss. I had an option I could use, but it was nuclear ¨C just, completely insane. If I took three points of Temporary Corruption and cloaked myself in pure nightmarish dread through the ability Funikugami had given me, Black Dog of the Fens, then¡ª No, said Alan to James. We have a plan. Calling on the Carrion King''s Mantle is so, so far outside of the plan. But it would be so cool! And how dare this¡ª No. We have a plan. If the plan fails, then, and only then, will we get nutty with it. We don''t even understand how the Happy Idiot interacts with serious Social Combat yet. Fine, it wasn''t like I Whiffed the check. I let time resume, and the results of the roll guide my tongue. "Fuck you. I''ve been real nice about all of this because you leveraged my old friendships against me, but I''m still a youxia til the day I die. You hear me? Here I am, sitting in your modern-day fucking castle you built with your blood money having already tolerated your low-down, scum-of-the-Earth honeypot bullshit, playing nice. You should be glad I''m not pulping your skull all over daughter''s nice dress for the insult. Yeah, that''s right, did you think I was too stupid not to notice what Cory''s been up to? Well, guess what, I am stupid. I''m stupid enough to sit here silently until either you put a kitten on my lap, or one of your thugs decides to try and find out what happens when I scorch all of the oxygen out of the air in an enclosed space." To say the tension could be cut with a knife, or that the silence grew stifling, or any other trite saying could not do it justice. No, it was like I''d held up a grenade, pulled the pin, and dropped it in front of me. Now we were, as a room, waiting to see if it was a dud or not. "You¡­" said Hou, studying my face. His own expression was perfectly neutral. "This, for a kitten?" "Yep." He took a long breath, and then another, and another. His desire to kill me, which had spiked at the mention of pulping his skull onto his daughter''s dress, slowly diminished until it was no more. "You are truly your mother''s son." Uncle Hou smiled, and while the others thus far hadn''t felt fake, this one seemed more sincere, like he''d lifted his mask to reveal it. "It was a dangerous game we were playing," he continued. "You are a man best known in the Underworld for your thousand-foot-tall fire tornado, but to me, you must understand, you were still the young boy asking me which bubble gum blew the biggest bubbles. It''s true; I did not give you the face you deserve as a warrior. Please accept my apology, and excuse my underlings for their ignorance." Hou bowed his head as low as face would allow in his own stronghold. "Cory Ning wants only to see his friend as a comrade, and his superior, Joseph Mao, is unfamiliar with our ways," he waved his hand between me and him, "the old ways. But it is as you say, you are a youxia, a hero who has already freed Chinatown from one Demon, and I am the Administrator of the Black Harbor Branch of the Crane Sect. This is how we shall proceed from here, if that is agreeable to you." I leaned back on the couch and crossed my legs. The metagamer in me was pointing out that I had likely just been crushed by an actual Negotiation check, but for the life of me, I couldn''t bring myself to disagree with the man. He sounded reasonable; I''d been heard, my complaints had been acknowledged, and Hou had apologized. It wasn''t his fault he couldn''t read the Empty-Headed God. I had forced him to fall back on his kindly uncle persona by giving him so little, but now, we could move on as relative equals. "Yeah, alright. I was a little unhinged there myself. The pulping your skull onto your daughter''s dress was¡­a lot. That''s my bad. Still want the kitten though. And, uh, if it helps or whatever, I do have a better reason than the viral video thing." "Will you share this reason with me?" "You haven''t told me anything about the Tigers, and now you''re asking for my secrets?" I grinned and wagged my finger at him. "I can''t take my eyes off you for a second, Hou." He chuckled. "I have been called intractable before." "Don''t make up words at me, old man." "It means ¨C never mind. Let''s move on. Joseph, find Mr. Li his kitten. Any preference in cat?" "Age doesn''t matter, honestly; I was just saying that for the viral video. Just find me any cat, but the more violent, the better. You know how sometimes you look at a cat''s face and you''re like, ''Oh yeah, that cat''s a real piece of shit.''? Get me one of those." Mao bowed and left quickly, relieved, I thought, to be able to get out of the room with the man who''d threatened to burn all of the oxygen away. "Joseph will be quick, I''m sure. He is the best at what he does. Since you have no intention of speaking until your cat is here, allow me to take this time to give you the information I intended to pass on about your situation, and why I believe that you will need allies if you are to navigate it. How much do you know of the Underworld in Black Harbor, James?" "Basically nothing." "I assumed as much. Your mother was quite adamant about sheltering you and your sister from it, murderously so at times. I''ll start with a broad outline then." Hou explained the Tigers'' broad structure and the history of Triad relations in the neighborhood. Right away, it became clear that what Ami had told me was a very small slice of the truth. My adopted sister had presented the Triangle Truce in vague terms, and I''d been taken to believe that it was a verbal, broad agreement to keep conflict to a minimum. In actuality, the Triangle Truce was a written contract with explicit allowances for violence and theft that had been witnessed by literal Demons the Dragon Triad had called forth. It was an agreement between specifically Boss Gao of the Tigers, Uncle Hou of the Cranes, and the witch coven that led the Dragons. So long as the original signees were in control of their organizations, they were bound by its rules under threat of being devoured for eternity by hungry demons. Once Gao had died, the contract was broken, as had been intended from the start ¨C it had only ever been an armistice, not a means to permanent peace. I rubbed my temple. "Sorry, Bella Liu, the lawyer with the billboards is a witch and the leader of the Dragon Triad?" "Yes, one of the most wicked and dangerous women in America. But, James, it is important that you recognize that the only Triad in Black Harbor is that of the Tigers. While the Dragons present themselves as the same, even to their own members, they are a Black Society in service to their Demon King. If you treat them as merely greedy criminals, then you will surely lose. Their material needs and wants are only means to their spiritual and mystical ends." "And let me guess, you guys also just happen to do organized crime on the side. Who do you serve, the Eight Immortals?" Falling Leaf Lin let out a dismissive sound; it cut through the conversation like a knife, reminding me sharply of how close she was. "They are young, foolish men in comparison." "Indeed," agreed Hou. "Our Founder is much older than even the oldest of the Eight. And while you may associate us with crime, I believe it would misrepresent us to call the Cranes a criminal syndicate. We exist in the Underworld, by its nature an extrajudicial space. Vigilante justice is against the law, but that wouldn''t stop you from killing me if it meant saving an innocent, would it?" "Sure, but there''s a big difference between me beating up a pimp and me being a pimp." "Exactly," he agreed, "and there is a difference between sex slavery and what we do. All of our prostitutes are like Jewel; they are well-compensated, protected, and valued employees. Every large organization, James, from corporation to government, must exist at some level within the Underworld if they are to survive. The American government funds much of its black operations by selling weapons abroad and drugs domestically¡ª" "I don''t approve of that either, Hou, to be clear." "I understand. But while you would never agree to perform wetwork operations for the US Military, you would agree to perform work for the military." He held up a finger, cutting off my objection. "James, if the Army Corp of Engineers approached you and offered to pay for your assistance fighting a fire in the Pine Barrens, can you honestly tell me you would decline? Would it matter in that instance that the Army''s Green Berets were somewhere across the world securing trade routes for drug lords?" I crossed my arms and closed my eyes. Goddamn it, I never should have come to this meeting. The idea that Crane leadership could simply talk me into helping them had been completely absurd prior to a few minutes ago. Solo Social Combat with a Triad Boss ¨C what had I been thinking? Hou, sensing my weakness, continued, "Say I came to you, James Li, Youxia of Black Harbor, Master of Black City Kung Fu, and asked for your help with a vampire stalking the streets, would you turn me down? James¡ªno, Master Li, with your shining golden aura that rebuffs darkness, dominion over Flame, and strange, impossible to grasp presentation, you would be my best hope against a creature as vile as a vampire! Are you saying that I could not count on your help? Would it matter¡ª" Perfect, a distraction just when I needed it. I put up my palm and turned to watch the door. "Crazy fast. He said he was the logistics guy, but damn, he really is the best at what he does." Joseph Mao, more tired and less thrilled than before, walked in holding a young cat by the scruff of its neck as far from his body as he could. Mao''s tuxedo, while not ruined, was now inappropriate for the setting, with fresh red blood splattered over the collar and the cuffs of one hand. Both cat and man were displeased with the situation, though only Mao was trying to hide it. "Awww, oh my god, he''s perfect," I said, taking the orange-and-white tabby from Mao. It looked to be about four months old, though it was hard to say since it was underweight and clearly from the streets. "He''s got a little mustache! Insanely impressive, Mao, I thought for sure the drinks would come first." The man bowed his head, visibly more relaxed now that he was no longer holding the cat and that I was significantly less likely to incinerate everyone here. "You can''t rush a good smoothie, Mr. Li." "But you can rush a bad one!" I held the cat up to my face, my Force Armor rebuffing his attempts to claw my eyes out. His name was Smoothie now. I''d decided. "Isn''t that right, Smoothie? You little monster! Hahahaha! You bastard, look at you trying to fight the first martial arts master you see! He''s amazing, Mao, thank you."
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Adopt a pet. Reward: 5XP, +1 Animal Handling Bonus, As a distraction during Social Combat: 5XP, Gain Familiar''s Collar ¨C An animal wearing this collar will be marked as your Familiar. It gains 1 Die in all Attributes, will associate you with safety, and will always be able to find its way to you.
It was nice to see there was still some wholesomeness in this world. In a move that no doubt confused everyone in the room, I wasted no time in pulling out the collar from my jacket pocket and wrapping it around Smoothie''s neck. He went limp in my lap to protest its presence, glaring and hissing up at me with a strangely affectionate form of murderous desire. "Of-of course, sir¡­" said Mao, staring with furrowed brow at where the name ''Smoothie'' was engraved on the silver tag dangling from my Familiar''s Collar. Cage Fight 3 "Right, where were we?" I started, scratching both mine and Smoothie''s chin. "Ah, I remember. Listen, Hou, obviously you can pay me to fight literal monsters ¨C but you will have to pay me. You fuckers are the ones charging protection money from a bunch of dentists and window cleaners; you better be okay with spending some of that money to protect the city. I''d also consider trading some instruction for big-time favors, but whoever I''d teach would be training with my other students, regardless of who they were." Hou took it in stride. "That''s generous of you, thank you. The speed at which your current student is learning has not gone unnoticed. We would certainly be willing to pay you handsomely for the service." "I''m still considering that for the record." Currently, despite Annie''s suggestions, I was leaning towards minimizing all chances of further Social Combat with Hou. "Anyway, that''s not why I''m here. First of all, the Tigers are going to try and kill me, and you still haven''t told me shit about what to do for that. More importantly, I''m trying to keep the peace in the city, and you''ve been acting like war''s a foregone conclusion¡ª" The air stilled once more as Falling Leaf Lin interrupted. "The time of peace is over. The Wheel is turning. War is already upon us." I squinted hard at the deeply creepy woman in all white, examining her intently for the first time. Li Tieguai had something to the same effect. Hou and my predicament had been occupying my attention thus far, but that was twice she''d said something that referenced my earlier interaction with the Immortal in Octavio Square. She wasn''t wearing make-up. Her skin was actually the color of white jade. Nor had she painted her nails; they were the same bleached bone white of the Hakkotsu no Ha. "Falling Leaf is correct, James. Even if you could establish peace within Black Harbor, something that has never truly been done before, war would still arrive from outside the city. Everywhere we look, we see the signs. There isn''t a single organization in the Underworld not preparing for bloodshed." "Pretty typical for you guys." He shook his head. I didn''t need to roll an Insight to see how serious he was. "Not like this, never like this. I''ve led this Branch of our Sect through a war before, James, it never felt so¡­doomed. There is a desperation spreading across the Underworld, a certainty that we are on the precipice of a paradigm shift." I rolled my eyes, disguising my actual feelings with mock disdain. If I were the Producers, I would also pick a universe on the verge of total catastrophe. That''s just good television. "Whatever, man. Let''s skip the scare tactics, I''m still not joining up." "No, listen!" He pounded the coffee table between us. Vanessa Hou jumped at her desk, startled for the first time in this meeting; it seemed too real to rehearse. She''d only frowned slightly at my mention of murdering her father in front of her earlier. "Millennia ago, there were once thousands of youxia and traveling heroes all over the world. A city the size of Black Harbor would have had a dozen or more, and yet, in all my life, I can''t remember there being more than three at any one time. Don''t you wonder why, boy, why all of your peers for centuries have met early deaths? Don''t you wonder where all the heroes went? For over a thousand years, James, the men and women defending humanity have dwindled into dust, a sure sign that we have been losing. And now, the consequences of that loss are here! That is why I fight so hard for this Sect! Master Li, the Dragons are Demon worshipers, and the Tigers are crass materialists. Only we are led by a virtuous Immortal! Our Founder has human children, human lovers, and human friends, but the power to match Demon Kings and malevolent Gods." I gave him a thumbs up. "Great news, Unc, you can go ahead and retire then. I''m hero enough for Black Harbor. And don''t worry, I''m way better than all those dead youxia. Now quit jerking me around and give up the Tigers already, any longer, and I''m going to think you''re working for them." Hou sighed. "I''ve never met a more confusing man. Just when I think I understand you¡­" He shook his head and gestured to his daughter. "Very well. I''ve prepared a small dossier with information on the Tigers'' operations and their members. We can negotiate for more, but it will be enough for you to move against them. But then what, James? One man cannot solve this. If you take out the Black Harbor Tigers without filling in the vacuum, then others will only move in to fill the space, and the Tigers'' global operations will move to take vengeance. But if we work together, then the Cranes will minimize the chaos of the vacuum, and we will be able to protect you from further reprisals." I stroked through Smoothie''s ginger fur, feeling his ribs and shaking free some dirt. He was half asleep now, directing the majority of his murderous fury at everyone else in the room, reserving only the slightest for me. Gaining all those Attribute Dice must have felt incredible for the malnourished stray. Hou was making sense, but then, he wouldn''t have invited me here if he didn''t think he''d be able to talk me into his way of thinking. And to be honest with myself, not only did I not have a good plan to deal with the Tigers or the broader gang war problem ¨C I, in fact, had no plan at all. Joining or just associating more closely with the Cranes was the obvious solution. It would give me security, resources, and access to allies with much more knowledge of the Underworld, people who could shoulder some of the responsibility for me before I crumbled under its weight. If I was watching one of my friends in this situation, separated from the Party as they were, I would be screaming at the screen for them to accept the help, pleading with them to be reasonable. And yet¡­I couldn''t do it. My James half wouldn''t tolerate it; it was anathema to him. My Alan half pointed out that once we had the Party together we could make our own way in the world, free of any influence from the Cranes. But ultimately, if it was too upsetting to my other half, he didn''t feel strongly enough to counter it. Besides, we had options now that Hou had given me all this juicy information to bite into. They were all more dangerous than accepting the offer, but hopefully, that meant they would be more entertaining anyway. This one''s for you, dear viewers. I grinned. "Nah, I''d rather die a youxia than live like a Triad. However, because you gave me this perfect little angel," I said, scratching Smoothie behind the ear, "I''m going to be nice. You can hire me for hunting monsters, we can talk about me taking students, and I''m not even going to take me joining your dumbass Sect off the table. But, you, Hou, are an elderly mortal gangster and I am a demi-god with a feather from Li Tieguai''s head in my pocket. I''m not even going to think about joining up until I meet your ''virtuous'' Founder." I had twenty-one Relationship Tokens with his or her name on it. Like I said, I had more dangerous options now. "Frankly," I continued, "it''s outrageous that you thought that you, a frail little man, could deliver this sales pitch to me, a walking volcano, as I''m sure the extremely off-putting inhuman monstrosity over there will attest to." I looked at Falling Leaf Lin. "Isn''t that right?" Her face took on the approximate shape of a grin. I hated it. "You are well within your rights to kill the mortal. It is not their place to bargain so lightly with our kind." She squeezed the thigh of her student, Eleanor Xin. "See girl, this one knows and has not been taught. I will tolerate no more excuses of ignorance from you. Next time, I will take your tongue." Yikes. "And I will tolerate no more pitches from the Cranes unless they come from the Founder, as I deserve. Also, I thought about it, and I''d be happy to teach Eleanor, any time, really." I owed it to her now. I''d expected Hou to regain some of that urge to kill me from earlier, but he only beamed and clapped his hands. Why did I suddenly feel like I''d lost this interaction. "Fantastic! I think that''s more than reasonable. You know, if it was your mother in that seat¡ªah, smoothies to celebrate young Smoothie, excellent!" The door opened, Fat Frog making room as two men and a drink cart entered the room. Smoothie, startled by the noise, opened his eyes and watched the lead server with apprehension. He was young still, unsure of the world, confused by his senses. I watched the kitten watch the man, silently cursing myself for not demanding an old tom cat, wise in the ways of Black Harbor''s streets. Smoothie was frightened, that I could tell, but he was a kitten that had been scooped up and brought into an unfamiliar environment. He was frightened of everything. Still, Smoothie was my son, my best friend, my world. We had only known each other for about five to ten minutes, but a father knows his boy, and his reaction felt wrong to me. Falling Leaf Lin wasn''t responding to the men at all, though, and neither were any of the Cranes. Blink was merely eyeing the drinks as if debating whether she was going to insist on sniping one for herself. I didn''t want to make a scene if there was no scene to be made. But I couldn''t let it go uninvestigated, not with my sweet baby boy in the room. Dear God, he was only four to six months old ¨C what kind of father would I be if I didn''t at least make an effort? I stood up and plopped Smoothie down in Eleanor Xin''s lap. If a fight was about to start, the last person I wanted involved was the amateur who thought she could hang with the masters. Eleanor''s eyes lit up, unbothered by his immediate attempt to claw her legs, and gave me a searching look. I ignored her entirely in favor of her instructor, and communicated to her with a stern expression and a Charisma + Leadership roll. ''Look after them'', it said. ''I''ve got this.'' Falling Leaf quirked her head, but gave me a microscopic nod in return. "Siiiiiick," I said, walking over to the cart. Fat Frog Hsieh had closed the door behind them, but they''d yet to move more than a few feet into the room. "You don''t know how much I''ve been craving exactly twenty-four smoothies, twelve with vodka, twelve without. Did you remember the ice water for everyone else? It''s about to get a little sweaty in here." The lead server smiled and bowed a little. "Yes, sir." He turned and lifted the white cloth atop the cart, revealing a lower shelf with pitchers of water and a handle of vodka. "I brought more alcohol as well, in case you wanted to touch up the smoothies. Do you wish to know which of the drinks have vodka, sir? It was unclear if it was supposed to be a surprise." "Ooh, that''s fun. Hang on, let me think." I stood in front of him and the cart and scratched my chin as I contemplated. The man seemed like a normal thirty-something. He was Chinese like most of the staff, likely so that he could take orders from the guests, and untrained in the martial arts ¨C an average, regular guy. There was no desire to kill in him that I could sense, either. But there was a new feeling, not from the man, but from the space he was occupying. It was strange, not even inherently disturbing. I didn''t know what to make of it. Funikugami''s gifted murder sense was new to me, and out of spite for the Carrion God, I''d largely neglected to study how it worked. It was as though there was an echo in the room. I didn''t close my eyes, I didn''t dare take them off the server, but I did shift my attention, rolling an Affinity + Empathy to try and discern more. The four Successes revealed two things: firstly, someone really wanted to kill Vanessa and Albert Hou, specifically in that order, and secondly, that someone was outside of my range ¨C which did not make any sense. I flicked a glance back at Smoothie; he was cowering but still unwilling to look away from the server. Well, if my son didn''t trust the man, there was nothing left for it. My hand snapped out, taking the server by the throat. There was a momentary pause during which both the man and the room were caught off guard. I took advantage of the long second to circulate my Qi through his body, ready to close the Eagle''s Talon around and through his throat if I found anything alarming. In retrospect, I shouldn''t have bet everything on Medicine, a Skill I only had 2 Dice in. Luckily, it didn''t really matter anyway. Well, it was not luckily; there was nothing lucky about what happened next. He, again, seemed normal to my Qi scan, with normal undeveloped Qi circuits, normal musculature, etc., leaving me standing there confused and a little embarrassed. Hsieh moved to tear me off the man, but Smoothie saved us both. I kept scanning the man, continuing to bet on my four- to six-month-old son''s feline intuition, and so I was able to act quickly when I felt the man''s muscles begin to unfurl off of his bones as though they were a thousand independent serpents. A lot of things happened at once, starting with me closing my grip into the Eagle''s Talon, severing the neck of the creature. The geyser of blood, the sickening, wet sound of bones snapping and flesh squelching, and just the general ultraviolence of the moment stunned even the room of hardened Underworld residents for half a breath. It was that half breath that saved Hsieh; instead of moving to defend the server as he had been, he took another look at the scene. He hadn''t been expecting to see me mercilessly and randomly execute an hourly worker. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Fat Frog, Blink, who had been sitting by the smoking vent nearby, and I dodged as the things that had once been muscles lashed out like snapping steel wires, exploding out of the server''s body. The other waiter on the far side of the cart, unfortunately, was helpless as what I could only describe as a tentacle monster tore him, its meat vessel, the cart, and everything else around it into ribbons. The creature that had been inside the server, perfectly mimicking his muscles, was now just a writhing mass of black and green cords, some as thick as fingers and others as fine as hairs. That ''echo'' I had felt of distant murderous desires cut out, replaced only by an ancient, toxic need to kill everything and anything. Its controller, I assumed, must not have been able to tell while peering through the server''s eyes that I hadn''t actually found anything incriminating and had cut his or her losses, setting the thing to go berserk. A dome of whipping wind appeared around the four of us, so fierce that it tore through the concrete and created a semi-opaque barrier. I didn''t need to turn and look to know that it was Falling Leaf Lin keeping her promise to me and protecting both her ward and Smoothie. I was grateful, but it did mean I was now trapped inside a very small bubble with a woman I didn''t know, a tentacle monster, and Fat Frog Hsieh, who took up entirely too much space. The concrete dust in the dome of wind was rapidly leaving us in darkness. I let out my Shining Resolve, summoning the golden aura for the second time today, purely to give my allies more light. It turned out to be largely unnecessary; Blink had shifted her eyes into the distinct yellow of the Li-family secret Eagle Eyes Technique, and Fat Frog had closed his to protect them. The monster whipped its thousand limbs out at us three in a wild fury; it had three living targets and enough hatred and limbs for us all. I utilized the Happy Idiot to dance through the storm, pulling out my Titanium Nunchaku to parry the tentacles I couldn''t dodge. It must have looked absurd from an outside perspective. I wiggled, stumbled, and oscillated around the attacks, my Nunchaku held in limp wrists, slapping away tentacles without any apparent skill. The others were much more visibly impressive, proving why they had earned the right to be in this room and at this meeting. Blink was a blur, her Eagle''s Talons cloudlike in front of her, cutting through the limbs before they could make contact. She used a more slide-y, liquid form of the family art than I''d seen before, occasionally vanishing to appear a foot away from where she''d been. Fat Frog, on the other hand, said fuck it, and charged into the center of the mass, his muscles bulging, tense enough that many of the tentacles were bouncing off harmlessly. Hsieh began blindly grabbing handfuls of tentacles and ripping them apart. It was an incredible performance, psychotically beautiful, really, but as the monster was forced to turn its attention exclusively on the big man, I began to doubt how long he could keep it up. Every tentacle seemed able to sprout more as far as I could tell ¨C either that or they were coming out of some extra-dimensional space in the center. Unless we did something big, Fat Frog Hsieh was about to fight his last fight. "DO YOU HAVE A PLAN?!" I yelled over the wind at Blink. "FUCKING WHAT, CUNT?!" she yelled back in her enchanting accent. Fair enough, I thought. "IF I ATTACK EVERY TENTACLE SIMULTANEOUSLY, COULD YOU FIGURE SOMETHING OUT?!" "PROBABLY!" My plan, as far as it existed, was forced to rely on some assumptions about my Feat and Item interactions. The Titanium Nunchaku allowed me to attack each target in melee range once, and luckily, in this instance each tentacle did appear to count. That seemed to be this Lesser Evil''s gimmick ¨C outside of its mimicry, of course ¨C you had to chew through every one of its apparently endless limbs. I assumed that the system would make me roll only one Attack for all the targets since, in most cases, rolling for each would be terribly broken, especially if I had access to the standard rules for Extra Successes. What I was less sure of, was if the single Attack roll would count as a single Attack for the Happy Idiot, which allowed me to drop the Stance in order to deal double Damage once in a scene. Time to bet my life on an obscure rules interaction ¨C truly, a roleplayer''s dream. I stepped in right next to Hsieh and the monster, putting myself well in range for every tentacle. They were already beginning to react, but it was my turn. Dice clattered, a sound I adored as much as I feared. I went into the roll with the intention of dropping the Happy Idiot and transforming every Success into extra Damage, both of which I had to declare prior to making the Attack. Something in my brain snapped. I was hardy, I was fast, I was capable, but I was not hardy, fast, or capable enough to do what the rules were about to let me do. The sound of the Nunchaku was unbelievable as they struck each and every one of the thousands of tentacles in the space of less than a second, faster than even my master martial artist eyes could track. Every millisecond, a nunchaku was colliding with multiple tentacles in separate strikes. Because of the way the chain weapon worked, it was colliding with me, too, against my arms, palms, back, and side. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn''t have mattered, but these were not normal circumstances. I felt my organs vibrate painfully as I experienced the sound barrier shattering around me a thousand times. My hands, inured to the heat as they were, burned as the Titanium began to glow from the friction. I tore both of my rotator cuffs, pulled every tendon in my arms, cracked every one of my ribs, dislocated my hip, and broke several bones in my feet from exertion alone. The system, kindly, interpreted all of this as two regular Injury Thresholds, and I felt in my soul that I was being let off easy. This was a narrative system at its heart, and while I may have broken it over my knee for the moment, I still had to pay the price. As the tentacle monster fell apart, Blink appeared at my side, shot a Talon into the center of the mass, and ripped it back, holding a now shattered spinal disk in her palm. The hate dissipated instantly, and the dome of wind followed not long after.
[Encounter Complete] Defeated ??? ''s Flesh Puppet with an exceptional amount of help and at the cost of an innocent life. Reward: 28XP, Gain one Artifact Token [Hidden Quest Complete!] Discovered and survived a broken Feat and Item interaction. Result: You may suffer twice your Injury Threshold in Damage to repeat the interaction once per scene. Reward: Upgrade a Special Feat (Sex Edselected) [Special Feat] Sex Ed (Upgraded x1) NPCs that you train gain quadruple the benefits from training when you include a sexual element to the lesson. This applies to both what they would learn naturally and any relevant feats that you may have. These lessons stick in their minds, granting a lesser bonus to their self-training for some time after.
I''d chosen the Feat as much for Annie and future students as I did because it felt like the safest option. Most of the Special Feats had aspects to them that complicated my life in some way; this upgraded version of Sex Ed, for example, was very vague with language in its last sentence. Something to worry about later, though, there was still business to attend to. We examined one another. Blink was otherwise fine, though her arms looked like she had stuck them into a blender. After three Breaths though, while her wounds were still bleeding, she would live. Fat Frog and I were fucked, he more so than I. His body hardening technique was insane, far and away the strongest I''d seen in person, but his skin was thoroughly flayed even if the muscles beneath were shockingly still held together. To put it into perspective, I had come off the better of us, having taken a total of twenty points of -purely self-inflicted Damage, all of which were reflected across every inch of me. In the glow of victory, Frog and I gave each other a firm nod, before mutually and silently deciding that we would not collapse to the ground, as much as we may have wanted to. "JingJing," I coughed. "Ow." "Huh?" said Blink. "Sorry¡ªargh, fuck, Jesus Christ¡ª" I, agonizingly, took a few breaths until I could push a proper one through my collapsing lung and get a Circular Breathing charge off. "It took me a minute to recognize you." "Didn''t take it personally. You were, what, five last time we met?" "Something like that." "Heh." JingJing, my mother''s aunt''s cousin, I think, chuckled and closed her eyes. When they opened again, they were her usual brown. "Nice work there. Never got the hang of Nunchaku myself. Want to get a drink somewhere aways from these cunts?" I thought of my two dates, likely panicking in the lounge outside. That had been a very, very loud fight. "Yeah, I hate these people. One minute." "Take yer time," she said, lighting up a fresh cigarette. "Want a dart?" "What? Oh, no, I don''t smoke." "You sure? Really oughta start ¨C feels great, look cool." "Nah, it''s the smell for me, never liked it." She made a jerk-off motion with her hand. "It''s better than blood and guts, mate, and whatever space jizz was inside o'' that thing." It was admittedly hard to argue with her. With the adrenaline fading, this was an extremely unpleasant sensory environment to be in. "Alright, fuck it. Give me one." The rest of the room was a mess, though thankfully, the door looked like it could be repaired with a little work. I was going to steal that door one day. Falling Leaf Lin was standing, two paper fans in hand, and Vincent He was shirtless, two swords in his. Eleanor Xin stood behind her master, clutching a terrified Smoothie to her chest, and the Hou''s were behind Vincent. I willed my cigarette to light in an effortless display of Fire-Qi, taking a small drag. The way I figured, my Social and Special Feats would eliminate the smell, and my physical Attributes would handle any of the unpleasant side-effects. "Don''t you people vet your fucking employees?" Uncle stepped forward and bowed deeply. "I''m at a loss for words, but I am eternally grateful¡ª" "Shut up." I allowed my oppressive fighting spirit to fill the room; no way was I letting him make a Social roll against me right now. The Happy Idiot was gone, I was glowing gold, and there was no more disguising my intentions or abilities. "That thing was being controlled by someone who wanted your daughter dead and then you, in that order. More Triad shit, old man?" Hou held up a finger, stopping Vincent He from moving in front of him. "Is that right? In that case, then no. We won the bids for this location from a firm out of Keletsnya. I assume this was their doing ¨C they certainly have access to the magics required to create flesh puppets." "From where?" "I''m not surprised you haven''t heard of them. Keletsnya is a small country in Eastern Europe with an outsized impact on the Underworld. Their recent gains in power are one of the primary reasons for my belief regarding the impossibility of peace." Finally! A small Eastern European nation with access to powerful dark magic that I hadn''t heard of? That had to be where Mars had ended up. I wanted to pump my fist, but that would have spoiled the image, so I settled for pulling back my fighting spirit. "I''m leaving your club, Hou. I don''t like it. I had a bad time. The food was mid, and the staff was demons. Before I go, you''re going to give me my dossier on the Tigers, and then, you''re going to put together another one on Keletsnya to send to me via Cory. Congratulations, I''ve decided to take that attack personally. For the Keletsnyians, at least, you''ve got me as an ally." He bowed again. "Of course. It will be done."
[Encounter Complete] Extracted yourself gracefully from a negotiation with Albert Hou. Reward: 18XP, Gain one Relationship Token
That wasn''t a glowing summation of how I fared, but I counted it as a win for my first time engaging in serious politicking. I''d be kicking myself over my mistakes later when I had the time to reflect, I was sure, but there was no better way to learn. And I''d got Smoothie out of it, so how bad could I have really done? I pointed at Eleanor Xin. "Cat," I demanded. To her master, however, I bowed. "Thanks for looking out for my boy. I owe you a cup of tea and¡ª" I paused; it pained me to continue, but I didn''t have much to offer an Immortal, "and a favor, in kind." The woman, or whatever she actually was, inclined her head. "I accept your invitation, James Li. We shall meet again." Breakout Role He died afraid for his life. Which was fair; he''d been about to die. But what I couldn''t get over, what was sticking in me like a knife, was that he died afraid of me. His untrained eyes had been too slow, staring at me instead of the Thing that had killed him, turned him into mince meat, blended him into chunks. Fuck a closed casket; they''d be sending him to his family in a sealed keg if they sent them anything at all. I''d saved everyone in that room except for the one innocent ¨C And he''d died afraid, of me. In the cruel freedom of the nightmare, I could be in multiple places and multiple times. I was me and I was the waiter. I was feeling the flesh puppet unfurl from its corpse vessel, and I was closing my Talon through its spine. I was watching the unhinged ''guest of honor'' seize my coworker by his throat, and I was recoiling in horror as he was decapitated. Over and over, endless and eternal, the dream wouldn''t let me go. I was stuck. I was stuck. I was stuck. A hand from behind me placed itself mercifully over my eyes, blinding me to the horror. It was soft, not at all like my calloused and tempered Eagle''s Talons, and yet it was my hand, too. He used to say he had a pianist''s hands and the musical talents of a monkey with a tambourine. "Let it go, man," said a familiar voice ¨C the most familiar voice. "You''re too young for a regret like that." We were to the side now, still in the private office above the Kingfisher''s nightclub at the moment of the attack, but thankfully free from watching it in first person. Alan turned me by the shoulder so that I wasn''t facing the scene head-on, but it remained in my peripheral. It would remain in my peripheral, I thought, haunting me for a long time to come. "No," he said in his firmest tone. His friends would call it his ''Dad Voice'' whenever he ran a game for them. "We''re putting it to bed tonight. This doesn''t work if we''re both guilt-stricken. One of us has to be free of it, and lord knows it isn''t going to be me." Alan looked haggard, with long, dark bags under his eyes and a beard messier than it had been even during his college years. His clothes were those he had been wearing that fateful day, the business casual outfit he''d brought to play test Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoes of Fate, where Legends Converge and Destiny Resonates, but were torn and sweat-stained. "Crazy that we can actually remember that dumbass name in here; hope we didn''t forget something to make room for it," he said, scratching his beard. "And if I look like shit, it''s because you won''t take any goddamn time off. Swear, it feels like a year since we landed here. That asshole isn''t helping either." Alan jabbed his thumb at something over his shoulder, but I could see nothing there but the shadows in the corner of the room. He seemed surprised by the absence, tugging on a chain he was now holding that led into the darkness. He sipped his teeth. "Great, it''s sulking because I didn''t let it murder a child. My demon roommate is sulking ¨C unbelievable the things I''ve got to put up with. You have to find a better solution than sleeping behind the Suzakumon every night, by the way. I swear to God, fucking Sabrina the Teenage Witch nearly broke into here the other day. If I can''t even rest at night, things are going to get pretty wacky up in our shared headspace." I squinted at Alan, or, at me, or, at old me, I mean, or, at part of me, or ¨C "Sorry, what''s going on? I''m so¡­" My head started to turn back to the moment the Flesh Puppet shredded out of the server''s body. Jesus Christ, you''d think my first tentacle monster experience in this world would have been a sexy one. Alan grabbed my chin and made me face him again, sighing as he did. "Dude. Seriously, I''m fully capable of feeling enough guilt for both of us. Trust me on that." God, he really did look like shit. Though, with his sleeves rolled up, his forearms were strangely brolic, and if I had to guess, he had lost about five pounds. Could personality constructs lose weight? "Yeah, well, I''ve been getting a lot of psychic cardio in while carrying your ass and wrestling," he gave the chain a sharp tug, "our homicidal house guest. At our current pace, I''ll either be looking like Goku in a month, or I''ll be dead." I reached out a skeptical hand and poked his shoulder. "Alan? You''re in my head? Wait. Of course you are. Why am I in my head? Oh, I''m dreaming, duh. Am I? Wait," I paused, suddenly unsure of everything I ever thought was real, "what''s going on? Hey! You''re me. Cool." He rubbed his temple. "Holy shit, I''m going to scream. Just shut up and focus on what I''m telling you, okay?" "O¡ª" "No! I said shut up. Nod instead." I nodded. "Good, now listen carefully; I''m not sure how much you''ll remember when you wake up. You need to start meditating more and putting some time between adventures. I''m getting better at being a psychic entity, but I''m so, so tired, man. Do you understand me?" I nodded. He let out a sigh of relief; I was still focused enough to pay attention, and I knew that it was very important that remained the case, even if I couldn''t recall exactly why that was. "Okay, good, because if you remember back to how there were references in the book to types of evil ¨C Lesser, Greater, all that jazz ¨C this thing," he held up the chain in his hand, "is a little splinter of a Tyrannic Evil. You know, the step right below Titanic? I''m pretty sure the Carrion King is right up there with the Lord of Flies and the Father of Lies." It felt strangely significant that he was avoiding the names, or rather, he was avoiding a specific name¡ª Alan held up a finger. "No thinking, just listening. Our Patron is a clever little shit, but so am I, and this is my head." Wispy blue sparks crackled across his arms as he said the words and his brown eyes flashed a glacial blue ¨C fighting spirit from Alan? How strange. "Or, our head, sorry," he corrected sheepishly. The battle aura vanished, leaving behind only the air of mediocrity that I would expect from a mortal from his Earth. I questioned whether I had seen it at all. He continued, "I can handle the Corpse Eater. What I need from you is to make sure this," he shook the chain, "doesn''t get stronger faster than I can get better at dealing with it, which means you absolutely cannot be calling on his Mantle for anything short of a life-or-death situation. If a Triad boss makes you his bitch in Social Combat, then too bad. Live and learn. Get his ass back later. Those Powers are the nuclear option, and that is not at all hyperbole. Do you understand?" I nodded. Never trusted crow-boy to begin with. "Great. Remember, meditate and rest. And have fun, too; our sanity and our mission genuinely depend on it. You can be the excitable, whimsical hero, and I''ll be the broody, responsible one. Having two disparate personalities doesn''t have to be a curse. We can have the best of both worlds." Turn our weirdness into a strength ¨C I liked that, very Black City Kung Fu of us. "Exactly! Excellent, and speaking of, if I''ve got to live with this psycho, he might as well be of some use." Alan called into the darkness, "That''s right, you bastard, I''m giving you permission. Go on then, before I change my mind." Turning back to me, he added, "Don''t worry, I''ll keep the dead with me, but sleep is too important for recovery for you to be having recurring nightmares. And I''m not sure James Li can stay James Li while he''s actively grieving, not with all the other bullshit you''ve got on your plate. Grief can break the best of us, and we don''t have the time to put you back together the old-fashioned way." I frowned, feeling like I was underestimating me, but before I could say anything, the shadows in the corner began to coalesce into the shape of a tall, gangly man. Black, malodorous Famine, both the physical sensation and the Platonic Ideal filled the space of the nightmare. Burdensome and menacing, they would have crushed me to the floor were it not for the chains wrapped around the figure, oppressing it as it was oppressing me. This was the Hakkotsu no Ha''s psychic emanation, the part that was left inside my spirit when I became bound to the Carrion King''s sword. Ken had told me he thought the Bleached Bone Blade was one of the death god''s ribs hardened to steel. I hadn''t, couldn''t have, understood what that meant at the time, not without seeing it like this. Here was a thin barb embedded in my soul, one I may not have noticed were it not for the system, and yet already this fragment was capable of devouring Light with its presence. It rotted hope, dominated reason with casual ease. It was pure, visceral longing for Eschaton and Apocalypse, for the rise of the Seven Suns and the end of samsara. Darkness swallowed the dream as it stalked forward, a black silhouette on a black background save for its bone-white short sword. My nightmare continued to play out, looping in the darkness, me decapitating the Flesh Puppet, it murdering the waiter. I may have found myself drawn back into the scene were it not for Alan''s comforting hand on my shoulder, reminding me that he was in control of what was happening. The figure, for its part, seemed equal parts excited by the prospect of destruction and resentful to be commanded as it was. Still, it did as it was told. The Hakkotsu no Ha neatly bisected all three of the subjects in the nightmare with a single stroke from the specter. As the bodies fell into the milky darkness of the ground, with them went my feeling of guilt. I was still upset by my failure to protect the waiter, but I was detached from the intense distress that had captured me all night. "Great. Now fuck off." Alan jerked his wrist and sent the creature flying off with a crack of the chain. I looked at him, impressed by his ongoing transformation into something that befitted this strange universe. He shrugged. "It''s our mind, James. It''s just an unwanted visitor." The setting shifted to his aunt''s lake house, from before it had been crushed underneath a large oak and sold off. We were seated side by side on the swinging bench on the porch, next to the chipped antique ceramic dog statue, overlooking the still waters of the manmade lake. I could smell the grilled hot dogs and could hear the sounds of a family reunion, but the people were absent. They should have been there on the lawn ahead, playing crochet and taking turns jumping into the water. Alan shrugged. "It hurts to interact with their facsimiles, so I generally avoid it. The past can inform our present and our future, but we can''t live there," he explained. "I''ll let you have at it in a moment, though. Just remember, meditate, rest, and stay loose." I woke to the welcome smell of coffee wafting through my bedroom door. JingJing must have made a pot before she left for her 5 AM flight. That was nice of her, though I was surprised I could still smell it; I''d deliberately turned off all my alarms and set my phone to Do Not Disturb last night so I could sleep in and get some much-needed rest. Rest ¨C that reminded me of something. My dream, maybe? Yeah, I''d had a meaningful dream, hadn''t I? I groaned. The more I tried to remember the dream, the faster it slipped out of my mind ¨C I hated that feeling. At least the takeaways were still there this time, something about resting, meditating, and¡­hot dogs? Loose hot dogs? "What? No, that can''t have been it." I crossed my arms and glared at myself in the ceiling mirror. Waking up to the reminder that the Producers had installed a ceiling mirror in my bedroom was like a daily prank from my horny overlords. But for some reason, I felt like I''d already decided to blame Funikugami rather than SkinDimensional Media for this morning''s bad mood. "Guy probably ate all my hot dogs. Gah, what an asshole! Stupid death gods, stupid Cranes, stupid ceiling mirrors ¨C hot dog stealing jerks, the lot of you. I bet you didn''t eat them loose. Put ''em in buns, didn''tcha? Ha! Idiots." I threw off my too-nice-for-my-lifestyle silk sheets, rolled off my too-big-for-this-room bed, and left one absurd room for another. Smoothie poked his head out from under the couch before disappearing again. I couldn''t tell if he was still upset by the flea bath JingJing and I had given him last night or if he was still adjusting to the new environment. He might have also just been tired; poor guy had a long day yesterday. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. It was almost noon, and I''d have to head off to work soon, but considering the speeds I could reach with my Sash, there was enough time for an easy morning. The dossier on the Tigers tempted me from where I''d left it on the counter, but its contents would surely be more stressful than what was called for currently. While I couldn''t put off reading it for the whole of the weekend like I wanted to, I could at least afford myself a few hours free of hard thinking. I poured myself a cup of cheap pre-ground, my Alan half reminding me to stock up on some single-source whole beans on the way back from filming. What was the point, he asked, of stealing thousands of dollars if you were still drinking this universe''s equivalent of Folger''s? Even the half of me that had been microwaving two-day-old coffee three weeks ago could agree to that. Rich people who tried to live like they were poor were freaks, and not in a good way. The liquid was hot enough to fill the air with aromatic vapor and the distinct sizzle sound as it hit my mug. That was odd. My little twenty-dollar drip pot had a heat plate at the bottom, but it shut off automatically an hour after you made it. JingJing would have had to have left over six hours ago to catch her flight. My cousin and I had showered the viscera off at Kas''s place ¨C separately, mind you ¨C so that I could get changed into the other outfit from Garibaldi''s, and she could ''borrow'' a dress from his guest room; one of his daughter''s she''d left there on vacation, I assumed. From there, we swung by a twenty-four-hour pet supply store and took a cab back to my place to get the traumatized Smoothie acquainted with his new home. JingJing and I were, of course, badass martial artists who were, of course, completely unaffected by watching an alien horror burst out of a man like the world''s most fucked up pi?ata. We chose to focus entirely on Smoothie rather than talking about anything that had happened in the Kingfisher. Once the cat had been fed, bathed, and dried, we settled in for a round of cheesy kung fu movies and delivery pizza. As for why we continued to avoid any discussions about Triads or our family in favor of roasting the martial arts on screen, well, those topics just didn''t come up organically, of course. On a hunch, I cracked open the door to the meditation chamber and spotted my cousin sipping her own cup of coffee cross-legged on the wooden faux porch. JingJing turned and grinned. "Hey, you." "Yo. Thanks for the coffee." "Your coffee, mate." "Yeah, but it tastes better when I don''t have to make it." I sat down facing her, using one of the wooden posts as a backrest. "Figured you''d be halfway to Melbourne by now." Her smile fell slightly. "Eh, there''s no rush. Was a one-way, this job. Not sure it was meant to be, but I think you mighta thrown a spanner in the works." "Sorry about that." "Nah, fuck ''em." JingJing opened her mouth but decided against whatever it was she was about to say. "How''re you holding up, by the way?" "Been better, but work''ll cheer me up. I''m the only stuntman on this set, too; that''s a first for me. Pretty excited, to tell you the truth." "Oh, yeah? Reckon it''ll be your breakout role, then?" I laughed. "No way, not like I''ve got lines or anything. It just means I''ll be getting more screen time. No extra money, but, honestly, I''m a slut for screen time." "Ha! Sick." We sat in silence for a moment. I could tell that I''d intruded on her thoughts by walking in when I did. "Must be nice," she said finally, "having a gig you can be excited about for more than the pay¡­" I let the sentence hang there, sensing that she had more to say. "You know, it''s not like we work for the Cranes. We''re mercenaries, most of us. The Cranes, they just always got a job, and they throw heaps of cash at their problems. I charge by the fucking word, and a fucking lot too. Turned thirty last year and I''ve got a house in Melbourne and another in Sydney I bought on a lark. Fuck. Used to skull Goon by the sack and get into scraps with bogans three times a week, and now I''ve got two houses, Jimbo. Two fucking houses." I wouldn''t normally let anyone call me any variety of ''Jim'', but it was somehow charming in JingJing''s Frankensteined Chinese-Australian accent. "Hey, you don''t have to sell me on it." I paused. "Sorry, did you say, ''skull goon''? By the sack?" "Come on, James, you and your mum fucking despise the Cranes. Should''a heard the choice words she had for me when I stopped by two days ago; wouldn''t even let me inside. And you ¨C you made your stance clear as day, mate. The stones on you, you beauty, threatening Hou to his face like that, and with a Stance that even old Vinny couldn''t see through. I kept forgetting your outrageous Qi was in the room every time I blinked. Do you know how fucked that is? Because Vincent sure as hell did ¨C thought I was finally going to see his Black Hole techy the way he was looking at you." "Vincent He has a Black Hole technique? What does that mean, exactly?" She winced. "Ah, fuck, forget I said that. Can''t be sharing their secrets, not even to you, sorry." "All good, don''t have any plans to fight him anyway. As for me and the Cranes, I don''t know where I stand, but you heard me tell them that they could hire me for monster hunting. It''s a little different than being their messenger, but not so different that I can look down on you for it. All I was doing last night was trying to get out of there with as much information and as few obligations as possible, JingJing." That, and trying to stop the coming gang war, but it became obvious early on that Hou had no interest in that. Annie would be disappointed, but I wasn''t sure what I could have done in that situation. "While I''ve got you, and since we''re on the topic, how did you think I handled the meeting?" She laughed hard. "Are you kidding me? Before you put your life on the line for them with the flesh puppet, I thought I''d be smuggling you out of the country. Do you have any idea how disturbing it is to meet a completely blank slate in real life, someone who could be or do anything? People aren''t afraid of the dark, James; they''re afraid of the unknown. Least Hou can''t kill you now, though, not unless you do more than threaten him." JingJing looked wistfully up at the fake sky of the meditation room. "I was putting together plans and everything ¨C was gonna try to sell my houses fast as I could and go on the run with you. I''ve got a bugout in Tassie, by the way, if you ever need it. I''ll give you the location before I leave." "That bad, huh? Oh well, what are you going to do." I sighed, running my hand through my hair. The meeting would be something to think about later, preferably with Maki or Kas around to bounce ideas off of. Studying JingJing, though, I thought I''d found the real reason she''d put off her flight home. "You seem disappointed we''re not cached away in a cargo hold if you don''t mind me saying. I know that look in your eyes, that''s the look of a youxia, not a mercenary." "Is it?" JingJing reached into a pocket and fished out a cigarette. Again, I''d have stopped anyone else from smoking inside, but she found a way to make it charming, even more so now that I knew it was something she did when she was stressed and not just her constant routine. "Yeah, guess it is. Been thinking about what you said after we got back here. Wouldn''t have been a cargo hold, by the way. Mao''s the comptroller for their shipping company, and he''s frightening at what he does." I tried to rack my mind for what I could have said to move her. I was pretty sure we''d just shot the shit about dumb martial arts movies for three hours. JingJing lit her cigarette and offered me the pack. I thought about it but waved her off, not yet ready to be a regular smoker, maybe after a few more gritty fights with eldritch horrors. "It got me thinking," she continued, "Man, it would be pretty sick wandering around, fighting and fucking as much as I wanted, getting into shit for no reason other than that I was there." Ahh, okay, it was clicking now. We had watched Hero on the Horizon, one of the worst films from a storytelling perspective in my collection. The Filipino studio that made it was simultaneously insanely ambitious and hilariously bad at managing money. After failing to complete a single project, they tried to save themselves by splicing together three unfinished movies with the same actor, and one with an actor that looked kind of similar to the first guy, but not enough for it to be believable. Even after they''d dubbed over all of the lines in every scene to try and make it work, the result was an unwatchable, confusing mess. They''d included every fight and sex scene from all of the movies, which meant that every five to eight minutes, the main character would go from encountering a unique situation and group of people to absolutely beating their asses, with the action broken up by gratuitous nudity and sex. One of the sex scenes went completely unexplained; one second, he had just finished beating a gang of men in a tea shop during what was obviously meant to be the 1800s, and the next, he was having sex on a modern-day cruise ship. It was awesome. "I know exactly what you''re talking about. That''s about as pure a life as a warrior can live. What''s stopping you? I''ve got the acting dreams, personally, but otherwise, I''d be right there with you." She groaned loudly. "I don''t know! I''ve been trying to answer that question for hours! I''ve already got plenty of money. My mates would completely understand, and there''s the internet these days, so it''s not like I couldn''t talk to them anymore. And, since I started this messenger business, my Art''s pretty much stalled out. I''m not much better now than I was six years ago." "I mean, JingJing, it sounds like you''ve spent hours trying to talk yourself out of a great idea." "Jimbo, the ''great idea'' is me becoming a homeless maniac." "Fighting, fucking, skulling goon by the sack ¨C whatever that means." "I do miss those days." She rubbed her face. "Fucking hell, am I really considering this?" "You''ve been considering it for hours." I smiled and took a long sip of coffee, pretty certain I had managed to convince her to give up her mercenary ways without a single Social Skill roll. JingJing nodded, slowly at first but with increasing certainty. "You know what, Jimbo? You''re fucking right." She stood up. "I''m gonna stop thinking about it and just do it. I''m walking back to Melbourne." I nearly choked on my coffee. "I''m sorry? To where?" "There''ll be some swimming involved, of course, but that''s just what I need to break through this plateau I''ve been in with my Art." "''Some?''" She let out a long breath and rolled her shoulders. "God, feel so much better having made up my mind. Thanks, Jimbo, I needed that. You''re one sick cunt, mate, and a damn fine cousin. Want a quick blowie from a girl who looks almost exactly like your sister before I go?" "I¡­" "Ha! Just fucking with you, mate. Unless¡­" She gave me a searching look. I blinked up at her mouth agape. "No? Alright then, maybe next time. Well, better give Smoothie a kiss goodbye. Can''t leave the little man thinking I won''t miss him."
[Ally Quest Complete!] Convince Li ''Blink'' JingJing to become a youxia. Reward: 10XP, +2 Survival Bonus, Without any rolls: Upgrade Eagle''s Talon [Master Feat] Eagle''s Talon Your hands can shred steel as easily as they can flesh. Ignore the hardness of most objects, and up to 3 points of Damage negation when dealing Murderous Damage with your Eagle''s Talon in a grapple.
Just one normal person, all I wanted was one normal person in my life. Breakout Role 2 I decided to take a few minutes to clear my head in the meditation chamber before heading out, figuring I could make up the time by skipping my usual home-cooked breakfast. It was only a half-day of non-union work anyway; if they''d really wanted me to be on time, then the cheap bastards could have shelled out the extra couple of hundred bucks. The air in the meditation chamber was heavy with plum blossom and had the crispness of a fresh breeze. When the doors were closed, the room was free of the semi-audible deep thrum of car tires on asphalt, perfect for a quiet moment to yourself. So, what had I learned? My cousin was unhinged, seemingly like every other high-level martial artist, possibly including myself. I felt most of my actions could be justified in their contexts, but I was sure JingJing, my mother, and Kas would all say the same about themselves. Either way, it didn''t speak well of my chances to escape this universe sanity intact. Maybe I would talk to Pak Hadiman about how he had stayed grounded for as long as he did; the man was thus far the only reasonable master I''d met. Vincent He had a black hole technique. If that included the time-bending aspects of extreme gravity, then everything might have been fine at the Kingfisher, even if I hadn''t intervened. Gutting ¨C but at least I''d bought myself enough goodwill with the gang to have avoided another set of enemies. It might also explain why I hadn''t received any Quest Rewards for foiling the assassination attempt; I originally assumed it was because the innocent waiter''s death had ''failed'' the Quest, but if Vincent had the ability to take care of the Flesh Puppet without knowing it was there, then I could see the Producers not giving it to me either way. There was a vanishing chance that the assassination had been a setup by Hou, but I didn''t buy it; too messy, too many moving parts, and going ahead with the plan when I was deep in the Happy Idiot and impossible to read would have been suicidally stupid. He had no idea what I could or would do in that situation. On that note, after the first serious outing of the Happy Idiot, I think it could safely be called a mixed success. The Stance had its uses; against ordinary people or for getting around the city unmolested, for example, it was excellent. And JingJing had confirmed its most powerful defense, the ability to mask my Aura, which meant that it could keep me safe from unseen mystics tracking me at a distance. However, as a result, in person, I was profoundly disturbing to anyone who could sense Qi, especially because it also prevented them from understanding what was happening. Likewise, it made people like Uncle Hou, a cutthroat veteran of Social Combat, feel blind and deaf as he suddenly became totally incapable of even guessing my intentions or abilities. To a regular person, they might chalk that up to them having a bad day or me being particularly mysterious, but to someone as paranoid as a Triad, it was a threat. It didn''t matter if their confusion could be directly attributed to me ¨C I was the obstacle to be removed. Against anyone already inclined to underestimate me, like Denny, the tech-store guy, the Happy Idiot could work wonders. But Hou and his ilk? I doubted Hou ever underestimated whoever was across from him in a negotiation. He was a man who could only ever look past the Empty Head to the God beyond, regardless of what his instincts or senses might tell him. That didn''t mean the Stance didn''t have a place in high-stakes Social Combat. At least I gave the man face by walking through the door as I did. No matter what else could be said, Hou would know that I respected his skills; I''d literally invented a new, powerful Stance on the eve of our meeting just to deal with them. If I''d had more info on the Underworld going into the meeting, I could have made a play at manipulating Hou, but I''d been almost totally ignorant. In a sense, Uncle Hou had blown his chance as well; next time we met, I wouldn''t be nearly so na?ve and ill-informed, and he would be just as vulnerable to the Empty-Headed God. Would refusing to negotiate at all and simply leaving with the dossier on the Tigers have been more or less insulting? Was my plan to woo the Founder of the Cranes with Relationship Tokens suicide or genius? Should I have let the honeypot with Edie and Jewel happen, and did I return to make the play at seducing the nervous Edie for more information? All questions for another time. I''d have to muse on them with Maki, Ma, or Kas ¨C or, honestly, as much as it pained me to admit it, I did have theoretical access to an expert in these matters. I frowned. The thought of asking him soured even the immaculate mood of the meditation chamber. Reaching out via a letter was one thing, he was significantly less annoying in the medium of text, but I''d have to go see him for this. I sighed. "Goddamn it, Dad." Maki, Ma, and Kas could all act as sounding boards and offer their own perspectives, but there was only one man in my life who I could turn to for actual advice on these topics, and he was in a maximum-security prison in the Pine Barrens. It wouldn''t be great advice, or he wouldn''t have been locked up for murder at the moment, but it would be better than anything I could get from the others. He might have been a bad father and a terrible husband, but by all accounts, he had been a decent thief. And he''d survived for decades as a career criminal in Black Harbor, a small triumph on its own. I pulled up the Starting Quest I''d avoided thinking about the most.
[Character Quest: Honor Among Thieves, part 1] Determine the truth behind your father''s arrest. Reward: 125 XP, +1 to six different skills of your choice
''Part 1,'' huh? Sounded like a headache ¨C every aspect of it, really. I wouldn''t be able to speak to my dad about my gang problems openly while he was monitored by prison staff. There was an implication in the Quest that I could clear his name, but doing a gritty investigation into his arrest was out for a number of reasons, the least of which was my lack of available time. "Do I break your dumb ass out of the pen just for a conversation, John Chang?" Now, there was a question for another day if I''d ever heard one. My place had its defensive Upgrades, but I needed to be cautious. When I was a renter, my utilities were covered by the landlords to better cover up their rampant insurance fraud, but the internet was in my name, and I was sure a dedicated opponent could find me through that. I left via the back in full Innocuous Oaf, but continuing the theme of mental clarity, slipped out of the Happy Idiot once I was a few blocks away from my apartment. I still couldn''t sense the cognitive and emotional effects the Stance had on my mind, but there were too many signs to dismiss them entirely. Just to be extra safe, I even avoided thinking about more than my immediate actions until I''d dropped the Stance. Silk and speed would be my shield today. It was too risky to use the Crouching Tiger haphazardly; one way or another, eventually, my theft of the technique would be found out, and there would be no rest after that happened. But knowing where I was and intercepting me in the middle of rocketing over the rooftops was another thing entirely. Unfortunately, mid-journey, I did discover one guaranteed way to make me stop. Right before I''d left the bounds of Harbor Hill, I noticed two sharp, desperate spikes of intense killing desire on the edge of my perception. The hatred was directed at three men, and there was a strong tinge of hopelessness to it, along with a broader and deeper sense of misery. I slowed down and hopped my way from roof to roof to avoid kicking things off with my presence before I could understand what was happening. It probably wasn''t an ambush today, but someone had once told me that there were four guns for every man, woman, and child in Black Harbor. Slamming to a stop on top of a nearby streetlight felt like the wrong move. The loud wobbling, droning sound they made when I did that startled me even when I knew it was coming, and there were twenty million guns in the city. Outside of a deli, three older teens/young men were harassing two teenagers, a boy, and a girl, clearly on their lunch break from the nearby high school. The harassers didn''t have matching jackets like gang members out of a musical, but each was wearing a suspicious amount of green and purple. Their car, an old BMW, still running and parked partially on the sidewalk, had the same scheme, with a badly spray-painted purple racing stripe across its green side. I didn''t recognize the colors, meaning they were probably one of those small outfits that popped up in the buffer zones between larger territories. Two of the gang members had the girl trapped against the wall with their bodies, though they weren''t touching her yet, merely menacing. Another had his arm ''casually'' around the shoulders of the boy, whispering into his ear. I couldn''t hear what he was saying, but I didn''t need to; the collective body language in the scene told me everything I needed to know. I checked the time on my phone ¨C damn, didn''t have the space in the schedule for anything short of overwhelming brutality. What a shame. Being hidden meant that whatever I did would go unopposed unless these random thugs had the Feats to prevent surprise attacks. I had to hope that men with Feats like those weren''t in small-time operations like these, or else my crusade to clean up the city was going to be a hell of a slog. Using the presumed advantage, I split my total Aura + Telekinesis pool into two, targeting the men trapping the girl, 8 for one and 8 for the other. I could have probably been fine splitting it three ways, but I had a plan for the last ¨C I didn''t want them to blame the victims, after all. It was time Harbor Hill''s criminals got the memo that there was a youxia in town. Crouching down at the edge of the roof, I hid the bulk of my body behind a parapet just across the street from the deli. The locals were quick to walk past or change directions if they could, doing as much as was possible to remove themselves from the situation, their apathy and self-interest clearing the space for me to work freely. Two hands outstretched towards my targets, I rolled my Telekinesis, grinning viciously as the dice clattered ¨C seven Successes for both men. Wow, weren''t these guys lucky? Not long ago, I''d considered this power one of my trump cards, to be played only when necessary. That had been before I was seen summoning a fire tornado and dueling my mother over a Peach of Immortality. I needed a new strategy now; what exactly, I didn''t know yet, but trying to keep my second most overt Qi ability a secret seemed plain silly. I lifted my arms, and both men flew up about twenty feet into the air, giving them just enough time to start kicking and shouting before I slammed them down onto their nearby car. I was kind to them, by which I mean I didn''t aim for the hood or the frame, but the roof and the rear window instead. Those were where I would pick to crash into a car from above if I had to, at least ¨C it was the small mercies that separated the brutal vigilante from the noble youxia. The early 2000s beamer was rocked by the force hard enough that one of its tires lost a hubcap, and a rear axle snapped, tilting the whole thing at a fatal angle. That was two cars totaled in two days for me ¨C nice, if I kept this up for several hundred years, Black Harbor might finally be free of the wretched machines. The ''softer'' landing zones did the job of keeping them alive and conscious, and kept the Damage from counting as Murderous, though whether that remained the case was up to the task of emergency services not fucking them up further. I''d hit the Injury Threshold for both men, leaving the specifics up to the system and fate to decide. There was quite a bit of blood, but people were hardier in this world, so I assumed they''d be ''fine.'' Lethwei guys spent hours headbutting boulders apart, and that was just training. This was a relatively minor beating, all things considered. The third thug was freaking out. In an act of pointless and unnecessary cruelty, he''d pushed the boy away from him towards the deli hard enough that the teen had gashed his head open on one of the iron bars over its windows. He drew his gun, but unsure what to point it at, he settled on, incredibly, the car of all places. That did make me feel better about what I was about to do. A man this dumb had no business in the Underworld. Full traction in a hospital was time out for guys like this; it would give him the opportunity to consider his priorities in life. He was prepared for my next roll, making it contested, but the mook had no shot in hell of beating me. I lashed out with my Steel Silk Sash, wrapping it around the arm with the gun, and tugged it in my direction. This was where I was grateful for the survival instincts of Harbor Hill''s residents. Had there been more of a crowd, I might have had to jump down and get involved, but instead, I aimed his arm at the block wall of the building I was standing on and let him empty his magazine harmlessly into the thick concrete and stone. The gunshots would hopefully help summon police and ambulance quicker as well, though the bar was low for response times in the neighborhood. I both yanked and retracted the Sash back, making another opposed roll against the thug. This one was too successful. The man must have Whiffed his check because he stumbled, aiding me in pulling him off the ground, and slammed into the block wall at speeds I hadn''t anticipated. This was a new rules interaction for me, and potentially an addition from the Patch. Normally, I was allowed to spare someone from the last point of Damage to keep them conscious, but I guess that didn''t apply when opponents did an exceptionally bad job of defending themselves. The system picked his Injury Threshold penalties for me as well, mangling his shoulder, shattering his knee, and maybe breaking his jaw. It was hard to tell with how much blood was suddenly covering his face. "You need to find a hobby, bro," I said to the unconscious man I was now dangling over a sidewalk like he was a disappointing fish I was about to throw back into the water. His arm was now twisted twice past its limit, and he smelled of piss, though the latter may not have been a new condition. This was the part where I was going to give an intimidating speech threatening anyone else dumb enough to commit crimes in broad daylight in Harbor Hill ¨C a storybook moment, you know? Instead, I carefully lowered him to the ground in one slow, clean motion to avoid further injury. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. "Do your gang shit at night, assholes!" I yelled to the street and any witnesses, hoping they couldn''t hear the vague sense of anti-climax in my voice. The gangbangers might not have been in any position to listen, but I didn''t want people wondering if this had been a personal vendetta.
[Recurring Quest Complete!] Stop a crime. Reward: 3XP
No Encounter results and only three Experience, eh? Fair, guess it was more a beating then a fight, and the crime had been relatively minor even if I''d probably prevented much worse by putting the men in the hospital. Oh well, people had seen me and gotten an idea of where I stood and what I was willing to do, and that was ultimately all that I wanted here. I returned to roof hopping my way to work, avoiding looking at the two teens I saved in case they were mistakenly assumed to be anything but strangers to me. Maybe there was something deeply wrong with me, but I arrived near the sound stage for today''s shoot feeling nothing but good vibes. Had those been triads, mafiosos or other professional, professional criminals, I''d have been anxious about retribution, and had I been anywhere but Harbor Hill, legal trouble. But I couldn''t bring myself to fear a criminal syndicate that spray-painted purple racing stripes onto their cars, nor did I think any Hillers would rat me out to the cops if they were ever even asked. The sole benefit of having a ludicrously corrupt police force was that they sure as shit wouldn''t care about me violently ambushing low-level thugs. Nope, that had been an unequivocal win, I was pretty sure. No one had died, idiot gang members included; those two teens could breathe easier for a bit while the green-and-purples switched their attention to me, and whatever backlash I did receive would only serve my ultimate goal. A safer, less chaotic Harbor Hill was a more defensible Harbor Hill. Ending all crime in the neighborhood, or even ending all violent crime, was quixotic, but it was paramount that I do something to make my immediate surroundings less of a powder keg before things got rapidly worse. Falling Leaf Lin had said, ''The time of peace is over. The Wheel is turning.'' And Li Tieguai had said and intimated as much before her. While the Immortals had been excited by the prospect, I was yet to be infected by their divine sense of boredom. For me, those words were warnings from two separate, if minor, gods. Under those circumstances, making an example of a street gang or two seemed like a sensible start to begin preparing for the worst. An unambivalent success ¨C when was the last time I had one of those? Jesus Christ, it had been when I''d rescued Marianne''s daughter, Shania Greene, under almost identical circumstances to those teens, hadn''t it? Everything else, even taking Annie as an apprentice, had added slowly mounting complications and hurdles to my life. Maybe I ought to consider making the lateral move from youxia to superhero. "Ah, yes, James, to yearn for the uncomplicated lives of Spider-Man and Daredevil, how very clever of us," I said to myself. "And once we got the Party together, we could live as carefree as the X-Men." I giggled aloud at the image of a non-dramatic X-Men, in which the members communicated their problems openly and resolved them without extended, sometimes years-long melodramas. How wonderfully absurd. Today''s commercial job was being shot in a rental sound stage operated out of an older warehouse retrofitted with modern equipment. I''d landed outside the lot, intending to check in like normal for, I don''t know, nostalgia''s sake, I suppose. There was nothing stopping me from hopping the chain-link fence that separated the lot from the rest of the Foundry. I checked the time ¨C only five minutes late ¨C and eyed a hip new coffee place that had opened down the block. Formerly the city''s most rundown industrial neighborhood, the area was currently in the midst of an economic revitalization, with high-rise condos and new shops going up at record speed. There was a picture of a sinful triple berry iced lightning matcha-chino with a tower of whipped cream and fresh fruit atop it calling my name, from a high-end caf¨¦ that might be gone by the next time I was here. The Foundry looked like a different place on a month-to-month basis these days. Friday had been meant to be a relaxing, fun start to my weekend, and the drink was definitely the sort of thing I could bring to the makeup booth. How professional did I want to be today? Or rather, how professional did I want to be for my non-union, commercial gig now that I was insanely attractive and talented? This was an industry for divas, after all. A doughy, well-dressed man was currently trying to bullshit his way past the security guard manning the checkpoint, Raj. The man might have been an excellent bullshitter, hell, he might have had an actual reason to be let inside, but I knew Raj well enough from past jobs to recognize that he was having too much fun being an asshole to play along. It wasn''t anything personal; the security guard was just a transplant from Philadelphia, and being pointlessly combative was a common pastime there. I could probably get away with blaming Raj and the man for the delay. ''Sorry, some guy was holding things up at the entrance,'' I''d say. They didn''t need to know that the fence was no impediment to me. Grinning mischievously, I fast walked past the gate, giving Raj a big, encouraging thumbs up as I did. ''Fuck that guy,'' I mouthed, before tapping my wrist to emphasize I wanted him to continue messing with him as long as possible. Raj laughed and nodded in return. The man turned to follow Raj''s gaze, and I instantly knew that I had played myself. "Heavens! Mr. Li, just the man I was here to see," he said in a comically posh British accent. I stopped mid-stride. "Ah, fuck me." "Sorry?" I looked between the man and back to the poster of the triple-berry iced lightning matcha-chino, so recently taped to the glass of the cafe that the sun had yet to rob the colors of their full vitality. The man looked frumpy, and British, and annoying, and the drink, ah, the drink, so glorious, so bursting with beautiful empty calories and a psychotic amount of caffeine. Fuck it, diva mode activated. I turned away from the man without saying a word and started walking away in the direction of my prize. "W-wait!" He started following me, jogging to keep up. "I want to proposition you!" "Ha! Understandable, but I''m not interested." "Oh, god, no, sorry. That was one of those occasions where you''re so desperate to avoid misspeaking that it''s all that you can do when you finally open your mouth. I have a proposition for¡ª" I cut him off. This stank of something serious and complicated, the exact opposite of what I assumed the triple-berry iced lightning matcha-chino smelled like. "Hey, sure, whatever, man. But I''m running late, so¡ª" "Please, if I could have just a moment of your time, Mr. Li! I''m a journalist¡ª" I started walking faster. "Sorry to hear that. My condolences." "Wait!" He clapped a hand on my shoulder. I stopped, narrowed my eyes at the offending member, and contemplated how badly I could crush his wrist without getting blood on my clothes. He wisely snatched his hand away, but to my surprise, seemed relatively unaffected by my fighting spirit. "Forgive me. My name is Paul Occam. I''m a journalist for the Harbor Moon, Mr. Li, and I did try to reach out to you conventionally, but a preliminary investigation gave some indications that your electronic communications are being surveilled. I wish that I could tell you more, but I''m barely more than an amateur in the realm of information technology." I sighed, both at the news I was being watched, which I probably should have guessed was happening, and at the name of the paper. The Harbor Moon was the Dark Media newspaper that Kas paid tens of thousands of dollars a year to have access to. It covered a mix of the Underworld and all the news that wasn''t fit to print for one reason or another. Kas primarily used it to insider trade his way into a fortune. I ran a hand through my hair. "I assume if I kill you, someone else will just step in and write whatever story you''re working on about me?" That wasn''t a threat, I was genuinely curious how an Underworld newspaper functioned, not that I didn''t enjoy pressing the journo. Occam winced. "The story regarding the Incident on Bell Street has already been sent to press, I''m afraid, Mr. Li." He added nervously, "But I''m not working on any particular story about your actions outside of that night, nor were you mentioned by name, that I assure you. No, beyond the contract work I take for the Moon, I do longer-form, more in-depth research as well for a very select group of clients. I believe my current investigation is mutually aligned with your own curiosities and interests, and I would like to compensate you for your help in pursuing it. Unfortunately, I don''t think I should say any more outside of a secure environment. If you aren''t opposed, we could schedule a meeting at my home or yours, or if you aren''t comfortable with those options, there are venues in the city that cater to needs like ours. I would, of course, shoulder the costs associated with meeting at one of those." I checked the time again. "You do understand that I won''t hesitate to reduce you to ash if I even suspect treachery, don''t you?" That was a threat. He gulped and attempted a conciliatory smile. "I am keenly aware, Mr. Li." "Call me James." Well, might as well do this properly if we were going to do it at all. I extended my hand for him to shake. "Not one for formalities. Nice to meet you, Paul." Occam breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders slumping a tad. "The pleasure is all mine, James." The moment the journalist''s hand was in mine, I tightened my grip, simultaneously circulating my Qi through his body and overwhelming him with the full, unadulterated force of my killing intent. Occam''s knees hit the sidewalk, and he began to gasp for breath, sweat beading on his forehead. Nearby tufts of weeds and grass began to wither and wilt, as though a strong heat gun had been applied to them. He had handled my mild fighting spirit earlier with grace, but this was different. That had been James Li, diva; this was James Li, Master of Black City Kung Fu, son of Lily Li, the Golden Eagle. I wanted both to let this man ¨C or man-shaped thing ¨C know precisely what awaited him for his betrayal and for him to understand, in case he was capable of stopping me, that I was going to take my time to inspect his Qi network whether he liked it or not. Curious ¨C I''d never felt anything like this before. I wasn''t sure if Paul Occam had a Qi network at all. Instead of circulating his spiritual power through his body, it was as if his metaphysical self was constantly reaching outwards, trying to ''grow'' into the world like a tree extending its roots. Even now, it was spontaneously reaching into me, despite the fact that its tendrils were being burned into nothingness at the point of contact. It was like he couldn''t help it; this was just his nature. "A wizard," I said at last, realizing what I was sensing. In system terms, Occam used Attunement for his main Mystic Attribute, drawing on leylines and more esoteric forms of naturally existing power, strange dimensions, the outer cosmos, and the like. "Huh." I had a somewhat decent Attunement myself from various Quest Rewards at this point, but my Qi network looked nothing like his. I wondered if that would change if I ever began to actually use the stat. Retracting both my killing intent and Qi, I helped the man to his feet, patting him on the shoulder reassuringly. "Sorry about that. There''s a Flesh Puppet user running around at the moment ¨C I had to be sure. You get it." He coughed, clinging to me for support. "Y-yes. Perfectly understandable, all part of the profession," he said, sounding surprisingly genuine. "A mage capable of Vile Dominion, that is worrying though, almost worth prioritizing if I didn''t have my own deadlines. I''ll put out the word through my contacts when I get home. So¡­does my continued survival mean that you''re amicable to my earlier proposal?" "We can schedule a meeting, I suppose. I really am late for work, though, and I''m too deep now not to get that triple-berry iced lightning matcha-chino. You know, sunk cost fallacy and all." "Er, I don''t think that means what you''re implying it means. In fact, I think it means the exact opposite." I shook my head, smiling, already feeling the chill Friday vibes again. A real-life wizard ¨C that was so sick! I was playing it cool, but I was pretty excited to potentially bag my own Merlin for the team. "Paul, buddy, one day you''re going to discover the simple joy of intentionally being dumb as fuck, and it''s going to blow your mind. You say ''fallacy'', I say I''m a ''fella ''bout to see'' my ass to an overpriced milkshake disguised as the healthy alternative. Toe-may-toe, toe-may-toe, nahmsayin''?" "Ehm, perhaps." "Anyway," I said, "I''ve got to get moving. Do you think we''d be good if I hit you up via a burner SIM on a fresh phone?" "Yes, certainly. I actually think your regular phone calls are fine, but again, I''m not an expert on the matter. Text-based communication, however, is significantly more at risk. A burner SIM should be more than enough, though." Paul handed me a card. "When can I expect your call?" "Soon. I''ll see how bored I get with my weekend off. Plus, I should do the responsible thing and vet you a bit more. But I foresee good things coming out of this friendship, unless¡ª" "Unless you have to light me on fire?" "See!" I slapped him on the back. "We''re already sympatico! You''re finishing my sentences, and we''ve known each other for barely five minutes." His shoulders sank, and the bags under his eyes looked a bit more pronounced. "Ha, yes, wonderful." Character Reference Sheet Character Reference Consider this to be less of a Dramatis Personae and more of a general cheat sheet for the many names and characters in the story. Let me know if you''d like anyone or any notes added. If you aren''t caught up to the story and Interludes, there may be some spoilers below. The Party The Party, again The Cast, in no particular order The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Background Characters Breakout Role 3 "Go when you''re ready." I nodded, took a few breaths to center myself, and mentally directed a prayer to the Dice Gods. It was funny; I hadn''t been half this nervous at the Kingfisher. I started whistling the Pengies Chocolate jingle, triggering my Acting roll. This was the take of the day, the last and most important, and if I fucked it up, then my earlier double-digit Successes on the backup shots would be a small solace. Pengies, or the cheap marketing firm they hired, had only brought the one prop car for this commercial. We''d shot a few where I crashed into some hedges, but those wouldn''t be nearly as fun to watch, no matter how well I''d performed earlier. Thank you, Dice Christ! Considering it had taken an unanticipated extra hour to cover all my scars in make-up, I really needed to wow the team to not look like a total asshole, but Nine Successes were more than enough. I was kneeling shirtless in messy jeans and a hard hat on a platform that had been made to look like the roof of a suburban house. Below me on a mock driveway was cheap steel and foam that had been shaped into something resembling what James Bond would drive. Whistling, I put on my best ''dumb guy at work'' expression and fired my empty pneumatic nail gun at the line of shingles, going from right to left, kicking up dust into my face, dashingly dirtied with a single smear of grease but otherwise immaculate. Hollywood had, at some point, decided that inexplicable grease marks on the face were the only way the audience could recognize a laborer. And, of course, all construction workers wore hard hats, regardless of what was above them. Six shots of the nail gun later, I reached the end of the line and frowned, pursing my lips at my left hand. The glove I was wearing on it had been nailed to the shingle below. I tried to lift it up, but despite how much I was flexing my muscles and glowering stupidly at my hand, it wouldn''t give. Finally, I pulled hard, freeing my glove but taking the shingle, which had been cleverly Velcroed to the roof, with me. I stumbled back, windmilling my arms for balance but got tangled in the pneumatic hose of the nail gun and tumbled cartoonishly off the roof, slamming back first onto the supercar beneath. Little shards of sugar glass went flying off, and the prop guy hit the trigger for the side mirrors, leaving them to dangle from wires that spat little sparks and smoke. "Cut!" yelled the director after a few seconds'' pause. "And that''s a wrap, people! Great job, James! You alright?" The reaction shots and anything with dialogue had already been filmed before I''d arrived at work and would be stitched together in post-production. The ad''s premise was simple; a man watched non-plussed as various calamities occurred to his property, too happily distracted by his chocolate bar to care. I''d gotten to play a plumber who somehow lit his arms and the sink he was fixing on fire, an extremely clumsy chandelier cleaner, and finally, a roofer. All in all, it was a fun day and would hopefully net me about fifteen seconds of solo screen time in the final edits. That could be huge for me; all my past gigs involved sharing the spotlight or putting me inside mascot costumes. "I''m good." I rolled myself off the hood of the car and onto my feet, bowing as the small crew clapped for both me and themselves. Commercials, for as artistically vacuous as they were, were always great fun on set. There were no egos involved; we were all just here to make money doing a job we were privileged to be able to be paid to do. The producer for this and a few of my past credits, Domingo, clapped me on the shoulder as I hopped off the sound stage. "If being almost an hour late to set is what it takes for you to pull off a performance like that, then I never want to see you on time again." I smiled sheepishly. There was a line at the caf¨¦, and it took them longer to make my drink than I''d expected. "Careful what you wish for." Jackie, the make-up artist for the commercial fast-walked up with an eager look behind her horn-rimmed glasses. "Want a hand removing the cover-up, James?" "God, please. That shit takes forever in the shower, and I don''t keep any wipes at home." Domingo laughed. "This I''ve got to see, very curious to know how many scars you got in the month and a half since we''ve worked together. Let me go grab you your check." Jackie and I moved to the make-up booth, and Domingo returned five minutes later. I saw him pale in the mirror, left hand reactively seizing the crucifix dangling from his neck. I was about a half-dozen alcohol wipes through getting the cover-up on my chest off the scars Kuze had given me, but Jackie was really taking her time on my back, savoring the view and the contact as much as she could. That was for the best; Domingo might have passed out had he seen the full damage. "Holy Son of God, what the hell gave you those? You look like you lost a fight to an entire zoo." "Domingo!" chided Jackie. "Don''t listen to him, James. I think they look very distinguished, sexy even. You look like you walked off the cover of a historical romance novel." "Thanks, Jackie." I chuckled, taking my check from the stunned producer, and did a double take at the numbers. Two thousand two hundred fifty dollars was about two thousand more than I was supposed to make today. "Woah, you sure this is for me, Domingo?" "Standard Guild rate, bud. Extra bonus for the fire stunt, too, you get those now," He said, shrugging. "Congrats, by the way. I mean, we all knew you were a shoo-in, but I figured it would take the SPG another few months to figure out what they had on their hands. They''re always sleeping on the Black Harbor scene, same with the Producer''s Guild. Some of those guys, I swear, they think the only two cities in the world are LA and New York." A ''few months'' was being extremely generous to the Stunt Performers Guild. Normally, it took between one and four years to finally get approved for entry, and that was after you had the prerequisite supervised hours under a Guild-approved mentor. With a base pay that started at over three hundred dollars an hour, dental, healthcare, and a pension, just about everyone capable of doing backflips was dying to get in. You could accelerate that by grinding like crazy, living off poverty wages, and getting lucky with jobs, but barring nepotism, the most common strategy these days was to get yourself a million or more followers online, which was how Annie planned to get her union card. For me, a tech-illiterate scion of a martial arts clan, my best chance had been to make a name for myself in sport fighting, like my mentor, Kas, had done before me. Domingo must have misread a post from Kas or something. "I hate that I''m about to do this to myself, but I only hit the pre-req hours last week. I didn''t actually get in yet." "That''s not what your new management said, and they were real fucking clear about that, let me tell you. It was a bit of a shock to read the email this morning, but I''m not trying to piss off GLB. At least we only had you on for a half-day; an extra two grand still puts us under budget." Jackie gasped excitedly. "Ooh, yes! That''s so smart, James, you were born to model. Are you going to walk during Fashion Week, or did you get picked up too late?" "Sorry, what is happening?" I said, already reaching for my phone. I really needed to start checking my emails in the morning. "New management? Who are GLB?" "Are you serious?" Domingo leaned in, smiling as if he couldn''t believe what he was hearing. "Germain Lavigne Blanc? How the fuck do you get signed to the biggest modeling agency in Europe without knowing?" "That''s what I want to know," I muttered, pulling up my email. "Don''t look so put out, man. They''ve got other talent on their rosters too. Trust me, you''re in good hands." "Thanks. I''m just surprised to hear about it." Sure enough, I had missed twelve messages, starting from last night and going to this morning, an hour before I was meant to be on set. The giant modeling agency had bought my little local greaseball of a manager''s company from him in cash around when I was having dinner at the Kingfisher and sniped my contract without so much as a signature from me. I couldn''t recall minute to minute how everything had played out during my meeting with the Cranes, but I estimated the first email had come through while I was either still talking to Uncle Hou or just before then. A modeling agency ¨C was this enemy action, or had Davis pulled off a miracle? There were only two weeks until Black Harbor Fashion Week, it followed that he would make a move before then. Or, she, rather ¨C I didn''t know what Davis''s new pronouns were, but they were probably not he/him. Good for him. Fuck, good for her. And/or them. That was going to take a little bit to get used to. Davis had made a spy archetype, someone who would have been able to tell that my communications were being monitored. Was that why they hadn''t reached out yet? Surely I had managed to catch them in my net when I''d followed what felt like every model/ballerina in England. There had to be some reason that hadn''t worked. How many professional ballerinas could there even be in one country? All that was assuming Paul Occam hadn''t been lying to me about my comms being watched, too, and that hadn''t been his excuse to meet me in person for some nefarious reason. It was difficult to trust a man who showed up to your work unannounced and declared himself a journalist for what was essentially a private domestic intelligence service. Huh, putting it like that, my new wizard was a bit of a loose cannon, wasn''t he? It kind of made me trust him more, though that might have been my inherent desire to have a buddy-cop dynamic with a wizard. Stuffy British magic detective and reckless New Jersey martial artist was gold. I mused all the way home, extending the trip by stopping and picking a new, random direction every few minutes. If anyone wanted to waste their energy trying to follow or predict my path, then they were free to do so. I''d be damned if I was going to let the Tigers or other non-specific shadowy entities take the simple joy of movement away from me. Nothing beat a meandering journey through the city to aid with a good think; it was the mental equivalent of a digestif. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The grander questions of this morning would take more time, but I did get back to my apartment determined on a few things. For one, even if I had somehow secured my union card, I was still competing in the Qualifiers. They were still my best opportunity to garner some global attention, and Kas had put an irresponsible amount of money on me winning them. I wouldn''t be too torn up if my degenerate gambler of a mentor lost his bets, but I cared about him enough to at least try to help him out of the mess he''d made. Two, I had to meet with Paul Occam. Davis was in ''Arcane Britannia'' as it was called in the starter pamphlets; they simply had to have some connection to each other. That was great news because it was something I wanted to do anyway for the aforementioned buddy-cop reasons. Plus, I might have had good cause after the Flesh Puppet attack, but I had practically suffocated Occam with killing intent when I was checking his Qi network. I owed the poor guy a cup of tea. Maybe I''d swing by Old World Imports in Chinatown and pick him up some of the good shit from the mainland. With the few hours I had before my date with Shania and her friend, I took the time to do some much-needed housekeeping. I video-called my former manager/agent first, Macadam, who picked up while very inebriated and in a hot tub with a prostitute. That was typical for him, but what was unusual was the quality of the hot tub and the attractiveness of the college-aged boy on his arm. He was at a penthouse suite downtown instead of the usual motel outside of the city that he used to avoid his wife and children. He confirmed that his company had been bought out last night via an after-hours wire transfer and congratulated me on the come-up. This was hopefully the last I''d hear from the man. Next was a call to my new manager, who, despite having a French country code and, as it turned out, living in Paris, picked up immediately. Cherie was a consummate professional and assured me that she and my new agent, Guy, were practically nocturnal and that I wouldn''t have to worry about the time difference. She was also happy to charter a jet for me, her, or Guy at a moment''s notice if an in-person meeting was called for. According to Cherie, they had bought out my former agency in an effort to expand into America, and I had played a prominent role in the discussions to do so. Though, that was exactly the sort of lie that agents and managers told their clients all the time, and her poker face easily triumphed over my ability to read her on a video call. All in all, she hadn''t raised any outright red flags, certainly fewer than Macadam had the first time I''d met him, but with all the goddamn terrors in this world, someone saying that they were nocturnal was definitely suspicious. Finally, I shot a text to Kas asking if he''d heard that I''d been accepted into the Stunt Performers Guild. He video-called back immediately and was surprisingly not as drunk as I expected, considering it was almost midnight in the Swiss Alps. In the background was a pool overlooking the mountains, with water vapor rising like mist through the clean mountain air. "Holy shit, kid. Did I read your text right? Wait¡ªhey!" His phone was snatched away by a blonde in a bikini. "Honey, it''s a work call," I heard him protesting in the back. "James Li! Papa was just telling me and my mother all about you," slurred Kas''s daughter. I recognized her from the family pictures. She was a medical student in Stuttgart, last I''d heard. I smiled politely. I''d clearly interrupted a family reunion of sorts, which explained Kas''s relative sobriety. "Hi, Sonje. It''s nice to finally meet you. Kas talks you up all the time." Another blonde woman popped her head in. Her features were sharp, with high cheekbones and a face that screamed of either incredible genetics or phenomenal plastic surgery, but her eyes were kind and warm. "And what has he said about me, Mr. Li?" I laughed at Kas''s groan in the background. "Hello, Ms. Messer. I think he said something about fumbling a ten? Ain''t that right, old man?" Katrina Messer, Kas''s ex-wife, had a hearty, boisterous laugh, ill-fitting for the beauty but charming in its contrast. "Ah yes, he''s been very apologetic since he''s been here. In fact, I''ve been considering finally visiting that city of his and yours, though," she purred, "I would need a place to stay, and I won''t be caught dead staying with my ex-husband. Perhaps I might stay with you. You wouldn''t mind that, would you, Kassem?" Kas snatched his phone back and extricated himself from the pool as the two drunk women continued to heckle him in German. "Sorry about that," he said, sounding more tired than I''d ever heard him. "They''re only teasing. What the hell do you mean you got into the Guild?" "I won''t keep you long, don''t worry. I just wanted to check if you''d heard anything. The SPG apparently approved it last night. I''ve got my doubts, but Domingo Alvarez just handed me a check for two thousand dollars, so I assume it''s legit." "Fucking news to me, man, and they''re supposed to reach out to confirm with mentors before sending the card out, too. What do you think sparked it?" "Shit." I mussed my hair. "This is definitely weird, then. Could GLB have expedited things? They bought out Macadam last night with an after-hours wire transfer." "Germain Lavigne Blanc, the modeling agency? They bought out that meatball Macadam? Well, I guess you are outrageously handsome¡­but after-hours and out of nowhere? I don''t know, James. Never heard of a single stunt actor with GLB, and I''ve done a ton of work in Europe. There''s not a huge crossover with couture fashion and people who routinely get their shit rocked. Even with meditative healing practices, we still accumulate scars." "Okay, so I''m not wrong to feel off about this whole thing." Was this a message from Davis, or was it continued fallout for the Peach Incident? There had been that dark presence watching me from atop St. Lucia''s Cathedral, and Li Tieguai was self-admittedly trading the story around as much as he could for ''treats'' from other immortals. It could''ve been a ploy by the Tigers or the Cranes, too. Falling Leaf Lin''s student had been living in France, specifically Paris, if I recalled correctly. And there had also been that mysterious ''hedge fund guy'' who spooked Cory back at the Kingfisher. The timing did line up with him noticing me and when the first emails showed up in my inbox. But that was way too quick, right? It would have been minutes between him turning to nod at me and the business deal going through. Could money even buy that sort of service? Nor could I forget about the Yakuza leader who had covered my bill at Tamaki Grill before the exorcism, either. Christ, I really needed to get on top of their invitation, especially since I''d gone to the Kingfisher on opening night. It would be extra disrespectful to put off dinner with the Yaks now. God, I was so doomed. Save me, Davis. Kas sighed. "Shit, kid, it''s objectively great for your career ¨C fucking GLB, holy shit. If it helps, I''ve heard rumors that they''re basically a state actor, or at least heavily connected to government in some way or another. Too many models deciding to ''date'' older politicians for a few years before getting their golden ticket, if you get my meaning. Just do me a favor and keep your guard up. I''ll ask around, but I don''t exactly have in-roads in those circles, never been pretty enough." "Thanks, Kas. And for picking up too. I''ll let you get back to your family. Oh, wait," I added quickly, "have you heard of a wizard named Paul Occam?" "I''ve met one or two Occam''s at parties over the years. Pretty¡­eccentric, even as mages go, but generally okay enough from first impressions. Not familiar with a Paul Occam, but I got the feeling that most of the family don''t get out much." He paused, chewing on his words for a moment. "I maybe can''t stress enough how deeply strange most wizards are. I think the magic cooks their brains or something." "They''d probably say the same about us." "True." "Anyway, that''s good enough for me. Thanks again, Kas. Enjoy your Swiss chateau and the company." "Ha. You''re doing me a favor, kid. Sonje and Katrina are a hell of a tag team," he grumbled. Then, as if realizing something, he paused, somewhat embarrassed. "So, uh, you still planning to fight in the Qualifiers? No pressure, of course." I smirked. "Huh, I don''t know. What was that about your ex-wife staying at my place again?" Kas looked genuinely thrilled by the comment. "You''ll take Katrina off my hands, and you''ll fight in the Quals? Deal! No takesy-backsies! Hey, mind showing Sonje around for a few nights here and there, too? I told her I wouldn''t go to the casino the whole time she was visiting." "Jesus Christ, Kas. Have some dignity, old man. All you do is play five-dollar blackjack all night anyway." "Come on, be a pal. I didn''t know Sonje was thinking about staying for over a month when I promised that. She watches all of your videos, you know? If we make it look like I set up a date for her as a favor, I''d get major dad cred. Would be a pretty swell way to thank your mentor for helping you get your union card, just saying." "There are so many better hobbies. You ever watch anime? You have, like, the mathematically perfect build for cosplay." "It''s important me time, James. Helps me keep it loose and sexy." The words ''keep it loose'' triggered an eerie sense of d¨¦j¨¤ vu, but I put it out of my mind; d¨¦j¨¤ vu never had a satisfying conclusion. I chuckled. "Have fun with your family, pops. We''ll talk soon." Interlude 8: Cici In Paradise Sin and air alike tasted sweeter in Tokyo. All the annoyances, the cluttered, cramped environments and the city cacophonies that had once kept her bound to a droll suburban existence meant nothing here. All her fears now thrilled. Crowds and strange men, dark alleys and dangerous women, she fit right in alongside them, a pantheress amidst prey. Finally, for the first time in two lifetimes, she was thriving, she was powerful, and she was home. Erina, formerly Cici, was and had been for two and a half hours now, dangling upside down from two metal brackets above a drop ceiling, perfectly still so as not to jostle the ventilation ducts on either side of her. One slip or stray movement and the sound would echo through the vents, alerting any one of the many Yakuza that frequented Hoshii Hostess Club to her presence; depending on what followed from there, she''d either be dead or in the hole for the significant amount of money she''d borrowed for the job. She couldn''t honestly say which she''d prefer of those outcomes. If she was exceptionally lucky in her unluck, she''d end up being captured and ¡®tortured¡¯ ¨C from her tormentor¡¯s perspective, that was. From her perspective as a trained kunoichi, a few days of fulfilling all her most deranged fantasies and earning hundreds of Experience in the process was almost pure upside, enough to make her consider throwing the mission. Not that she would do that to her clan; the chance that one of her sisters died in the rescue attempt was too great to risk. She''d learned a lot about herself recently. Her current predicament, for example, would have been nightmarish at one time ¨C not the hanging over a hostess club bathroom part, that would have never entered her imagination, the being alone with her thoughts part. That might have driven poor fraying and decaying Cici Andersen n¨¦e Brown to a mental breakdown. It hadn¡¯t been until her first stakeout in this world that she realized she couldn¡¯t remember the last time she¡¯d been by herself without the sounds of comfort television or music in the background to distract her. Now, on stakeout three, she found she quite enjoyed an anticipatory silence. Waiting single-mindedly for a mark made her feel like a coiled serpent above a nest, fangs ready for the mother bird to return; Omura Erina liked that feeling. She liked it a lot. Tonight¡¯s appetizer could be heard making small talk with her peers one room over, completely unaware that she¡¯d be spending her night unconscious and bound, tied to a metal beam above a toilet. Erina was happy to let the woman have the time to relax and get prepped in peace; this would be a traumatic night for her. She was planning to make it up to the girl by depositing three million yen in her apartment after the job, but there was no getting around the fact that she was making a victim of the hostess. At least the cruelty had a purpose. The Russo-Japanese girl, stage name Gavrila, was the favorite of tonight''s main course, ''Blood-Soaked King'' Takamine Iwao, and while Gavrila may not have deserved tomorrow''s rope burns and chemical hangover, Takamine deserved only the worst. As anticipated, at 21:43, Gavrila entered one of the four water closets attached to the group showers, all of which she had access to from her perch in the ceiling. Conveniently for the kunoichi, the hostess came alone to the WCs earlier than the rest of her peers to discreetly purge her small dinner before work. Erina''s heart went out to the girl; she had struggled with mental health in her past life as well, though her outlet had been cutting, not purging. But at the end of the day, there were as many broken girls in this city as there were leaves on the forest floor. C''est la vie. She had a job to do, and people of her own to look after. Erina waited for the girl to kneel in front of the toilet bowl before lifting up a ceiling panel and dropping down on her in one fluid motion. While she hadn''t had the Experience to branch out into the more Combat oriented Feats, silently knocking out an unsuspecting bulimic nineteen-year-old was hardly a challenge. She plucked a blonde strand of hair from the girl''s head and drew twenty milliliters of blood from a vein in her wrist. Both went into a golden channel that formed a spiraling pattern on the horns of her new Hannya, powering seals that would disguise her for the next four hours. She''d taken a loan of fifteen million yen to purchase the demon mask from the clan''s quartermaster and spent all of her stockpiled Tokens from Rewards to Upgrade it further, into something she could bet her life on. It had been more than worth it. Within ten seconds of pressing the enchanted Hannya to her face, her body had finished shifting into a perfect replica of the unconscious girl on the floor. Her body lost its muscle tone, her skin its mocha color, and her height around five centimeters. Where once was a hardened twenty-seven-year-old half-Jamaican, half-Japanese assassin, was a now fragile half-Russian, half-Japanese teenager. This was no mere illusion either, or else she¡¯d have simply cast the spell herself. No, for the next four hours, Erina was, on a biological level, identical in appearance to Gavrila, Physical Attribute Dice and all. That would be tricky to deal with, especially the hit to Endurance, but her Aura and Affinity were untouched, as were her Sensuality and Feats, which were what she primarily relied on anyway. She wondered what might happen if she got pregnant like this ¨C something to explore, perhaps, once she rescued her husband from whatever quagmire he was stuck in. Maybe they could steal some legendary bloodlines for their future children! That could be fun and would be sure to Reward them something crazy from the Producers. Ha. Who was she kidding? Ted had never done anything so fun in his life. Erina left the water closet after popping the rest of her prepared consumables into her mouth and stringing a now nude Gavrila up between two metal support beams. The two potions, which had cost her another three million loaned yen, enhanced a few relevant Skills and would hopefully make up for her missing ninja tools. Apart from the potent chemicals embedded into the lingerie in Gavrila¡¯s locker, Erina was without her gear. She¡¯d contemplated sealing her equipment into temporary tattoos on the soles of her feet, but there were too many Yakuza at the club to chance it, and not all of them were as new to the game as Takamine''s clan. If any of the visiting veterans had the ability to sense hidden space seals, then it would be over for her. That, and Momoe, their tattoo artist, charged a fortune for anything without at least ten days'' notice. She''d spent more than enough borrowed money on this job as was. Even without any research into how their interactions typically went, it was pathetically easy to fool the girl¡¯s colleagues. The teen was an anxious, self-conscious wreck - a familiar headspace to inhabit. A few nervous smiles in the showers, a callback riff to the conversation she¡¯d eavesdropped on, and she was good to go. Unfortunately, she didn''t have the space in her role to play around or engage in a little skinship with the other girls; Gavrila was too shy for such business. A shame, really - mouthwatering was how she¡¯d describe the bodies on display. What she wouldn¡¯t give to feel the women tremble in her arms as her tongue got to work on their breasts. Perhaps she¡¯d steal a man¡¯s face and body with the Hannya tomorrow, head to a brothel, and let herself experience the male orgasm to celebrate the mission. She''d become a bit of an anime-level pervert of late. It had been mostly by necessity and was, of course, heavily incentivized, but she had embraced it of her own will, nonetheless. One of the best perks of their transmigration was finally getting to indulge that side of herself. By the time Cici had realized she was bi or that she wanted more than just to make kiss-kiss, handholdy love in the bedroom, she was five years into having given up on exploring sex and intimacy in general. Lucky for her, sex and intimacy were now her bread and butter and were about to make her a very rich woman if all went to plan. Takamine Iwao was a degenerate psychopath who viewed himself as an honorable samurai of his clan rather than the butcher he was. He had formed an immediate fascination with the frail, dainty Gavrila, just as he had her predecessors of similar body types and ages. Erina suspected his actual infatuation was with the feeling of being a chivalrous knight, sweeping up lonely little girls into his arms, rather than the women themselves. It followed with what her research on the murders of his past four obsessions had revealed. Once Takamine knew the hostesses well enough that they ceased to be caricatures conjured by his sick mind and started to look like actual people, he disposed of them in brutal ecstasy. Erina had to accelerate that process of disillusionment and take Gavrila from ¡®pure princess¡¯ to ¡®contemptible whore¡¯ within a few short hours. She needed Takamine to dismiss his retinue and hangers-on, and the best way she''d come up with to do that was to bait him into the murder. That bestial nature of his would be the leash with which she led him. While everyone of importance knew of the man¡¯s predilections, he still had an obligation to try and cover up his actions; after all, the paper-thin veneer of propriety was the only thing keeping him from being put down like the rabid dog he was. He¡¯d want to take her somewhere secluded before having his way with her. The first problem arose early in the night. Takamine didn''t arrive on time and sent a text to Gavrila''s phone that he would be late for their ''date''. Erina didn¡¯t panic, but it would be a lie to say that her nerves were not mounting. It could be fatal if the Hannya¡¯s enchantment failed at the wrong moment; her target was a brute not known for taking his victims alive. And her Challenge from the Producers had reduced her Health Track by 5 as well, effectively eliminating honest fights as an option. If she was alone in the private booth with him when her four hours were up¡­ She shook off the thought before it could get to her. Erina had put most of her Experience into seducing, sneaking, and escaping ¨C she''d even sacrificed her chance at winning the second Popularity Poll just to set up this job, spending days doing quiet research and espionage instead of anything interesting. She was literally built for this, she reminded herself. At least there was a bright spot in the delay. Gavrila was effectively Takamine''s exclusive hostess these days, meaning she was free to while away the time in the break room. On a stolen phone and outside her clan''s compound, she could safely check up on Alan, AKA James Li. She¡¯d had to be extraordinarily careful about doing so at her home in Tokyo of The Gate. Keeping secrets was a dangerous business when you were surrounded by paranoid kunoichi. Luckily with Genevieve, Omura Erina had been into French culture and ballet prior to the transmigration and had been safe to reach out to the other Player. But even there, she¡¯d had to endure her Matriarch¡¯s inquiry into what her plans were and what she knew regarding the ballerina¡¯s secretive Order. If Genevieve hadn¡¯t had the sense to use code in their conversations, and if Erina hadn¡¯t genuinely known nothing about the Red Roses, she could have been relegated to weeks or months of de facto confinement to the compound. And that had been brought on by a few heavily encoded, fully justifiable direct messages. There was no excuse for her to be talking to an American stuntman. Well, other than that he was a prime target for genetic recruitment, but she wasn¡¯t ready to commit to the ¡®Adding the Li Family Bloodline to the Clan¡¯ plan just yet. It did tempt her, though, as she scrolled through his socials. Not only was his body absurd, recruiting him as an auxiliary member would be an easy sell to her sisters. Alan seemed to have embroiled himself in high kung fu shenanigans via a gang war and, according to a fan page, had at least three girlfriends. Those were the sort of facts about a man that could get any self-respecting kunoichi revved up. Strong men who could keep up in bed were to be savored, and those that weren''t complete assholes were to be collected and sequestered for regular use. Whether the men had to consent to such an arrangement was only a matter of opinion among her sisters. She grinned, proud of her ordinarily cautious friend. Three girlfriends and a gang war in one week - no wonder the bastard had sniped the top spot on the Popularity Poll. She¡¯d been a little dismayed to learn she¡¯d dropped from first to third, but if she had to lose to anyone, she was glad it had been to Genevieve and Alan. Genevieve finally had a body that matched her gender and deserved the chance to go wild. And Alan, poor Alan, was sure to be wracked with guilt over his role in their transmigration and was undoubtedly working himself to the bone over it. Silly man. As if his not answering the offer email would have stopped the Producers from having their way. At least Alan had turned his guilty conscience into something overwhelmingly productive. If only her fucking husband had done the same. It had been gutting to learn that he had fallen so far behind that the Producers had to intervene. Everyone else made sense to her; Victor and Cat were both extremely passive individuals, Mars was probably busy trying to get to Cat, and Nasim was likely crippled by his burdensome Starting Complications. But Ted? What the hell was he thinking? No, unfortunately, she knew exactly what he was thinking. He was being Ted about all of this, shying away from yet another major change, regardless of how positive or necessary it was. Did he think she would want him to put their vows over his, hers, and their friends¡¯ lives!? They had been kidnapped by an interdimensional porn company with power greater than that of gods! Not only was sex and Social Combat safer than actual fighting, but the Producers also Rewarded it much more highly! She didn¡¯t care about his sexual fidelity; they¡¯d barely fucked in the past five years anyway. She wanted him to walk into a brothel and order the line-up, to get a cyberpunk dick impant! To fuck his secretary, and his boss, and his neighbors! She wanted him to discover ten new fetishes and indulge all of them! Anything! Everything! She wanted him to live, not just to survive. Goddamn it, she was so fucking sick of just surviving, so sick of praying for a change instead of making it happen, so sick of Ted! Uh oh. No, she didn''t really mean that, did she? This was, was just¡­residual disappointment from learning that he was¡ª learning about how the bottom five members of their group had fallen so far behind. Erina was just upset about her Challenge and the loss of her Health; that was all. She loved her husband. A tut from Hoshii¡¯s shrew of a manager saved her from further descending down this line of thought. "Get off your phone, girl. You''re up." God, she hated the Yakuza. This woman had consigned at least four of Gavrila¡¯s predecessors to be savaged to death; she could at least have the decency to not be such a bitch when doing so. When the Matriarch sent a kunoichi to certain death, she bought them all sorts of treats for the trouble, massages, pretty boys, fancy drugs, and just about anything to put one last smile on their faces before the final sacrifice. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am,¡± she obediently replied before heading for the door to the main floor. The manager stopped her with a tight grip on her wrist. ¡°Not there, empty-headed child. He¡¯s upstairs at a private booth; if you hadn¡¯t been busy playing on your phone¡­¡± Erina had to do her best to look chastened and not as excited as she truly was. Her original schedule had involved slowly getting him worked up enough to take her upstairs. If Takamine was already at a private booth, then she should have more than enough time left in the disguise to accomplish the mission. The upstairs of Hoshii Hostess Club was dimly lit and loud, both to disguise what might be happening on the other side of the doors to the private booths, and to mask the disheveled appearances of those leaving them. Officially, Hoshii had a strict no-touching-the-girls policy, one that was regularly enforced on the main floor. The same rules applied to the upstairs, though they were much laxer. They did get enforced for anything more than a little over the clothes groping, if you were just a paying customer. However, higher-ups in the Yakuza or members who were being rewarded for exceptional performances earned themselves certain unspoken privileges, such as the staff looking the other way or forgetting to check a booth after the time was up. There was no individual more exceptional in the Sasori-Sumida-kai than Takamine Iwao, and few as privileged as he. The Blood-Soaked King had carved a path of destruction through the ranks of mortal Tokyo¡¯s Yakuza, earning the small, breakaway clan of Sasori-Sumida-kai a seat at the table with the big boys. But it was his actions in Tokyo of The Gate, or Torii-kyo as it was colloquially known, that had earned him the bounty that had brought her to Hoshii. The Sasori-Sumida-kai had sent Takamine and a few members to negotiate the purchase of a map to several seasonal entrances into the Divine World held by a merchant group in Torii-kyo. Ingresses to the spirit realm, especially those that were unwatched by Torii-kyo''s authorities, were highly guarded secrets; she didn''t know who had told the clan that they could buy such a map, but it must have been a setup by one of their enemies. No merchant group would part with such information, and when they had understandably declined, the thugs escalated. Apparently, they were under the impression that the merchants had brought the map with them to the meeting, which was another sign that they had no idea what they were doing. The map, if it even existed outside of the minds of their leaders, would never have left their compound. Regardless, the Yakuza attacked and, shockingly, won. Takamine Iwao was a rare monster, it turned out, the kind that appeared every once in a long while among humanity''s martial artists. Who knew, if he survived long enough there was a chance he would be the next Andina Katz or Nagao Haru. But that was off the table now; the fool had earned himself a bounty big enough to catch her attention, one and a half billion yen alive, four hundred fifty million dead. He was cooked. She slid the small door to Takamine¡¯s room aside and entered with a bow. The private booths were no larger than two and a half meters on a side, not actually meant for more than their stated purpose. They were essentially just large, round tables with cushy seats in a relatively soundproofed chamber, with a small TV for karaoke and a double-sided hatch that servers could pass drinks into without disturbing those inside. Takamine took up half the room, his arms spread wide, resting atop the seats. His shirt buttons were open, revealing some of his tattoos, and sweat ran off him in rivulets. The man had clearly been in a very recent fight, with fresh blood marring his knuckles and staining his shirt. ¡°Takamine-sama!¡± she exclaimed, rushing to his side to check his temperature. Some jerk had interrupted her perfectly good kidnapping plan with an assassination attempt. The Yakuza had been poisoned, though she couldn¡¯t recognize with what just from his symptoms. How annoying, she¡¯d have to be much more delicate with her techniques now that there was an unknown toxin in his system. His hand lashed out with blinding speed, vanishing from where it was to appear wrapped around her throat. Immense, deep, killing intent filled the room, nearly sending her into the depths of despair. Erina was struck with the image of clawed hands on her ankles, dragging her into black muck to hopelessly suffocate. This creature possessed such unbelievable hatred in him, like a demon born into human flesh. ¡°Told you to call me Iwao-kun.¡± The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°S-sorry,¡± she choked out, ¡°Iwao-kun.¡± The change in him was immediate and terrifying in its contrast. Takamine''s entire demeanor softened, from tempestuous to doe-eyed and soft in a second. He pulled her into his chest gently, hugging her like a teddy bear and sniffing dramatically. ¡°Ga-chaaaaan! I¡¯ve had the worst day ever!¡± Erina rolled an Empathy + Insight to figure out how to play the dynamic. She had been confident enough in her ability to do so that she¡¯d skipped over what others might deem mandatory pre-mission investigation. With eight Successes guiding her, she went limp in his hold and giggled. Some hostess club addicts wanted their women to play the role of mother, wife, caring boss, or childhood friend ¨C Takamine wanted a doll, something to take out of the closet when he wanted it. He wanted her to say her lines when he pulled the string on her back and be quiet otherwise. ¡°What happened, Iwao-kun?¡± ¡°Gah! I knew everything was going to go wrong when I ran over a nail and popped a tire on the way to the store this morning. Those damned roofers! Who do they think they are? And then, when I finally got to the store, they were out of my favorite bread! I wanted to cry!" She listened patiently as the butcher went through every minor inconvenience in his day, making soft sounds of interest and allowing him to pet her pretty blonde hair as he vented. Internally, she counted down the minutes remaining on her disguise but continued waiting on her Insight to let her know when she could safely make a move. When Takamine transitioned to making vague allusions to actual problems, like the ''dumb guys who followed his car around all day'' or the ''needle-dick dipshit'' that had made him late to their date, she shifted her body language slightly. A nonverbal ten Success Performance check let her communicate that she wanted to ask him something without giving her game away. ¡°Sorry, Ga-chan, I¡¯ve been so busy ranting I forgot to ask you about your day. Your manager hasn¡¯t been giving you problems, has she? Want me to talk to her?¡± ¡°No,¡± she said sighing, ¡°not my manager¡­¡± "Eh! Some guy, then!? I''ll kill him!" She laughed him off. ¡°No, no guy. It''s¡ª" She bit her lip and shook her head. "I don''t want to bother you with it." ¡°Don¡¯t be foolish, Ga-chan. You can come to me for anything.¡± Erina hid her face in his massive pecs, hiding a smile as she saw the results of her Seduction roll; lucky number thirteen. ¡°You¡¯re mine. Heel, doggy.¡± She exhaled in thought, letting her breath warm his exposed nipple, earning a shiver from the brute. ¡°I bet Iwao-kun has a big apartment and a landlord that doesn¡¯t bother him¡­¡± He laughed. ¡°Your Iwao-kun has the best landlord of all ¨C no landlord! No apartment either, but a house instead.¡± A calloused, scarred finger lifted her chin up to look at him. ¡°So, is that it, landlord problems?¡± She nodded, looking chagrinned. ¡°It¡¯s my fault. I keep missing my payments.¡± Takamine¡¯s eyes narrowed, something cruel and menacing flashing in them for a moment before being replaced with a parody of paternalism. He tutted. ¡°Ga-chan, I tip you well, don¡¯t I? What have you been spending your money on if not rent?¡± God, it was easy to lead this man around; Erina could practically read the script as it was projected onto his eyes like a teleprompter. It was his lack of creativity and inability to actually relate to his preferred role, she thought. Takamine¡¯s brain was that of a psychopath, ill-equipped to improvise outside of his instincts, themselves ruled by the same violent impulse that had earned him his bounty. ¡°This and that,¡± she answered coyly. ¡°Would you like to see?¡± ¡°What does that¡ª" His breath caught in his throat as she pulled her dress off her body, revealing a stunning set of white lace lingerie. She had slipped these into Gavrila''s apartment this morning while she slept as gifts from her ''secret admirer'', counting on the girl to bring them with her work clothes to the club as a de facto order from Takamine. Erina wrapped her arms around the Yakuza¡¯s thick neck and pressed her breasts into his chest. The threads of the lace were embedded with expensive sweat-activated aphrodisiacs that worked remarkably fast. She had paid their alchemist to make them ineffective against her defenses, but Takamine had to rely on his biology alone. He ground his teeth hard enough that she could hear them. Perhaps it had been a mistake to employ the aphrodisiac against his already poisoned immune system. ¡°Ga-chan, what are¡ª¡± ¡°Iwao-kun,¡± she whispered, voice light and bubbly in his ear, ¡°if I were your roommate, then I could have your favorite bread and breakfast ready for you when you woke up in the morning." That line would have worked against most men in this situation, she figured, though someone more familiar with honeypot tactics would have made her continue to work for the goal. But the contrast of raw sexuality and almost inane innocence was a kill shot against Takamine. His nostrils flared like a bull, and his killing intent projected images into her mind of his intense desire to fuck her until her organs failed and her bones shattered under the force. ¡°Ga-chan, a man, erk,¡± he said through gritted teeth, ¡°has needs. I have¡­needs.¡± Takamine was barely holding himself together. This seduction of hers was simultaneously a betrayal and everything he wanted. He had killed his past infatuations after four months at the earliest and ten months at the latest. Gavrila had been his exclusive hostess for seven months now; she had already been due for a final ''date''. His grip on her hips bruised her now delicate pale skin and dealt her one Damage. Between the accelerated aphrodisiacs coursing through his blood and her thirteen Success seduction, Erina needed to sap his Qi quickly if she wanted to leave the club alive. In terms of unexpected complications ¨C which every mission had ¨C this was totally manageable, lucky even. Sure, she was on the verge of being raped to death by a psychotic murderer, but again, she was built for this. She went to push his hands off her hips so she could slide her breasts down his chest and take him into her mouth, but Takamine would not be moved. He wasn''t even looking at her now, just breathing hard with his eyes closed, doing everything he could to not act on the violence bubbling up inside him. Well, there was nothing for it then; she''d have to pull out the stops. Her mouth was a wakizashi compared to the katana of her cunt, but if he wouldn''t let go, he wouldn''t let go. Hopefully, his poisoned body could survive her technique, but even if it didn''t, the bounty for his death would still pay off the loans she''d taken out for the job. Erina might end up owing a few favors to the allies she''d enlisted, but it beat dying. Any actual words might have pushed the man too far, so she hushed him instead, cooing and stroking his cheek with one hand; in the coos were embedded subtle spells to calm and lull a target. They were mostly ineffective against his depraved fury, but they kept it from continuing to climb further, buying her time. Her other hand reached down to take out his erect cock and pull her panties aside. It was smaller than she''d imagined and felt misshapen, like a nose that had been repeatedly broken, and phimotic, but that was fine; Erina wasn''t here to have good sex; she was here to earn the Quest Rewards and enough clout with her clan to buy her a vacation, with the money being an added benefit. What followed wasn''t a great time for either of them, though it wasn''t a bad one either - for her, at least. Takamine started crying and moaning as though he was at a funeral as soon as she let him inside her. Other than allowing his grip to loosen enough that she could ride him, he did nothing, not even opening his eyes. She knew he was busy wrangling his murderous impulses, that what he really wanted to do was to fuck her through the table and paint the walls with her insides. For her, though, a former wallflower who''d only ever dated one man, the feeling of controlling such a monster through the power of her sex was incredible - Thrilling enough that she started to get wet and enough pleasure out of the act to enjoy herself somewhat. Two things occurred when he came inside her: one, her Aura pierced into his extremely Corrupted Qi network a dozen times, driving acupuncture needles of pure energy into him to weaken his mind, body, and spirit; and two, she got a taste of what she''d really come for.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Get ¡®Blood-Soaked King¡¯ Takamine Iwao to cum inside of you without triggering his homicidal madness. Reward: 55XP, +1 Strength, +2 Deception Bonus, Stole the face of his obsession: 10XP, Gain two Artifact Tokens
Erina orgasmed. God, she loved the feeling of a big, meaty Quest Reward rearranging her insides. Even sex couldn¡¯t beat the sensation of growing measurably more powerful in a split second. ¡°Iwao-kun, should we continue this in our home?" she asked victoriously, panting for both effect and from her reduced Endurance. Takamine, who was shaking and covered in his own snot and tears, lit up. She had presented him an opportunity to get what he really wanted, somewhere quiet to kill her, and he couldn''t help but seize on it. As she''d expected, Takamine insisted they leave out the back through the staff exit and forewent alerting his men below on the main floor. He really was a simple beast, a dog with a tennis ball. In retrospect, she probably hadn''t needed to spend as much money as she had in preparation for this mission. The man was a total imbecile. Someone had tricked him into attacking a group of Divine World merchants, and now here she was, tricking him into his own doom. All that power and a few glaring weaknesses could bring him to his knees. Yet another reason to earn as much Experience as fast as possible. The Party needed to come together and cover for each other as a group, or else one of them was sure to meet a similar fate eventually. Erina had to help him down the stairs and into the alley behind the club. Her Master level Cat¡¯s Tongue Technique, in combination with the Feats she had for amplifying sexual magic through her pussy and the poison ravaging his body, had taken Takamine to the edge of death. That was alright, though. She hadn''t anticipated the poison, but she had accounted for the possibility that she might need to destroy his Qi network to the point of near death. Once they were close to the exit of the alley, Erina pressed down on a pressure point on her target''s lower back, triggering a cascade of effects through his body. Takamine clutched his chest and hit the ground face-first with a look of confusion. She screamed as loud as she could, alerting both the security lingering at the edge of the hostess club and her allies not far away. A Yakuza enforcer was the first to the scene, yelling questions at her once he realized what he was looking at. Erina played the part of the panicked lover, clinging to her man in protective terror, refusing to let the guard yank her off Takamine. Another Yakuza came around the corner and had the sense to jump into action while his ally bickered with the hysterical hostess. The second man, seeing two off-duty emergency medical technicians eating street food next to their ambulance not twenty meters from the alley, demanded that they see to the injured Takamine. The EMTs, both women, put up a light fuss. They had just finished a twelve-hour shift, they said; they worked for a private hospital, they said; try the emergency line, they said. This infuriated both Yakuza, who decided to forgo calling in the emergency to flash their weapons instead. Takamine was quickly loaded onto the ambulance after that, joined by the second Yakuza, likely hoping to earn some goodwill from his clan¡¯s strongest member, and Erina, who had clung to her ¡®Iwao-kun¡¯ throughout the process. "At least put these on," said an exhausted EMT, passing Erina and the gang member medical masks while her peer was busy stabilizing Takamine. The thug looked like he was about to protest further, but seeing the hostess put hers on without complaint, he followed along. Three breaths of the sedative in his mask later, and he hit the floor of the vehicle with a loud thud. Her sisters dropped their illusions as soon as the man was unconscious, their bodies filling in with vigor and muscles, their expressions growing vicious and pleased. "Nice work," said Himeno, one of her seniors. "Anything unexpected to worry about?" ¡°Be on guard. He was poisoned in an attack before arriving,¡± warned Erina. ¡°We might have some competitors for the bounty.¡± The driver of the ambulance stuck his head out and looked back. Seeing that the other two had dropped their illusions, he did the same, revealing a dog-headed samurai in full armor. Go was an auxiliary member of the clan and the father of one of Himeno''s daughters. ¡°It¡¯s handled,¡± he said gruffly. ¡°I killed the scouts. Target going to live, Shimeyo?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± answered the medic. ¡°Who do you think I am?¡± Himeno whistled at the unconscious Takamine, running a finger along his leg. "One and a half billion yen for this, huh? Heh, can¡¯t fucking wait to cash that in. Thanks for bringing us in on this job, Erina. You¡¯ll be a legend after this.¡± She shook her head. ¡°Only three days of prep ¨C you crazy bitch.¡± ¡°Thank me once he¡¯s back and secured.¡± Until she saw the Quest Reward pop up, she wasn¡¯t letting her guard down for a second. ¡°Relax, relax. Kami-sama, you¡¯re so damn serious when we¡¯re working. My Go said he handled it, didn¡¯t he?¡± She sighed. ¡°You¡¯re going to jinx us, Himeno. What do you want to do with the extra?¡± Her senior looked down at the unconscious low-level thug on the ground and shrugged. ¡°He¡¯s just some nobody, no point in keeping him." The kunoichi walked over and summarily executed the man with a stomp to his neck. "Only good Yakuza is a dead one. You want his organs, Shimeyo, or should we kick him off a bridge on the way?" The medic gave the corpse a bored glance. ¡°Guess I should at least harvest the marrow, shouldn¡¯t I? Don¡¯t want to be wasteful.¡± Shining golden leaves floated in ethereal winds, lighting the nocturnal landscape of Tokyo of The Gate in their shifting shimmering hues. Tsukuyomi slept tonight, pulling the darkness around her like a blanket, leaving the night sky absent of her glow. Instead, it was lit by dazzling stars; some were mighty Immortals or grand godly realms in the far distance, and others were stranger and more ephemeral. There were the dreams of mortals, both sleeping and dead, the winking eyes of watchers from places even stranger than this, and more, maybe even gates back to Cici''s home Earth. From the highest balcony of one of their compound¡¯s tall towers, Erina could see the ghostly lanterns of a hundred million kami and yokai as they went about their business, as active in the night as they were in the day. The architecture of the Hidden City was that of feudal Japan, but the scales were inconceivable; there were temples that pierced the clouds, walkways a kilometer wide, and trains twenty meters high to accommodate the many giant residents. This was, first and foremost, a home for the gods, and the gods all had a strange need to impress each other with their works. Her Clan, the Shinomiya-gumi, could host ten thousand in their compound comfortably, and their home was but an armored redoubt compared to the great castles the spirits and monsters built for themselves. Somewhere below on those city streets, strolling through the endless markets, were Himeno, Shimeyo, and Go, celebrating their newfound riches in style. She would have been there herself, drinking away the residual stress of the mission, but the Matriarch had requested her presence. Perhaps it was for the best that she was here and sober and not down there drunkenly eyeing the many inhuman prostitutes that called the city home for whom she could spend the next night and day with in a hedonic haze. The week had been hectic, and she had been using that chaos to avoid difficult thoughts. That was a habit that had to die lest she become like the Cici of old, afraid even to ask herself questions she knew the answers to. Cici ¨C she''d never liked the name, though she never disliked it either. Cici was better than Cindy, and anything was better than Cinderella. Ted had suggested the nickname back when they were both twelve, sitting together in art class. He¡¯d been so creative then, full of ideas and dreams, always proactive even if it meant that he made a fool of himself. They''d started dating two years after that, broken up a few times but never for long, and were married ten years later. Everyone had told them that they''d never make it, that high school romances didn''t last, and that they would inevitably change and grow apart as they matured. Everyone had been wrong. They were still together twenty years after that fateful art class, in love, and practically tied at the hip. Their friends always referred to them as Ted and Cici ¨C like it was one word, Ted&Cici, as though they were a single unit, rather than two individuals. Erina laughed bitterly, what a joke. Everyone had been right. She loved her husband; there were things about him that she resented, but she did love him. She didn¡¯t resent Ted, the person. Cici had known for years that if nothing changed and their relationship continued on its trajectory, the status quo would flip around, and she would resent her husband in spite of the things about him that she loved. She had told herself that, obviously, when that time came, if it did, she would do something about it. With her newfound clarity - and greater Empathy and Willpower - she knew now that it had been cruel of her to do that to them both. They should have broken up because she loved him. It would have been better for everyone. Ted could have had a wife who adored him for the man he¡¯d become and not the boy he used to be. How awful it must have been for him to be constantly, daily, judged against himself as a child by the woman who was supposed to be his partner. It wasn¡¯t fair to him that she held him, a man in his thirties, to promises he had made in his teens and twenties. There was nothing wrong with deciding that you didn¡¯t want to go through the hassle of emigrating to Japan, or that you didn¡¯t want to ask your job to be transferred to their Thailand office, or that you wanted to buy property near your mother instead of taking advantage of your remote job to travel the country. Yes, he should have had the fucking courage and maturity of a man to have those hard conversations with her, his partner of nearly twenty years, instead of sheepishly avoiding them like a scared little child¡ª But regardless, the point was that she was to blame as much as Ted for the disintegration of their relationship. Cici had been unreasonable, too anxious and depressed to be any fun to be with on her own, and too terrified of failure to try therapy or medication. She¡¯d been unable to communicate properly, ruled by intrusive thoughts that kept her lonely even when she was surrounded by others. Her brain continually conjured every excuse it could think of for her to stay miserable: her friends were actually his friends, so surely they''d never spend time with her after the divorce. She had no real family other than his, so every Christmas would forever be spent alone and miserable. The cat liked her, but he would obviously prefer to be with Ted if he had to pick. On a balcony overlooking literal Heaven, smelling scents that didn¡¯t exist and seeing colors that weren¡¯t real, Erina realized how ridiculous she had been and how badly she missed her friends. She was capable, charming, and rich; she could finally be the woman they deserved, give them as much as they gave her. She wished they were here now and that she could show them around her home and introduce them to her new family. And...she wished that Ted was safe and happy, but she was grateful to be apart. It was a tragic and unpleasant admission, but the truth often was. She wiped a tear away, rubbed it between her fingers and watched as it transformed into a small light that began to float into the sky to become a faint star, the Memory of a Romance Lost. Huh. Was it over then? Was that what she would tell Ted after she rescued him? Yes and no. Erina smiled, sad but hopeful. Cici Brown X Ted Andersen was dead, but who knew? Omura Erina X Antonio D''Antonio - gosh, there might just be something there. They could be a Power Couple with a capital PC. It depended on him, of course, but she wouldn''t shoot it down right away. "Done moping?" asked a voice so close she could feel the warmth of a breath on the back of her neck. ¡°Gah!¡± She jumped and whirled on the voice, kicking off the balcony railing for added momentum. A small hand latched onto a wrist with impossible strength and hip tossed her to the floor relatively gently. The Matriarch must have been pleased by her successful bounty; normally, she''d have made the throw as painful as she could without causing injury. The catgirl, or catwoman really, sat down on her chest, looking no older than fifty of her two-hundred-plus years of age. She patted Erina on the cheek, her black-and-grey cat''s tail swishing, teasing her thighs with their silken hairs. Erina beamed. ¡°Hello, Mistress! You look so much younger already!¡± Her Matriarch preened proudly. "Yes, the serum''s working quickly, isn''t it? I''ll be a hot little teenage slut again in a few weeks at this rate. But speaking of working quickly, I wanted to catch you before you go on your post-mission bender. Three days to set up a job like that ¨C well done, Erina. I¡¯m impressed.¡± ¡°Thanks! And for trusting me with all those loans.¡± "Of course! I''d have made you work them off if you''d failed anyway.¡± She shifted slightly, inexplicably pulling out a steaming cup of full tea from her sleeve and taking a small sip. ¡°I won¡¯t keep you from your celebrations long, but I thought I¡¯d offer you an easy job to keep you occupied while the heat dies down. I¡¯d advise you spend a little time outside of Tokyo until the fallout from Takamine¡¯s abduction settles, but it¡¯s up to you.¡± ¡°Hmm, I don¡¯t know; I thought my exit was pretty clean.¡± She was playing it coy; the whole point of the ambitious mission was to spend the money, reputation, and Experience she¡¯d earned to look for her friends and husband away from the ever-curious eyes of her clan. "What''s the pay?" "It''s relatively small, but the risk should be manageable. And if you¡¯re clever, or just keep those legs spread and your tongue nimble, you could come out of it with a great deal of knowledge on poisons and the like. Plus, I¡¯ll let you take that extended vacation you¡¯ve been working up to asking me about after you¡¯re done.¡± Erina grinned. ¡°I¡¯m interested already.¡± "I knew you would be. How much do you know of the Crane Sect from China? Their alchemist leader has an interesting proposal I want investigated.¡± Escort Mission 1 Escort Mission? Here was the closet of a powerful business villain, the sort that could be both the love interest and antagonist in a dark modern romance. The shoe rack shelves were authentic ebony to obscure any errant marks and long and tall to fit all manner of gentlemanly needs, from the conference room to the ski slope. There were floor-to-ceiling hangers for your great coats and the like, with drawers and shelves beside them for cufflinks and various accessories. The only homage to a more rustic existence was the red cedar backer board tastefully hidden away, filling the space with that oh-so-manly scent and acting as a natural insect repellant. The double doors had full-length mirrors to match the one in the center of the closet and allowed you to make a three-way mirror when opened at the correct angles. All three reflected an extremely handsome former meathead, examining his tragic collection of clothes. I hummed at the dirty sneakers on the shoe rack, arms crossed, one hand stroking my chin, and turned my eyes to the basketball jersey hanging on the rack next to an old shirt I''d cut the sleeves off of. Why had I even bothered hanging that? "Something''s not adding up here, James buddy," I said to myself. "I know," I replied. "These clothes look perfectly normal when they''re not in a millionaire sex pest''s closet. Now they''re giving: kept Bull staying in a wealthy couples'' guest room." That wasn''t great; I already had the vibe of a guy you could hire to fuck your wife. I wasn''t trying to lean into the look. Maybe I''d invite one of my ¨C hm, what was I calling them? Girlfriends didn''t sound right ¨C maybe I''d ask a friend or two if they wanted to help me pick out some new clothes. Maki was a conscientious dresser even when she''d been ludicrously depressed, and Annie would probably enjoy dressing me up like a Ken doll. In the other room, Smoothie was eating his third wet food meal of the day. As usual for the former street cat, that meant that he was alternating between taking small bites of his tuna and sprinting wildly across the apartment. It was a hell of a meal routine, but who was I to judge? The little man had been eating trash out of the gutter and sleeping under dumpsters two days prior; I''d celebrate too. I tilted my head, pausing all thoughts about fashion to listen in on the kitten. Smoothie had started hissing at something near the kitchen. Normally, that meant he''d slipped and collided with a piece of furniture or a wall and, as was his nature, had responded with blind aggression, attacking everything within reach. This time, however, I hadn''t heard the typical scramble of claw on wood or the soft thwap of his semi-liquid cat body meeting a hard surface. I darted for my door when the hisses grew mixed with pathetic wails and desperate meowing, and poked my head out. By the food dish lay the immense girth of a rat, tuna juices gleaming on his whiskers. It had paused its feasting to look back at the kitten entangled in its tail with embarrassed amusement, an odd expression to see from a rat, to be sure. Smoothie, for all his valiant effort, had gotten his front paws bound together rather effortlessly in a single loop of the porcine sewer demon''s tail. He was attempting to kick and claw with his rear legs, but any time he came close, the rat spun him away, mopping the kitchen floor with his ginger fur. Fiend! I instantly clamped down on my rage at seeing the rat terrorizing my kitchen once more and vanished into the Crouching Tiger Stance. The creature was a master of ninjutsu and could sense intentions better than I and most human martial artists could, but luckily, it seemed I had been fast enough to enter the stealth stance. My nemesis showed no reaction, continuing to play with Smoothie while taking little nibbles of tuna from the dish. He was surprisingly gentle with the kitten, even scooching over and bringing Smoothie over to the other side of the bowl to show that they could share. The cat wasn''t having it, though, attacking with all the fury his three-pound body could muster. I''d have to send Joseph Mao a thankyou card sometime; he''d managed to find me a true warrior. Or at least a violent maniac, which would work just as well for my goals. Thattaboy, Smoothie! Get his ass! As loathe as I was to admit it, this was an objectively adorable display, and I was grateful the rat was showing so much restraint with my boy. However, I couldn''t let the little bastard think he could buy his way into my good graces with a few Looney Toons-esque shenanigans, no matter how cute they were. I''d spare him by abstaining from outright Murderous Damage, but that was the only concession he''d get from me. I moved quickly, staying low and stalking a circuitous route around the living room area of the apartment to the other side of the half wall that separated the kitchen from the hallway, making sure to block any potential line of sight with various pieces of furniture. My plan was to switch from the Crouching Tiger to the Happy Idiot before springing my attack. The latter Stance, I was hoping, would foil the ninja rat''s danger sense. But, as soon as I was crouched nearby, Smoothie ceased hissing and began to exclusively meow desperately, his enchanted Familiar''s Collar informing him where I was at all times. There came a curious squeak from the kitchen, the rodent equivalent of, ''Hm?'' I pounced before he could realize what was happening. One hand outstretched in an Eagle''s Talon, I leaped, arcing up and over the half wall to dive-bomb the rat. Despite the fact that I was still immersed in the Crouching Tiger, the vermin tensed, and his eyes showed no difficulty locking on to the oncoming Talon. I''d anticipated that, though. My other hand hung back and caught the countertop with a thumb just as I was fully perpendicular to the ground and inches away from striking my target. That slight arresting of my momentum allowed me both the time and the precision to torque my entire body in a fraction of a second into a vicious kick. My left foot traveled in a perfect half-circle from the twelve o''clock position to the six, aimed directly at the rat''s skull. I was mature enough to admit that I''d lost both of our previous engagements quite badly. He had used his ninjutsu to utterly humiliate me, smacking whatever ego I had to the ground. I''d come a long way since then. Within those milliseconds, we were both blurs, faster than any untrained eye could hope to track, but I, and my eleven Successes, proved ever so slightly superior. The rat was already dodging before my foot was halfway to its destination, but I shifted my angle of attack by a few degrees, letting my big toe scoop under his body and sending him flying into the tile backsplash across the way. He went semi-gelatinous, using his bulk to absorb the impact like a gel toy, and bounced onto the stove below unharmed. It wasn''t a technique I could replicate unless I wanted to put on about a hundred pounds of fat, but I filed it away for potential future students of mine with bigger bodies. Rats were social animals and enjoyed games and puzzles. I had, in the past, gotten the impression that the creature liked getting caught and bumbling cartoonishly away as much as he did gorging himself on my stolen groceries. There was none of that this time; he reacted with pure bestial panic. He twitched to face me, eyes flashing a dark purple, and two spikes of Divine Qi, similar but different to the power I''d felt within the Peach of Immortality, hit my brain like darts. My Special Feat Impossible Determination activated automatically, and I took an immediate point of temporary Willpower Damage in order to try and resist his enchantment. The feat was my only defense against supernatural abilities that wouldn''t normally allow Willpower rolls, things like a vampire''s hypnosis, a dragon''s fear, or, apparently, my rat nemesis''s more impressive genjutsu. The room around me began to melt and blur together like a runny painting, but I powered through the effect with a loud, involuntary shout. "KAA!" We both froze, neither of us, I think, sure of where to take things from here. Smoothie, on the other hand, did that weird arched side-run that kittens sometimes did to make themselves look big and charged in the direction of the stove. His antics deflated some of the tension in the room and, with it, left our fighting spirit. I had resisted the illusion, but the aftereffects of Impossible Determination were a sort of static buzz in my head and an unpleasant ozone smell, as though I''d just come down from strong psychedelics; all I really wanted to do at that moment was to sit down and have a fresh cup of coffee. In turn, whatever technique the rat had used had left him looking older and more brittle, having rapidly greyed the hairs around his snout. It was mutually obvious that neither of us wanted to push the fight further. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. That didn''t mean I wasn''t still upset. I pointed accusatorily. "Who the hell steals food from a baby, you bastard!?" I don''t know what motivated me to start yelling at him like he was a person. Maybe my brain was still short-circuiting from the genjutsu. The rat gave me a sheepish look, if such a thing was possible, and scratched his nose as if to say, ''I only took a little.'' Then he twitched his whiskers and tapped one of his back feet in the direction of the cabinet where I kept Smoothie''s tuna cans. I got the distinct impression he was saying something like, ''It''s not like the child would have starved.'' My mouth fell open. "What kind of excuse is that!? He''s a growing boy! Why do you even come to this apartment? I''m the only person on this block who could even conceivably stop you from robbing them." He quirked his head. The little shit, he hadn''t ever considered it before. Finally, a mischievous twinkle appeared in his eye, an unmistakable and universal, ''It''s fun, isn''t it?'' I snapped my fingers and sent two tendrils of flame from the gas stoves on either side of him whipping towards the rat. He gave a panicked squeak and vanished in a puff of cherry blossom petals. "Tch. Asshole. I''m using lethal force next time." Smoothie, who didn''t have line-of-sight to the stovetop and was too afraid to jump up, continued hissing while doing a series of false charges. His bravado totally left him as soon as I scooped him up. I could tell that he''d be peacefully asleep soon, but in the meantime, he started purring and buried his head into the crook of my arm, his claws trying to find purchase in my Force Armor as he clung to me for safety. I wondered if he would develop Divine Qi on his own or if that was a quirk of living in the sewers and eating undigested remains of Peaches of Immortality and whatever else ended up down there. There were stories of animals ascending into divinity, but I couldn''t remember how much of that was from mythology and how much was from broader, modern fantasy. "You were so brave!" I started peppering his fur with kisses. Smoothie squirmed, suddenly disinterested in being held. "Yes, you were! Yes, you were! You''re going to be my fearsome temple lion when you grow up, aren''t you?" I decided to go with my blue-grey and white Black Harbor Peregrines basketball jersey for the date. Cavalcante might have called it classless for a night out, but the little Milanese tailor was in his mid-seventies, and the times had changed. I couldn''t be seen walking around Harbor Hill in golf wear; I''d look ridiculous. For my pants, I''d busted out basically new black joggers that had a pattern of golden claw marks on the upper thighs. They had been a birthday gift from one of my uncles in Hunan, but I''d never worn them out before. As cool as they looked, they were too close to something a Tiger member would wear, I figured. Now, that only added a zest of delicious irony. Frankly, I thought I looked great, and not just because I could make anything look good. This was a tight outfit, apart from the sneakers. Unfortunately, those were a bit busted. I wasn''t a sneakerhead and had a tendency to push any shoes I bought well past their limits before I replaced them. Luckily, I was taking two eighteen-year-old girls out tonight, who weren''t typically known for their exacting standards. The stories my friends would tell me about their first boyfriends were often as comical as they were sad. What horniness did to the teenage brain could not be underestimated; they had tolerated things like a guy who used layered sleeping beds on the floor instead of a mattress, and another who was constantly muddy because he thought it was cool to ride a dirt bike through the woods to school every morning. Ratty sneakers were more than forgivable in that light. I was even past the usual idiosyncrasies for a guy in his mid-twenties, i.e., my bed had sheets, my cat had a clean litter box, and I didn''t drink milk straight out of the jug. Granted, the last one was because Alan''s influence had heightened the standards I held myself to, but they didn''t need to know that. I paused at the entrance to Marianne''s building, my finger hovering above her buzzer, and frowned. Thinking about being half Alan had been the wrong move just now; I''d deliberately been avoiding the thought for a reason. Shania and her friend were legal, and the age difference wasn''t that weird considering that James Li wasn''t only four years older than them, but I was also part thirty-something. And that thirty-something wasn''t from a porn world where it was apparently acceptable for even reasonable people like Marianne to ask their hot neighbors to bang their daughter. Alan was decidedly queasy about the request, more so than he had been about Maki''s sexuality. She was mature and intelligent, probably more than our combined self was, and had genuinely convinced herself that I had ascended sex and gender, viewing me as more Kami than human. There had also been the glow of battle, multiple near misses with death, and the effects of a powerful emotional catharsis to take into account. This was closer to a classic, sleazy seduction; even disregarding the age difference, these were high school girls with no relation to the Underworld. Getting involved with them put them at risk for more than a broken heart. Do it for the Experience, I told myself. Plus, when in Rome ¨C if Marianne thinks this is okay, then it must be okay. She''s our most normal friend, our rock for what''s considered normal; we''ve got to trust her for that. My finger remained motionless where it was. I sighed. We''ll play it by ear. If we aren''t feeling it, we aren''t feeling it. But the girls still need someone to escort them to and from the movies. I pressed the buzzer; it was broken. "Fucking slum lord piece of shit," I grumbled, taking out my phone to text the girls that I was outside. Shania and her friend ran down to meet me instead of letting me up. Marianne''s daughter had put on understated makeup and an apron dress with a simple white blouse and black tights on underneath. Her friend, who she introduced as Aminah, had very light brown skin and was otherwise dressed for a sleepover at a friend''s in jeans, a long-sleeve band shirt, and no makeup. She also wore a hijab, which reminded me that her very religious parents were under the impression that I was supposed to be no more than a kindly older neighbor and friend of Marianne''s, and that this was supposed to be a chaste, quiet evening. The physical reminder of the taboo sent an electric shiver down my spine. Uh oh, thought my Alan half. Well, you learn something new every day. James was ambivalent; a babe was a babe was a babe to him. But Alan, it appeared, had discovered a late-in-life kink ¨C for what, exactly? Was it the teenage rebellion, the idea of a religious girl ''going wild''? It was impossible to say - that part of me was steadfastly and stubbornly refusing to reflect on the discovery. I gave my Alan side a mental squeeze of the shoulder. It is what it is, big dog. You can''t control these things, brother. Not without going back in time and stopping yourself from jerking off to nun porn as a teenager, presumably, and that would only butterfly effect you into a weirder kink. I was struck with the urge to get a move on and smiled. Precisely half of me was finding this extremely amusing. "We still have about thirty minutes before I figured we''d head out," I said, checking the time. "Did you guys want to grab a bite or something?" The girls shared a look and giggled. I suspected there would be a lot of that tonight. "Actually," started Shania, nervous for whatever reason, "we saw that you adopted a kitten¡ª" "Smoothie!" added Aminah. "We''re big fans." I nodded. "As you ought to be." They giggled; I wasn''t sure what the joke was. I''d only stated a fact. "You guys want to meet him? I need to get him more adjusted to other people anyway." "Yes, please!" "I''ll warn you, he''s still a bit feral. Smoothie is of the streets, you see." Escort Mission 2 "Smoothie!" I chided, arms crossed in disappointment. "What happened to your warrior''s pride? Three treats and a makeshift toy were all it took for you to abandon your hood ways, little man?" Smoothie ignored me. He was otherwise occupied on his back in Aminah''s lap, purring and batting at the tassels of her head scarf while the girls cooed over him. Aminah laughed. "All boys from the streets really want are a lap pillow and a little affection. Isn''t that right, Smoothie?" "Amen," I grumbled. "Guess I can''t be too mad about it. At least he''s not freaking out." "Aminah''s really good with animals," added Shania, beaming at her friend. "She got offered a full-ride into BHU''s Animal Science into Veterinarian Medicine accelerated program." Aminah blushed and ducked her head to hide her embarrassment. "They offer scholarships for combined programs to everyone who gets a medal at the Black Harbor Science Fair." "Still sick, though. You going to take it? That''s like, big bucks, no?" "Almost two hundred thousand dollars," she said with a sigh. "I probably should just for that, but I was hoping to get some distance from my parents." I watched Shania''s reaction carefully. She sunk in on herself while throwing on a pained but supportive expression, trying to hide the fear of her best friend moving out of Black Harbor so as not to unduly influence her decision. It was a mature take from the girl, but as was to be expected from Marianne''s first child. I''d been on both sides of this conflict in the past, as James watching his friends leave the city, and as Alan, leaving his home state for a college a full connecting flight away. It was an unfortunate but near-universal coming-of-age ritual in a country as large as the United States. "Pretty strict, huh? I know that life. My mother banned me from her kung fu school for years after I decided to become an actor instead of going to college, and it''s in the same building as her apartment. I had to walk past classes half the times I visited. She gave me a coloring book on my birthday that year, and said, ''Here, a baby book for your baby brain.'' Then she laughed at her own joke and stared me down." I smiled fondly. Even at the time, it had been too good a burn for me to be upset. "Ma loves antagonizing. She really revels in it whenever she gets the chance. I honestly think she put off renovating her place just so we could smash it up guilt-free in a fight." Shania''s eyes widened. "You got into a real, physical, fight with your mom?" "Sure did, rendered her apartment uninhabitable too, gave her an excuse to finally swap the wallpaper out. Won''t be the last fight either; she was practically buzzing afterwards. I eked out a win, so she''ll be fiending for a rematch. I don''t mind, but I feel terrible for the neighbors. Ma kicked a hole into the foundation, and her apartment''s on the third floor." I shook my head. "Asian parents, eh? I''m sure you can relate." Aminah laughed. "I think that might be unique to your family, James." "Hm, you think so? That would explain the lack of collateral damage in Chinatown you''d expect to see. I''m always surprised at how few couches are flying through exterior walls when I''m walking around." The girls had entered my bachelor pad nervous, Aminah more so than Shania, and had been immediately intimidated by what they''d seen. I found the apartment''s aesthetic to be barely tolerable, but if I took a step back and ignored my general low-level resentment towards the Producers, it was top-notch interior design. The art and lighting interplayed with one another, the cabinetry accented the hardwood floors, which equally suited the wood of the furniture, and nowhere was far from staggering examples of silk rugs and tapestries. You could disagree with the taste, and I did, but the place screamed money and had a cohesive style to it that was rare outside of film, something typically reserved for the idle rich. This was not a home you would expect to find underneath a husk of a building still lacking walls and floors due to a poorly conceived insurance scam. It was far from what the two teens could have expected, and I could see the imposter syndrome settling in on their features and nervous mannerisms. Between the apartment, my superhuman appearance, and small but growing local fame, I had a mountain to climb if I wanted the girls to relax and open up around me. It was essentially impossible for me to come across as a normal guy, probably because I demonstrably wasn''t, but there were other strategies I could use. To get Shania to stop thinking of me as her mom''s friend, and start thinking of me as someone much closer to her age, I''d brought up my own complicated but ultimately positive relationship with my mother. It was hard to tell if it had worked or not; she was too naturally reserved to read. Unlike Maki''s cousin, Susy, who had become more and more talkative as she relaxed, I had a feeling Shania would only become more comfortable in the silence, especially in a group setting. Her friend Aminah''s hangups, though, not to diminish them, were very easy to read. I had two lifetimes around girls like her. Nasim, who was currently stuck as a homicidal Norwegian alcoholic somewhere in magical Mexico, had his own quiet struggles with faith. It was rare that he''d open up about them, but we had known each other for long enough that I had a standing invite to all Eid celebrations at his parents'' home, and had been to more than a few community gatherings over the years. I couldn''t say I understood what it meant to be an American-born Muslim struggling with your ethnic and religious identity, but I could recognize the signs well enough. And while Black Harbor may have been a solid drive from Edison, a town that was fifty percent Asian, New Jersey as a whole had an enormous population of Desis, enough that my high school had more people try out for the bhangra team than it did cheerleading for three out of my four years there. In her head, Aminah just wanted to be ''normal''. As an adult, I knew that there was no such thing as a ''normal'' adolescence, not in my past world, and certainly not in this fucking hentai nightmare. But she wanted to participate in the usual teen fantasies that the media insisted were cultural touchstones, things like going to prom, house parties, and a first kiss with an ill-fated but developmentally important teen romance. Or that was the vibe I''d gotten from an early Insight roll, at least. What I was certain of, though, even without the system, was that she really didn''t want to come across as weird or strange. That was great for me. I was objectively the strangest person in this room, and it didn''t take a lot of work to prove that. All I had to do was be honest about any aspect of my life. I had intentionally failed to relate to Aminah with the hope of calming her worries about standing out. No matter how strict her parents were, they couldn''t be nearly as ludicrously belligerent as Ma, and no matter what her take on her own family situation was, it could not be stranger than my fond acceptance of the Li-Family''s violent idiosyncrasies. It seemed to work. She took off her headscarf, ostensibly so that Smoothie could better play with it, and revealed a waterfall of shiny black hair. I admired the sight openly, even rolling an Acting check to nonverbally communicate my appreciation, earning a small, embarrassed smile for the effort. "I''d say my parents are more passive-aggressive and annoying than actually strict," said Aminah with a sigh. "I don''t know what they''d do if I ever broke one of their rules because I never do. But my sister''s been cohabitating with her boyfriend, and my brother has tattoos and drinks, and my parents can''t go a full conversation without reprimanding them. They both get a lot of ''So you don''t love me then?'' and ''Why are you trying to give me a heart attack?'' I get mini-panic attacks just hearing those said to them; I don''t know what I''d do if they were directed at me." She froze and blushed, having said more than she''d probably intended. "Sorry, I didn''t mean to overshare." "Nah, you''re good. I''m just happy that you''re comfortable in my home. You can say whatever. I''m big on hospitality." I closed my eyes and tried to recall the Intro to Hindi we had to take in middle school. "M-mera ghar hai," I said slowly, "apka ghar?" Aminah hid a giggle behind her hand at the atrocious pronunciation and probably incorrect translation of ''my house is your house''. "Shukriya, bhai. That was really good, by the way!" "C''mon, you can be honest with me." "It was perfectly functional," she amended. "But saying anything in Urdu as a non-Desi is an immediate S-tier social strat, so I stand by what I said." I pumped my fist. "Yes! I''ll take that. I still don''t understand what the difference between those languages is, and I wasn''t trying to speak Urdu, but a win''s a win." "It''s okay. Don''t tell anyone, but other than the alphabet, I''m also not sure what the deal is. We speak English at home anyway." She smiled, the first I''d seen from her where she was fully at ease. The expression lit up her face and sent an electric shiver through me. I realized my cheeks were warm and reflexively turned away, only to catch a knowing look from Shania, a pleased glint in her eye. Aminah was pretty, make no mistake, but it had been the level of earnest warmth and joy directed at me that had done me in there. For a moment, she had radiated peace and acceptance. Men had died just for the dream of returning home to a look like that, from a wife like her. I get it now, Smoothie, I thought at the cat who looked to be content spending eternity being pampered in Aminah''s lap. You are forgiven, young warrior. You may continue to revel in your lap pillow. Beyond the Insight check, I''d forgone rolling any directed Social Skills at the girls; for one, I didn''t think I needed them, and two, it made Alan''s psyche feel better about any potential seduction. But even ignoring whatever mysterious kink for religious girls he''d discovered, Alan was a sucker for a pretty smile; he might feel guilty after the fact, but I was hearing no protests now. Besides, I couldn''t let such a talented young woman leave Black Harbor without a fight. We needed every decent human being we could get. I rolled my Charisma + Seduction, almost splitting the pool between the girls, not wanting Shania to feel left out, but I had to trust that she was intelligent enough to understand what I was doing. She didn''t want Aminah to leave Black Harbor either. Nor was she displaying even the slightest bit of jealousy and, interestingly enough, seemed singularly proud of her friend for catching my attention. Goddamn, how did I only get three Successes? I had an outrageous 18 Dice in the Pool when in the basement apartment, and a guaranteed Success to seduce her for having rescued her friend from a mugging. At least Alan didn''t have to feel guilty. Three Successes would be enough to accomplish what I was going for while still far outside the realm of ''mind control'' or anything so sinister. I gave the girl a cheesy and mischievous smirk. It was my ''I''m about to unapologetically commit a social faux pas'' smile. "So, are you comfortable enough for me to try and convince you to take the BHU scholarship? As a proud townie, I''m obligated to give it a shot, but I know how rude it can be when people give unsolicited advice on major life decisions." She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I''d expect nothing less from a townie. But I''ll still be grateful if you can convince me one way or the other. I''ve only got until December to make a decision, and it''s been kind of driving me crazy. My MMR on League has tanked since I got the offer." Oh god no. League of Legends existed here too? This truly was a horror universe. "If it makes it better, I am uniquely suited to offer some expertise here as someone who successfully rebelled and now has a better relationship than before with his mother." My mind unhelpfully flooded me with sense memories of her sweat-covered body clinging to mine in the afterglow of our fight over the Peach. Maybe ''better'' had been the wrong word to use. We were closer though, that was for sure. I continued, "How much older are your siblings, by the way?" Shania jumped in and teased, "Aminah''s the baby." Aminah stuck her tongue out at her. "Stay mad. I''ll still have youngest privilege." They shared a laugh. "My brother''s ten years older and my sister''s twelve." "Oh wow. You are the baby. I''m surprised they aren''t more overbearing." "Ugh. I know! It''s so annoying. And it''s because they only got religious after visiting my dad''s parents in Balochistan ten years ago. Supposedly, the village had a black magic problem or something ¨C I''d tell you more, but I wasn''t there and they''ve refused to elaborate even though I''ve asked a million times. Before that though, they were almost agnostic with their approach to religion; there''s even pictures of my mom dancing in a skirt at a concert in Karachi in the eighties, which is so unbelievably unfair. They don''t even know that much about Islam; they''re just terrified of warlocks and the Devil." "Black magic? That could mean a lot of things." I said, eyebrows raised. "But yeah, that complicates things for sure. Think I''d also find religion in their position." I shuddered, recalling the tentacles bursting out of the waiter''s corpse last night. "Take anything I could get, honestly." Both girls were looking worriedly at me, so I moved on, "Anyway, it''s good news your siblings are so much older. You can turn to them for help instead of your parents if it ever did blow up bad, not that it sounds like that''s on the table. Your parents still have your siblings over, right?" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. "Of course," she said, sounding offended on their behalf, "they''d never turn away family." "Nice. So, all you really need to do is go from ''baby'' to ''other daughter'' in their minds." "Yes, exactly!" said Aminah excitedly. She and Shania both perked up, sharing a look between them that said something along the lines of, ''Is it about to be this easy?'' These two wallflowers were running an op on me? Hilarious. I deliberately avoided rolling an Insight on whatever the girls were up to. Friday was the start of the weekend, and it was much more fun to let this play out. The thought of two untrained teenage girls pulling one over on me successfully after my hellish evening at the Kingfisher tickled me. "You sound like you already had something in mind." "We do¡­" Aminah tensed and bit her lip, barely resisting an urge to look to Shania for reassurance. I suppressed a smile, eager to see what plan they''d come up with. "Feel free to say no, and I''m not positive how well it would work, but would it be too much to ask you to maybe talk to them?" I had to give it to them, I genuinely hadn''t seen that coming. "Ha! Yeah, I''m sure that''ll go great. ''Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Akhtar, I''m the guy everyone thought was squatting in that building without floors¡ªoh," I paused at their expressions, "you''re serious. You," I said slowly, "want me to talk to your parents about their parenting style?" "It''s okay if you don''t want to." "No, no, it''s not that," I said quickly. I was positive that this was some combination of my Feats Paragon of Filial Piety and Hero''s Harem, but I was at a loss as to what could be happening in their brains to justify it on their end. "It''s just, what makes you think that it could work? I''m a barely employed stunt actor and am, not to besmirch the noble profession of a youxia, technically a criminal vigilante. Plus, I don''t know them at all ¨C which is, now that I think of it, maybe a positive considering the criminal vigilante thing." They stared at me as if I had said something completely absurd. "Of course, they''d listen to you. Shania is like my sister, which means you''ve already saved their daughter from a mugging. You''re also a master martial artist, and everyone knows that means you''re wise¡ª" "What. Every single master I know except one has been the craziest person I''ve ever met," I interrupted, suddenly very serious. I could not let such ridiculous misinformation stand. "They''re all insane in their own, special ways. Now, Pak Hadiman, that''s a Grade A solid dude, right there." She giggled. "Well, yeah, they can be super weird, but that doesn''t mean they aren''t wise. Plus, you''re the town hero. People might not know that yet, but they will soon. There''s at best three-degrees of separation between James Li and anyone else in Black Harbor. You haven''t seen the game where people tag their mutuals until they connect themselves to you going on in the comments under your videos?" "Huh." I didn''t know how to feel about that. "Not really, I leave that stuff to Annie. I''m mostly watching parkour or martial arts videos when I''m online." "That''s probably healthy; it kind of sketches me out at times, very parasocial. But what''s important is that even my super not online parents could easily find multiple people they trust who would vouch for you." "Mom''s been much happier and visibly less stressed since she met you," added Shania. "I''m sure they''ve noticed. I know Shaun, Darius, and I have. She talks about you more than I think she realizes." I felt my cheeks warm again. "I''m glad to hear that; she deserves the world. But let''s be clear, Captain America had a job with government benefits; I''m two different kinds of professional dumbass." "Agree to disagree. But we¡ª" Aminah cleared her throat, her cheeks reddening. Shania started nervously playing with the hem of her apron dress. "We did think of a backup plan." Aha! So, this was their strategy all along. Very clever, of course they''d anticipated that I wouldn''t want to have an awkward conversation with her parents. That was merely the softening blow, to make me more agreeable to the supposed ''alternative'' idea. I could practically smell the seduction attempt they were putting together; if I had to guess, their proposal would be something along the lines of a mock date in order to get her parents to think of her as an adult. Well, let''s see how thorough their social flow chart was. "No, it''s cool. If it means you''ll stick around in the city, I''ll do it." Aminah''s eyes widened. "Oh! You will?" She shot a panicked look at her friend. "G-great! If you can get them to relax, then I''d definitely feel comfortable with accepting the Black Harbor University scholarship. It''s the best offer I''ve gotten anyway." Should I have allowed them to try their pre-planned seduction? Obviously, yes, it was the simplest way to accomplish what I''d already been intending. But what could I say? It was just too fun teasing potential romantic partners, and playing the oblivious dope was a lot more enjoyable when the stakes weren''t life-or-death. Shania gulped, throat dry, and stepped up for her friend. "Do you want to hear the backup plan? We could maybe do both; they are compatible." For a second, I contemplated continuing to play the part of the shonen harem anime protagonist by comically shutting her down, but I was doing this date because Marianne wanted to encourage Shania to be more social and take more risks. It would be cruel of me to not agree. "Sure." "Aminah''s parents have been talking about getting her some self-defense classes. We thought maybe if she asked to train with you, then they would have to, um, you know¡­" Shania was too dark to blush, but I could practically see the heat lines in the air around her face as she trailed off in embarrassment. Her friend tagged in, powering through her own crushing awkwardness. "They''d have to acknowledge that I''m a woman and not their little girl. We thought that the only thing that would beat out their desire to protect me from sin would be their desire to protect me from harm." I quirked my head, confused. "Why, though? I don''t understand." Aminah looked to Shania for help, but the smaller girl seemed to be on the verge of passing out from humiliation. "There''s, uh, you know, like a, a¡ª" I held a hand up and rolled a quick Charisma check to calm them down, putting on a zen expression of calm. As fun as it was to tease them, I really did want to know what they were getting at. "It''s okay. I''m not going to be mad; I''m just curious." Aminah let out a long breath. "Sorry, I don''t know why I thought¡ªwell, um, there''s a rumor, I''m realizing now, that you and your student do tantric rituals while training. I''m embarrassed to admit that I believed them; there''s, I guess, a kind of tension," her voice squeaked, "between you and Annie Shine in your videos together." I face-palmed and bit back a groan. The Producers had ''Rewarded'' me with a Feat a while back called Lord Byron''s Luck that made rumors of my debauchery proliferate outside of my control, a supposedly positive effect. It made sense that it would come back into play in this scenario; if I recalled correctly, I''d been given the Feat for having a sex scene with Marianne that didn''t put me at risk of alienating Shania as a future lover. I winced, glancing at Shania. That presumably meant she was already aware of my shower with her mother. "Ehem, right. No comment there, but just so you know, Annie is a closed-door student and my apprentice. How I¡­instruct her, is necessarily different from how I teach others. But, wait, shit, doesn''t your plan imply your parents believe that rumor?" Aminah, still red though less so now, replied, "My mom tutted disapprovingly when I was watching one of your training videos but she didn''t make me turn it off like she normally would. I assumed that meant she had looked you up after Marianne had mentioned you or something. That was the only reason I could think she''d put up with me watching two scantily clad, athletes of different genders get all sweaty. Again, I''m really sorry¡ª" Shania added, "We''re sorry. I didn''t think twice when I saw the rumor either. It''s the prevailing belief online, and historically, people are aware that there have been sexual means to training martial arts for thousands of years." I nodded, staring into the middle distance as I cursed the Producers once more. "Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Sick. Dope." "Are you mad at us?" asked Aminah. "Huh? Oh no! God, sorry. Whatever you were detecting there was directed exclusively at, I guess you could call it Fame in general. I''m still unaccustomed to celebrity. Not thrilled," I added, tone sharpening, "that Black City Kung Fu is already linked to sex and perversion, but I don''t have anyone but myself to blame there." Not true, I primarily blamed SkinDimensional Media. "For the record, I''m more than happy to train either or both of you, and, as long as Shania''s little brothers or any other minors aren''t present, I can show you some more ''adult'' training techniques if you would like. They do work better; there''s no getting around that." The girls froze, either processing my words or stuck somewhere in fantasy. I crossed my arms at them. "Well? The Master of Black City Kung Fu has accepted you as his students. Celebrate appropriately. You''re going to hurt my feelings with this silence." That snapped them back to reality. Aminah somehow jumped in her seat without disturbing the now-napping Smoothie. "Oh my God! Are you serious?" "Are you serious? Because it''s going to be extremely difficult at times. Annie had the physical conditioning to jump right into the skill lessons. You guys are going to have to transform yourselves through pain. And full context, your master is involved in a gang war, so think very carefully about this. Annie and I can keep you off the internet, and I know you were already in considerable danger as teenage girls living in Harbor Hill, but it''s something to keep in mind." She clapped her hands. "Yes! I promise to take it super seriously." Shania nodded, looking more nervous than her friend. "If you think I can learn, then I''d like to try." She held up her meager arm and flexed a famished bicep. "I''ve been, you know, like this for as long as I can remember." I smiled. "You can learn for sure; everyone starts somewhere. If you put in the work on your end, then I promise I can make you a badass." I turned to Aminah. "And I promise you that you can feel safe in accepting that scholarship. I''ll do everything in my power to let you feel comfortable exploring yourself in Black Harbor. Our school doesn''t have enough students to lose one to helicopter parenting. Shit, I''ll fly my ass to Balochi¡ªuh, wherever¡ª" "Balochistan," she corrected. "Yeah, there, to beat up however many evil wizards as I''ve got to, to prove to your parents that God gave mankind fists to protect themselves, not overly involved religious doctrines. The only rules you need to know are: train hard, eat well, have fun, and get enough rest." I paused ¨C again, there was that sense of d¨¦j¨¤ vu. That was twice today. Shaking it off, I continued, "Not that I''m against religious doctrines. You do you. I''m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I actually think that in this universe, every religion is somehow correct, like both the polytheistic and monotheistic ones. Don''t ask me to elaborate on that because I can''t, but I''ll stand by that opinion regardless." Aminah giggled. "It''s okay, I get it. And thank you! Thank you so much! Excuse me, Mr. Smoothie." She scooped the kitten off her lap and gently deposited him to the side before pouncing on Shania in a hug. "Eeeh! Shanny! This means we get to keep going to school together!" Smoothie glowered sleepily at the girls. I picked him up and held him to my chest. "Yeah, life''s not fair, is it, bud?" I said in Mandarin, scratching him under the chin. I was trying to acclimate him to the tonal language.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Convince Aminah Akhtar to remain in Black Harbor for college. Reward: 5XP Bonus, Took her as a student: +1 Animal Handling Bonus, In front of her best friend: Gain Relationship Token x2
Cute! I thought as I read the pop-up. The Rewards were a bit anemic compared to my more debaucherous Quests, but it was always nice to see a wholesome message from the Producers; the fact that I could conceivably become stronger through simple, non-violent, non-lascivious good deeds made all the other bullshit they put me through more tolerable. It also reminded me, I needed to buy into Animal Handling before I got any Quest Rewards for seducing Aminah. That seemed to be one of her main talents and it was a Skill I was after in order to make Smoothie the martial arts master he was destined to be. Shania started sobbing in the hug as months'' long tension left her. "Aww, what''s wrong, Shanny?" asked Aminah, stroking the shorter girl''s natural hair. The black girl knocked her glasses off while trying to wipe her tears which in turn only made her cry harder. She choked out, "-fraid you''d leave. Sorry." "Shanny! You should have said something." "Sorry." I whispered in Chinese to Smoothie as the girls hugged harder and Aminah began to cry as well. "No way am I sticking around for this part. That''s our cue to make a pot of tea." Escort Mission 3 It was past time to get moving once the girls had calmed down. Shania had to reapply her makeup, and Aminah had taken the opportunity to put some on as well. Otherwise, I''d have shown them a few balance drills they could add to their nightly routines. Unfortunately, we couldn''t skip the movie entirely to train. The teenage overachievers had to watch the historical drama we were heading to for one of their college-level English courses by Monday and were otherwise busy the remainder of the weekend. I was of mixed opinions about that, and had almost made a Charisma check to talk them out of it. James thought it was overly demanding to assign a movie only in theaters over the weekend, but Alan remembered all too well the insane workloads English professors had felt comfortable handing out. Ultimately, I''d decided that it would be fun to have a date that didn''t involve any fighting and that I owed it to Marianne to treat the girls to a proper night out. Harbor Hill was busy in the late afternoon light. The residents of the neighborhood liked to get their tasks finished before dark when the violent crime rate spiked precipitously, but it wasn''t like they lived in an open-air prison. People still tried to enjoy their weekends; they just had to be more sensible than those who were more privileged to live elsewhere. Those who were stocking up on groceries and alcohol were moving in small groups, and those who weren''t were moving quickly to their destinations. The locals had acclimated to the state of fear; Shania and Aminah, for example, walking on either side of me, had subconsciously switched their purses to hang between us. They''d been so trained by the threat of purse-snatchers that they''d done it without thinking. As a transplant, it pained me to see all the little behaviors and signs that painted a broader, bloodier picture of the neighborhood. Chinatown Fridays were practically a neighborhood-wide party with a small grill and plastic chairs set up outside of almost every residential building. Here, if people saw a grill outside an apartment, they switched sidewalks and walked faster, avoiding eye contact with whoever was so bold as to claim the territory openly. Pathetic. Had I not been immersed in the Happy Idiot, I might have found it enraging, but as it was, all I wanted to do was to get Shania and Aminah to the movies and back without trouble, hence the stealth Stance. It was an odd sensation to be back in the Stance for more than a minute at a go. Maybe I was being hyperaware and paranoid, but I could feel it this time ¨C the clean high, neither euphoric nor psychedelic, but there all the same. My inhibitions weren''t affected, not to the same degree as alcohol, at least, and I wasn''t dissociating. On the contrary, it was as if I was entirely present, to a perhaps negative degree. The future felt far away, and the past was nothing more than context with no undue weight on what was happening; neither felt particularly important, certainly not more so than the now. Talking and the reminder that I had two very vulnerable companions was helping though. As long as I had to take care of Shania and Aminah, I couldn''t see myself making the same mistakes I had at Denny''s repair shop or the Kingfisher. "How''s it work, anyway?" I asked. "If one of you is in the school for veterinary medicine and the other is in the regular school of medicine, do you share any classes? There''s got to be some crossover. We''re all animals at the end of the day." "I don''t know," said Aminah, tucking a stray strand of black hair under her hijab. "One of the buildings on campus is shared by both schools, though. Anyway, Shania isn''t even sure she wants to be a doctor. That''s just something she tells Marianne so she doesn''t have a panic attack about her potentially having to take out student loans to get a Classics degree." "Mina," hissed Shania. "They''re friends." "What? I''m sure James can keep a secret." "Of course!" I exclaimed proudly. "I''m a master martial artist. I''ve got so many secret techniques, it''s crazy. Besides, I''m going to start paying Marianne fat stacks anytime she has to stitch me up after a fight, so she''ll probably be less stressed about money in general soon. I get maimed like every other day on average." The girls looked horrified. Whoops. Probably shouldn''t have said that. "Haha. Kidding, kidding," I added unconvincingly. "So, you want to do Classics, huh? Speak on that." Shania shook her head at the audacity of the topic change but obliged me. "Well, I love history, I''m okay with philosophy as long as it isn''t German, and I''m really good with Latin and Ancient Greek, so it just makes sense to keep it going in college. Med schools also look positively at people coming in with humanities backgrounds these days. You still need the prerequisite course work in STEM fields, but adding a humanities degree to that immediately sets you apart from the majority of applicants." "But you don''t want to go to med school?" She frowned. "It''s not that I don''t want to. I like helping people, and it would be great to be able to support my family. I''m smart, but Darius is an actual genius. He''s been helping me with my math homework since he was nine. I want him to be able to go to whatever school he wants to, and I want Shaun to feel okay with choosing to go to art school if that''s what he wants. They deserve that, and Mom deserves a chance to enjoy her life and relax for once in her adult life." "Hell yeah, that''s what''s up." I nodded approvingly at my soon-to-be student, already glad to know that she was joining the school. Annie, I found us a responsible student! "But," I continued, "Marianne and your brothers wouldn''t want you to feel boxed in on their behalf either." She bit her lip. "I guess¡­" I slung an arm around her shoulder. "Don''t worry! There''s a simple solution to this problem." "There is?" "Oh!" Aminah excitedly tapped my arm on the other side of me. "I know exactly what you''re going to suggest, and it''s such a good idea! You''re going to say she just has to learn enough martial arts that she can be one of the rare kinds of archeologists and historians who go exploring ancient ruins and trap-infested temples. They make tons of money." I was stunned, it was like she''d taken the words right out of my mouth. James only had a passing knowledge of various famous archeologists, but there had been enough ''tomb raiding,'' ''dungeon diving,'' and ''treasure hunter'' Feats and archetypes in the book we''d been given at character creation that it could have been the focus of the entire campaign. Outside of meta knowledge, though, I knew for a fact that underneath Black Harbor was an ancient labyrinthine city from prehistory. It was where the Hakkotsu no Ha had been trapped for decades before Funikugami managed to trick Maki''s brother into retrieving it. I''d bet every dollar I had that Black Harbor University was one of the few places you could turn to in order to find out more about the place. Or else what were they even doing over there? "Woah. Holy shit, that''s exactly what I was about to suggest. How did you know?" Aminah smiled kindly and wrapped herself around my left arm. "There''s no way to answer that without sounding insulting, so I would like to first say that you''re very handsome, and kind, and I''m very grateful to have met you. That said, you are, Master, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, somewhat of a single-minded jock meathead. In a charming way!" The way she said the word ''master'' did something to me. I grinned. "Hey! I''ll have you know I''ve got more layers to me than Shrek!" Aminah sighed dramatically as though there was nothing more that needed to be said and leaned her head against my shoulder. Shania giggled and pulled my arm around her tighter. Man, fuck a reverse honeytrap. This was infinitely superior to my date with Jewel and Edith in every way. The Crane seductresses might have been on paper more attractive, but there was more to beauty than the physical. Neither Shania nor Aminah were going to potentially try and assassinate me, and that, as it turned out, instantly elevated a woman in my eyes. Who could have guessed? Looks like all the people who made fun of me for only liking violent tsunderes back in high school were wrong after all. The good times decided to take a breather though. We were about halfway to the movie theater when Harbor Hill had to remind us that it was not the sort of neighborhood one took romantic strolls through. How silly of me to think I could go ten minutes outside without a random encounter roll. Nah, that''s a shitty and selfish sentiment. We aren''t the main character, can''t forget that. I first noticed something was going on by the way everyone started crossing the street. Natural selection had produced in the average Hiller the ability to instantly detect when someone was changing direction because they wanted to go that way versus when someone was changing direction because they didn''t want to continue going where they had been. Even though they couldn''t see or hear what had caused the tip of the crowd to start switching sidewalks, people trusted the instincts of the person ahead of them and followed along. I begrudgingly did the same. I had Shania and Aminah to think of in this situation, and I could sense their need not to stand out. They were lifelong residents of the neighborhood and had been trained by survival instincts and common sense to stay within the crowd for safety. A few blocks later, I saw what had scared everyone away. Up ahead was a small East or Southeast Asian man clearly having a mental breakdown, whirling around and brandishing a kitchen knife at invisible specters as a few of his family or friends tried to talk him down. His wide eyes and fully dilated pupils ignored them, though, focused on demons only he could see. I slowed down and glanced at Shania and Aminah. "Uh¡­" I started unsure of how to broach my request or if I should even be doing so. My first responsibility was to ensure their safety after all. The girls communicated nonverbally in an instant with only a few quick expressions and extricated themselves from my arms. Aminah took Shania''s hand in hers and smiled at me. "It''s okay, James. We''ll be safe waiting here. It''s a knife, not a gun. Go do your hero thing." Shania nodded in the direction of the nearest alley. "And if we do see a gun come out, we''ll go take cover behind that dumpster." "Thanks," I said, chagrinned to be in this position. "I''ll try to be quick about it; maybe just take his knife away." I fast walked over to the group surrounding the man with the knife. If I had to judge by appearances, this was a family group trying to calm their sick relative. There were two women, one who could have been anywhere from forty to sixty knowing Asian women, and the other much older. Beside them were three men, two in their middle age and one in his twenties. Schizophrenic breaks were a tragic happenstance, but what was unusual here was that I would have expected the person in the middle to be young and disheveled, someone likely to have escaped his caretaker during his psychosis. Instead, the man with the knife was thick-necked ¨C very thick-necked in fact ¨C clean-shaven, and built in a way that only disciplined daily training could produce. He was also, again knowing Asians, anywhere from forty to sixty, and had been dressed for work in a button-up and slacks before he''d sweat through and torn his clothes. That wasn''t to say it was impossible for him to be schizophrenic with those qualities, but something was off here. Two of the men turned to face me as I approached, instinctively putting themselves between me and the man. "I can help," I said. "Can you tell me a little about the situation?" They looked at me as if I was insane, and the younger of them inhaled sharply, visibly weighing his desire to shout me off against his desire to continue trying to keep things as calm as they possibly could be while a man was whirling around with a knife behind him. Realizing my mistake, I dropped the Happy Idiot. Now that they were physically capable of telling what my intentions and abilities were, I tried again, "I can help." For good measure, I activated my Shining Resolve, starting to glow a faint gold. "Really." The men paused to check how the others were feeling about this. I couldn''t blame them; this wasn''t a neighborhood where you could rely on the kindness of strangers. The oldest of the women wasted no time though, immediately shuffling over in her slippers and taking my hands in hers. She began pleading in a language I didn''t recognize, though her intent was clear as day. I smiled and squeezed her hands in return, looking to the others to translate. It was the twenty-something who stepped up. "He''s my uncle," he said quickly. "We don''t know why he''s acting like this, it''s totally out of nowhere. Please, we can''t take him to a hospital or call the police." Ah. Immigration status. I was pretty sure they could still utilize health services within city limits without any fear of legal repercussions, but now wasn''t the time to have the discussion. It did mean I''d be on my own for this one. "Gotcha." I whipped off my clean, authentic basketball jersey, and started to edge closer to the man with my hands up and palms facing him. "What languages does he speak?" I called back. "And what''s his name?" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. "Burmese ¨C fuck," he shook his head, the panic setting in, "what am I saying, you obviously don''t know Burmese. Thai, if you know any. His name is Pha." "Burmese or Thai," I muttered to myself. That followed; lethwei would certainly explain Pha''s freakish neck. Well, this wasn''t going to be the wisest use of Experience either way, but if I had to pick between those two¡ª Nope, no time to choose either! Pha''s eyes suddenly focused on me; I cast all thoughts of buying Skills out of my mind and got ready for the imminent attack. He stopped his wild movements, muscles tightening and bulging unnaturally. His pupils narrowed to pinprick dots before expanding past where they had been until his entire eyes, from lid to lid, were a milky black. Another goddamned possession, great. Pha, or more likely, whatever demon had taken control of his body, snarled at me, spitting some vitriol in a harsh and inhuman tongue, and charged in a stutter step. I beat out the possessed man on Initiative but didn''t move, prepping my maneuver instead. This would hurt, but after the fight against the Flesh Puppet, I''d do anything in my power to keep this situation from going the same way. Pha moved in jerks and halts, two steps, stop, one step, stop, as it became clear that his muscles were bulging in counter to whatever his body was being forced to do. The man was pushing back against the spirit; excellent, that meant I wasn''t dealing with another puppet. Finally, he lunged forward, knife outstretched, aimed at my chest. I caught it point first, letting it pierce through my palm. Ignoring the shock of pain and the screams from around me, I grabbed hold of the fist clutching the blade with my injured hand, rolling my Aura + Telekinesis. With nine Successes, the force flowed outward from my bleeding palm with perfect control, wrapping around every inch of Pha and holding him rigidly in place. There would be no explosion of flesh this time. Harbor Hill began to hum as my Telekinesis shook the world, vibrating the air and the ground into nearby structures. Road signs rattled against their loose screws, and the pipe below the manhole cover in the street began to thrum a haunting harmony. It, the demon, was fighting to get free, attempting to escape my hold in vicious jerks, using Pha''s strong, lethwei-hardened body as best as it could, but it had no chance against both my Force and the man''s still raging willpower. Weak, so weak. It was nothing, a gnat, an insect trapped within my merciful palm. I threw my head back and laughed maniacally. I noticed first that the humans around me had gone quiet save for the gasping of breath, and then second that I had completely lost control over my fighting spirit. Oh well, my onlookers would just have to deal for the moment. "What a fucking joke you are! And here I was worried you were about to ruin my date night." Without the appropriate Feats, it would have been extremely difficult to continue my total telekinetic binding and also have sent my Qi through Pha to try and understand what had taken ahold of him. But I wasn''t about to waste the Experience on this worm. I could sense it, finally, as a master of Qi ought to be able to. Or rather, I could sense the lack of sensation. There was no sinister, ineffable Divinity of Funikugami, tortuous hunger of the Hungry Ghost, or even the mindless, berserk fury of the anathema I had fought last night. This wasn''t a Lesser Evil, it was barely more than one of the sparks of undefined spirit I''d seen floating through the Shinto Shrine. It was a phenomenon at best. I didn''t need to speak Burmese to get my message across. I didn''t need to speak at all. What did the vermin think was happening, what did it think it could accomplish? Could it not feel my horrifying fighting spirit bearing down on it, trying to snuff it out like a candle flame? Did it not sense the Mantle of the Carrion King forever chained to my shoulders? Even the simplest of creatures feared death. Was I not its Champion? I peeled back the curtain for the thing inside Pha with an Aura + Intimidation roll, not calling on the Mantle''s power but merely revealing its presence. I did well with five Successes, but I doubted I needed to roll very high to communicate my point. Wretch, these are the hands that will kill gods.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Expel the spirit haunting Pha without harming anyone. Reward: 10XP, +3 Linguistics (Burmese), Gain Minor Feat Skull Training [Minor Feat] Skull Training Increase your Health Track by 1. Your headbutts deal an additional point of Base Damage.
Pha''s pupils snapped back into focus, and his body went limp in my telekinetic hold. I let him down gently to the ground and closed my eyes. It took almost an entire minute of box-breathing meditation to pull back my fighting spirit. Christ, the intensity caught me by surprise. Though, I guess it was no shock to learn that I''d developed a visceral hatred of possession after last night. Still, that was more wrath than what I was comfortable with conjuring for maybe anything, period. Something to explore in the meditation chamber later, I decided. The youngest of the men was standing by me with my jersey draped over his arm when I opened my eyes. The rest of the family group were checking on his uncle, who was insisting on standing and walking on his own. The Peregrines jersey reminded me. "Yes!" I shouted, looking down to check myself for blood; only one of my shoes was ruined, and my joggers were untouched. "Let''s go! I''m so sick of replacing my wardrobe, man." "N-nice," said the young man, gulping at the knife still stuck in my hand. "Thanks for your help. Can I, uh, call you someone for that?" He pointed at the knife wound. "My cousin''s a physician''s assistant. I''m Daniel Thet, by the way." "What, this? This is nothing, brother." I yanked the knife free, taking another two Damage. Being the Champion of Funikugami wasn''t all bleak Devil''s Bargains and permanently terrifying fighting spirit; his Mantle also converted the first four points of Murderous Damage of a Scene into the regular boring sort. One Circular Breathing charge later and the wound was closed, otherwise normal save the blood and thin scar left behind. "See? I''m chilling." I exerted my Qi and commanded the blood outside my body to burn away in a flash of gold flame, making all the Thets save for the eldest female take a panicked step back. Granny just nodded in approval before stepping forward with her palms together. "What''s wrong with you all?" she said angrily in Burmese to her family. "Show this man some respect. Daniel, ask if he''s eaten." I laughed and waved her off, responding in my newest language. Maybe I''d start one of those MeTV polyglot channels after this. "That''s alright, really. I have plans for tonight, and I don''t want to keep you long." Daniel''s jaw dropped, but I continued regardless. Technically, I never established that I didn''t speak Burmese. "If it''s alright, I have a small request." "Yes, anything," she said. "You were like an angry Buddha!" Pha pushed away the two men trying to keep him from falling over, and stepped forward, palms together. "Thank you. I can never repay you. You have my life." At some point, I needed to figure out how to respond to overt displays of gratitude, but for now, I just smiled and nodded. "It''s more important to me that you have your life. But if you''d like to repay me, then please, preferably before you go home to rest, I''d like for you to go to the Shinto Shrine in Little Tokyo. My adopted Clan, the Ishida, are specialists in these matters. I''m very interested in learning how you became possessed. They''ll be able to help you stay safe from further incursions as well and make sure that you don''t have any lingering effects." Pha looked pained and guilty, quickly bowing his head to cover his shame from his family. They may not have known how he''d come to be possessed, but he did, or at the very least, believed he did. "Yes, of course. I''ll do so immediately." "Thank you." Switching to English, I turned to Daniel. "And can I get your number to follow up on this?" We were exchanging socials when the unmistakable tinny sirens and slightly off-color red-and-blues of a Black Harbor Police Department bike cop rolled up behind me. The Thet''s froze instantly, but thankfully I was still holding onto the knife and was pretty sure I could handle the heat for them. "Harbor Hill has bike cops now?" I said, turning around to look. I couldn''t help it; I had intended to enter immediate de-escalation mode, but a harsh bark of laughter escaped my throat the instant I saw her. Then, taking in her ridiculous city-issued bike shorts and slightly too tight, sweatproof polyester uniform, laughed again but harder and longer. "Jesus Christ, ain''t no fucking way do they have you on bike-beat in Harbor Hill by yourself. Ho-ly shit, this is too good." I waved the Thet''s away and said to Daniel in English, "You guys are good, I got this covered." "Excuse me! No," said the cop, glaring daggers at me, "that is not how this works." "Really? Tell me what crime they''ve committed, officer." She gritted her teeth. "We had reports of a man waving a knife around in the street." "What," I held up the knife in my hand, "I''m not allowed to do sick-ass knife tricks outside anymore? I''m trying to advertise for my martial arts school; it''s a classic demonstration of skill." "A man in a button-up and slacks," she said, looking at Pha. I waved at them to get a move on. "I''m not allowed to swap outfits with the boys? We''re not allowed to be cute now? Show me where in the books that''s a crime." "A short man." "Jesus, six feet tall is short now? Dating apps have broken people''s brains." Her eye twitched. "You still can''t have a sharpened knife of that size out in the open." "Fair enough." I shrugged and pinched through the steel at the hilt with an Eagle''s Talon, kicking the falling blade like a hacky sack into a nearby trash can. "There, happy now? Now it''s a fucking stick." I looked back at the Thet family and swapped to Burmese. "Seriously, you guys can go." "Hey!" she pointed at Daniel, recognizing him as the most likely to speak English. "Do not take one more step!" "Oh, shut the fuck up, Maria. Would you relax for once in your miserable life?" "James, I swear to God. Do not make me do something I''ll have to apologize to your mother for." Maria Ramirez, ladies and gentlemen, my ex-girlfriend; god, I''d forgotten how annoying she could be. "What are you even doing here, Maria? You''re on a bicycle, you dumb bitch. What was the plan, were you going to put him on the handlebars and ride him to a clinic?" "Great, there they go." She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at the Thets as they turned into an alley out of sight. "Maybe I could have talked to him and done a diagnostic if you had let me, you asshole. Did you ever think that there''s more to helping people than leaping in fist first? You''re a child, James Li." "Am I being lectured about the use of force by a member of the Black Harbor Police Department? Is that what''s really happening? Am I having a stroke!? First of all, Maria, you look like a stripper in that outfit; of course they walked away. They probably thought you were a fancy whore. Secondly, that man spoke Thai and Burmese, and we both know the BHPD doesn''t have translators for either of those languages." "You are such an asshole, James!" Maria started slapping her palm with the back of her hand. "You don''t know anything about half the shit that comes out of your mouth and know less about the other half!" "I don''t know what that means, but tell yourself whatever you need to get by. Why are you still caping for the cops, anyway? I get why before you joined, but they''ve literally got you on a bicycle alone in Harbor Hill right now. Not even your dad and uncles could get you out of what is clearly meant to be a death sentence." "See, this is exactly what I''m talking about. I''ll have you know I volunteered for this, dumbass." "What? Why? And why does the police department have a volunteer position that involves having no partner, no body cam, no body armor, and no car in Harbor Hill? That''s insane. You guys have infinite money in the budget. Do they just need martyrs to cover up for all the corruption stories?" Maria sucked in a breath to continue the fight before thinking the better of it. "You know what? This is pointless. Enjoy the view of this ass in these shorts, James, because it''s the closest you''re ever going to get to it again." I laughed. "Fine, I will do that. Bye, Maria." "Ugh!" It is one hell of an ass, I thought, as she biked away at full speed. That went well, though, all things considered. Shania and Aminah were a mix of shocked and amused when I crossed the street to resume our trip. "Sorry about that," I said. "It''s a good thing we left early enough to catch the previews." Aminah wrapped herself around my arm. "It''s okay. Was that your ex? She''s such a bitch." "Annie''s prettier," added Shania, taking the other arm. "Mom, too." I pulled them in closer. "Ha! Thanks, guys, but I''ve been over Maria for a few years now." "Uhuh." "Sure." Escort Mission 4 "What the fuck, bro?" I muttered. "What is wrong with this neighborhood?" We were essentially at the theater, just across the street from one of its side entrances, when the sounds of fighting and breaking of glass broke out from a nearby herbalist shop. I had thought that if we encountered more trouble, it would be on the way back home after dark, not at the edge of Harbor Hill and Sugar Forest, with a ton of people milling about. This was one of the nicest places in the entire neighborhood, mostly because it was basically Sugar Forest South. Realtors even listed properties around here under that name, hoping to gentrify some of their investment homes into making a profit. "We could¡­save you a seat?" volunteered Aminah. I squinted at the herbalist''s window. It was hard to make out what was going on through the hanging plants, iron bars, and big, gold block lettering reading ''MUGISHA''S NATURAL REMEDIES''. "Hang on. Wait here." I entered the Happy Idiot, going straight into Innocuous Oaf, and watched as the girls'' eyes glazed over and a pall of confusion fell over their faces. Trotting over to the store, I put my face up to the glass and peeked inside. There were four men of varying builds, but all with that telltale ex-military demeanor. It was all over them, from their cringe-worthy pouch-ridden utility belts and holstered pistols, to the way they cut their hair and tied their boots. Also, one of them was wearing camo fatigues for pants, but I like to think I could have spotted them as former military regardless. That one had the shop owner, an elderly bald black man, by the lapel, and was angrily whispering something to him. I watched as he slapped him hard enough to hurt, but not enough to potentially knock him out. I fast-walked back over to the girls, exiting the Stance; I wanted to be fully clear-headed for this. "It doesn''t look like a robbery, but I still think I should get involved. Oh!" I snapped, having had a brilliant idea. "You know what would be both funny and responsible¡­" I giggled to myself as I pulled out my phone and texted a number I''d never gotten around to deleting. ''I know I just called you a fancy whore, but theres 4 ex-military dudes beating up the old dude who runs Mogadishu''s across from the theater.'' ''Sorry, Mugisha''s ¨C the herbalists'' ''I''m going in alone if you don''t hit me back up'' It was possible that Maria was close enough that she could be here in under a minute on a bike, depending on her beat. Otherwise, I''d have gone in myself right away. "Let''s get in line for tickets," I said. "I want to give her a chance to respond before I get involved." She responded before we could even get to the door; I guess she never blocked me either. ''ETA 45secs'' ''Meet in front of theater'' That was odd; I would have thought she''d tell me she had it handled. I had a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I was growing more paranoid with every encounter, or maybe I was finally adapting to the youxia lifestyle, but I swear I was beginning to be able to sense complications. I walked Shania and Aminah up to the line, doing my due diligence of checking to make sure that Fate''s bullshit was not going to come from inside the theater. It appeared as though it was a normal Friday night inside, with kids laughing, artificial butter smelling rich in the air, and arcade machines blaring. "Okay." I pulled off my basketball jersey and handed it to Shania, along with some money. "Here, to save my seat," I lied. Those men were sure to have guns, and the jersey was one of the nicest pieces of clothing I owned. "Get us some snacks and sodas, too. Go crazy with it, I like to share and have a bit of each." That was also a lie; I didn''t think they''d treat themselves without the excuse. It took about a minute and a half from her text for Maria to skid to a halt in front of the theater. She was pissed and, miracle of miracles, not at me this time. The crowd parted around us, wanting nothing to do with the shirtless, heavily scarred man talking to the angry bike cop. I restrained myself from making a quip or jab. An old man was currently being slapped around by four goons down the street. "What''s up?" Maria had the same idea, launching straight into business. "I radioed it in. Estimated response time is three hours." "Three hours? Just come back tomorrow at that point, holy shit. I''m sure as hell not standing around for three hours, Maria. Why did you even make me wait for you to get here?" "I''ve never made you do shit, James. And I''m not waiting three hours either. Here''s how this is going to go down¡ª" "Pause." I held up a hand. "I get that we''re on a time crunch, but come on, I''m not nearly as stupid as I''d love to be. Give me some context, please. Three hours is actually crazy; the BHPD is worthless, but that is next-level incompetence. What are we walking into?" Maria pursed her lips and took a deep breath, weighing her options. Our breakup had not been amicable, but we''d dated for a long time, and I liked to think that I knew her better than she knew herself at one point. I could see all the little arguments playing out in her head, pride battling duty, ambition battling shame. "I''m going to say this once, and I''m asking you nicely to not be an asshole about it, okay?" She exhaled and stared hard into my eyes. "A lot of your concerns about my career in the police force were," she scowled and continued through gritted teeth, "more or less correct." "Yeah, no shit." "James, what I did fucking say?" "Sorry, go on." "I''m not on great terms with my dad or my uncles¡­or my superiors, or my peers. Sometimes it feels like there''s not a single good cop left in this city." "Sometimes?" I said, mouth agape. Maria glared in response. "Sorry, sorry. I''m trying, I really am." I did feel for the woman. Maria had always been a dreamer and an idealist; as a kid who''d pined after Hollywood stardom in the face of his mother''s oppressive and frequent discouragement all his life, I''d loved her for that. In a different world, maybe we''d ¨C well, it didn''t matter now, anyway. The problem had always been her father and her extended cop family. Her dad was a great father by all accounts, and the family as a whole were good to those they were close to, but goddamn, if they weren''t all terrible people. They were the sort of friends who''d kill for you, without being asked to. Maria wanted desperately to believe in them, in their version of history and the stories they told her about ''The Force'', as they called it. She dreamed her whole life of joining the police with the same intensity that I''d dreamed of being a youxia and actor, cleaning up Black Harbor one bad guy at a time. She sighed. "I need a win, James, bad. And," she grimaced, "I need your help, alright? I don''t want to be a fucking bike cop for the next twenty years." "Maria, it''s a futile effort. It''s always been a futile effort. There is not a future for a brave, good-hearted Maria Ramirez in the BHPD, there never has been!" "Look¡ªActually, never mind. We don''t have time to rehash this. Are you going to help or not?" I threw my hands up in the air. "Jesus Christ. Of course, I am. I''m too goddamned stupid to walk away." The faintest, smallest, hint of a smile touched her lips. "Thank you. There are only a few possibilities for why there would be a three-hour response time. Either those men are connected to organized crime and have asked for a window at this location for the night, or Mugisha''s and its owners have pissed off someone with connections to organized crime, and there''s a blanket stop-order at dispatch for the location. Regardless, now that I''ve called it in, I can''t go inside alone without earning a reprimand and a write-up. But, if you start a loud enough commotion while I''m being a good little girl and waiting a safe distance away for backup, and then I move in to investigate and take down a few armed robbers, that would be a win for me, a big one." My mouth was, once more, wide open. "Are you kidding me?" "What?" She crossed her arms. "I figured you''d be all over a plan like that." "Maria," I whisper yelled, "you broke up with me because I wanted to be a vigilante. You are asking me, to be, a vigilante." "You broke up with me, asshole!" "You said a cop could not be seen dating a proud criminal!" "Well, we aren''t dating, so it''s not an issue, is it?!" I paused. Damn, she kind of had me there. "Fuck, whatever. Do I have to worry about the legal fallout for this?" "No, no shot, on my mother''s grave. The BHPD has zero intentions of starting a conflict with a martial artist of your caliber. Anything you could do to make us move on you, would have already brought down the Feds well before we could even draft an APB." "Fine, but this conversation isn''t over." The men had dropped the metal security blind over the front of the shop, covering its windows and door in roll-down steel. Any thoughts that I may have been too late and that they''d escaped were disillusioned by the muffled screams coming from inside. The sounds of torture, quiet or not, were gut-churning, and I very much wanted to charge in and help, but I was at an impasse. Frankly, I had no idea how these particular metal shutters worked. They had no visible lock from the outside, and I had a sneaking suspicion they were the type controlled via an app or a security platform online. There was a phone number on the side and a model designation, but I wasn''t going to take the time to look them up. Tearing through the steel was an option; it couldn''t have been that thick when it still needed to retract and roll away. But I didn''t know the character of these men beyond that they were willing to torture people and were thorough enough to at least try and hide the act. If I made too much noise in my entry, there was no guarantee that they didn''t kill the shopkeeper and try to extract themselves. I could bet it all on the ability of the Innocuous Oaf to cover up my actions, but it wasn''t my life on the line to bet. Nor was there a convenient side alley entrance I could find. I, personally, could go up and over the building and find the probably unmarked backdoor on the other side, but that would leave Maria to navigate the tangle of alleys to get to me ¨C unless she just happened to have kept up her parkour training without me prodding her along. Actually, that was worth taking the second to check. I shot Maria a text. She was following BHPD policy to the letter, meaning that she was the ''minimum safe distance'' of three blocks away while she waited on backup. ''Could you get up the face of the building on your own? Guessing the fire escape is on the back. Flat roof.'' I got a simple, ''Yes,'' in reply. It would have to do. I bounded up to the roof, enjoying the speed and the simple act of movement despite myself and the situation. Since it was impossible to tell via text if Maria was blustering, once up there, I extended my Silk Steel Sash back down, making knots every few feet or so with telekinesis and tying it off to the top of the fire escape on the other side of the building. It required an improvised Qi maneuver to ensure there would be enough power left in the Sash to keep it extended when it wasn''t in direct contact with me, but with my massive Aura, it was easy enough. There was length to spare if I wanted to keep it wrapped around my waist, but I thought it might overload my mental stack to have to worry about the Sash trailing behind me, noodling through multiple rooms and over an entire building during a fight. I paused atop the roof for a few breaths and centered myself; it felt worth it in light of what was to come. This would be the first time I''d fought men with guns, and my first fight against a human opponent where I''d be going for the kill. If the opportunity presented itself to leave them alive, I''d take it, but I was outnumbered, outgunned, and there was both the shopkeeper and Maria to worry about. The steel security blind would protect passersby to an extent, but the right caliber bullet could punch through it relatively unimpeded, and not to mention the buildings on either side and the floors above the shop. There was only wood and plaster to protect them. Wood and plaster ¨C I wouldn''t be able to rely on my fire techniques like I had against the Hungry Ghost either. I''d be about as unarmed as I could get, having left my nunchaku at home out of a desire to not jinx the date with the expectation of violence; probably not my brightest decision, that. There was an itch, as always, at the back of my mind, reminding me that I could call the Bleached Bone Blade with just a thought. The Hakkotsu no Ha was as much in my hand at all times as it was back in my basement apartment. Just a thought, and it would come. No, I don''t think I will, actually. I entered the Innocuous Oaf and dropped down into the alley, shedding my momentum and minimizing my sound as best I could with a cat pass, landing on feet and then hands. There was a group of teens in color-coded outfits playing dice nearby, but I paid them no mind; scattering them now might bring some hitters that would only further complicate things for Maria later. There were tags all over and to the sides of the flat, metal, unmarked backdoor of Mugisha''s Natural Remedies. Once, when I was a teenage hooligan, I could have told the tags apart and would have had a general idea of which were from graffiti gangs and which were from actual criminal gangs marking territory, but the culture on the street was measured in days, not years. The door had two deadbolt locks and no door handle. The two locks were an older security measure popularized in Black Harbor some time in the sixties, according to my father. One of them would be fake, containing a key breaker to trap would-be thieves'' lockpicks. The method grew out of use when people got tired of drunkenly ruining their own keys; it said something to see it still in use here. Not that a deadbolt, fake or not, could stop me, of course. I placed my palm between the locks and extended my telekinetic reach to the other side, gently applying force counterclockwise until I heard the bolts flip, and slipped inside. The backmost room of the shop was reserved for big box storage for ease of convenience and looked no more suspicious than any other store''s. I found a small brick and propped the door open for Maria; without a handle, a key, or telekinesis, it wouldn''t matter if it was locked or not for her as long as it was closed. "Agh!" came a pained shout from the front of the store, followed by loud coughing and retching. "Why! I have told you the truth!" There was at least one more door between me and the sounds. Again, I fought through the urge to rush forward, instead moving forward in a crouch, quick on my feet, but taking nothing for granted. My wisdom paid off immediately. Beyond the next door was a combined office and processing room with refrigerators and tables for both dried herbs and medicine grinding, as well as those for paperwork. I didn''t have much time to take it in. At a desk pressed up against a wall in the middle of the room was a man I hadn''t seen when I''d peaked through the window earlier, but was assuredly with the rest. He was shorter and skinnier than the others, though dressed similarly, and had a wire traveling from behind his ear that was plugged into the computer in front of him. His eyes were glazed over, clearly in the middle of some cyberpunk horse shit. As fascinating as that was, the most important fact about the hacker was that his right arm was rigid despite the rest of his body being semi-limp, and was pointing a gun directly at me. Somehow, some combination of cybernetics had allowed him to penetrate the Innocuous Oaf. Maybe the implants interacted with his nervous system in some way I couldn''t understand, but that was pure speculation. Whatever tech he had was not without its weaknesses, though. Had this been a man, fully awake and genuinely aware of my presence, Initiative would have occurred after he had taken his first prepared shot; as it was, I had unknown seconds to act. Time dilated in moments like these, but even still, I moved fast enough that it was over in a blink, faster than I had ever moved in my life. I beat the mercenary''s Initiative; he was a trained and enhanced killer, but he was no elite martial artist, nor were his cybernetic enhancements enough to keep up. The world tunneled visioned momentarily, and then I was in front of him, my superhuman hamstrings carrying me there in an instant. My hand lashed out in the Eagle''s Talon as the Dice of an Agility + Martial Arts clattered in the ethereal. Upgraded since my heart-to-heart with JingJing into its final form, it caught his wrist and traveled through the space where it had been unimpeded, rending flesh, bone, and small metal wires as though they were paper. I hadn''t the sense of mind to drop the Happy Idiot to double the Damage, having acted off of instinct alone. Luckily, the tech of this world, or at least that available to random mercenaries in Harbor Hill, was not that of the cyberpunk dystopic future. There had been no opposed defensive roll on his part; it was as if he was a simple machine, his arm a rigid turret, rather than a person. And thus, he died like a machine. His body spasmed, eyes coming to focus just once to display fear before he started seizing and foaming at the mouth, short-circuiting both himself and the network he was connected to. The power cycled rapidly in the building before cutting out entirely, rendering the shop dark for a few seconds before a backup generator somewhere in the basement kicked on. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Take a life in combat. Reward: 50XP [Hidden Quest Complete!] Kill someone with neuroelectric backlash. Reward: 20XP, +2 Hacking, +1 Electronics
I froze, staring at the popups. Nothing, I felt nothing. They were there somewhere, the feelings, in the back of my consciousness, waiting for the appropriate, less life-threatening time to come to the forefront. But for now, I felt nothing. "Grady! What the fuck was that!?" called a deep voice from the next room. I stood up and left the Innocuous Oaf. I''d been crouching in a puddle of blood, I realized. The lyrics to the song I''d named the Stance after, Happy Idiot, by a band that did not exist in this universe, came unbidden to my mind. It would be a long time until I could hear it again. I''m gonna bang my head to the wall/ ''Til I feel like nothing at all I walked into the front room of Mugisha''s, humming to myself, bloody hands in my pocket. The joggers were ruined anyway. It was a beautifully appointed shop with colored cloth strung from the ceiling and living plants a-plenty between the shelves of ceramic jars containing dried, fragrant herbs of a thousand varieties. A line of mirrors like tiles ran along the top of the walls, meant to carry the natural light from outside throughout the densely packed room. With the security shutter down, we had only the recessed lights in the ceiling and the various, red-and-blue LEDs dangling above the more sun-needy of the potted plants. It was an absolute goddamn shame what was about to happen to this place. I squinted around at the room, ignoring the armed men, including the one not five feet away who had been in the middle of checking on his now-dead colleague. "Hey," I said, "this isn''t the bathroom." The man closest to me took a half-step back and reached for his gun. "Jesus¡ª" "Stop!" commanded the one in the middle of the room, the same that had been slapping the shopkeeper around when I''d first passed by. The counter was in the way, but I assumed he was standing over said shopkeeper now. With hands still in my pockets, I slipped around the man in front of me, putting my back to him to stand between him, the leader, and another mercenary to my right. The last was at the very front of the shop, hand on his holstered pistol. I nodded at the elderly man they, I could see now, had been in the middle of kicking the hell out of. "Oh shit, you guys doing a shiatsu massage? I think you''re supposed to be barefoot for it to properly strike the acupuncture points. But hey, what would I know?" "James Li," said the leader. He was a tall, bald, otherwise unassuming black man with cold, dark-brown eyes. "I assume Grady is dead." "Roboman? He regrettably glitched out." I gestured with a bloody thumb to the room I''d just walked out of. "I''ve got no idea what happened there. Weird guy." There was a noticeable lack of reaction from the room. These were not sentimental men, it turned out. "Ah. That''s a setback for certain." He licked his lips and shook his head slightly, flicking a gaze at the man to the right of me, who had started to shift his hand behind him. "I''ll be honest, Li, I''d be holed up if I had a bounty on my head as large as yours. Didn''t anticipate meeting you here." "The Tigers put out a bounty? Hm, do I escalate from here?" I scratched my chin. "How much is it?" "Six hundred thousand for your head." I laughed. "Bro, they are scamming you. You should be able to retire if you kill me. If you split six hundred four ways, you can''t even buy a one-bedroom apartment." I started filling the room with my Qi, hungry for flammable sources of fuel. It found the dried herbs, of course, but shining like a three-dimensional star map in my head were the tightly packed pockets of gunpowder tucked away within all of their stupid little belt pouches and cargo pants. "It''s twice that if your head is attached to your body when it''s delivered to Chinatown." The air in the room shifted at those words; apparently, that was a big enough number to get the other three men interested. Their leader, however, gave another minuscule shake of his head. I withdrew my Qi; so long as the shopkeeper was in the room, I wasn''t going to ignite several hundred small bombs around him. In general, there would be no fire techniques unless I could take the fight outside, or if Maria could somehow evacuate the nearby buildings and the rooms above. No, I''d released the Qi not to find the bullets, but to see if any of the mercenaries would react, and they had not. I shook my head. "Still a scam, my man. The Tigers picked a number to lure out individual talents, not hit squads. Trying to keep the escalation manageable, I presume. Regardless, it wouldn''t matter. You don''t have what it takes. The only person who reacted to me nearly lighting you all on fire was Mugisha. Don''t worry, old man, this place is too nice to burn down." "You''d be amazed what a mix of modern technology and ancient chemistry can do, Li. I''ve seen shit you wouldn''t believe. But you''re right, it doesn''t matter. We''re here putting together a much larger score," he emphasized the last part as much for me as his goons, reminding them not to get greedy. "One that you might have an interest in, as a long-time resident of the city." "Go on." "Robert here," he kicked the man on the ground lightly, "bought a shipment of stolen root powder that was meant to be delivered to me. I don''t know what your relation to him is, or if you were just bored enough to get involved, but I''m willing to let his debt to me slide if you sign on. We won''t need our combat stims with your firepower on the team, or a hacker as expensive as Grady either. You can take his cut, and I''ll use some of my discretionary funds to find a cheaper replacement for him." "I don''t even know your name, man. You''re also holding my friend hostage, which, got to say, isn''t working for me. It really isn''t." He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off of me, and took a step back from Robert, who hobbled to his feet. "I''m Alpine. This is my crew. They can introduce themselves in their own time." "Big skier?" "Avid." I turned to the man behind me, a large redheaded fellow. "Hey, Cross-country, let Bobby in the backroom. And find me a spare pair of pants back there, Bob. Ooh. Spare pair of pants, that''s fun. Say that five times fast, eh. Spare pair of pants. Spare¡ª" "I don''t like this," said the man to the right of me. "Do it," said Alpine, nodding to Cross-country behind me. Robert limped past him as fast as he could manage. "Hang on, let''s not ignore Nordic Combined''s concerns," I said, rapidly growing on the naming schema. I loved the Winter Olympics. "You got a problem with me, NC?" Nordic Combined''s hand started slowly reaching behind him, to the consternation of his leader. "He''s a black box, Alpine. Let''s not bullshit ourselves; if I can''t read him, you can''t read him. Why are we fucking around? Let''s bag his bounty and use it to buy another shipment of stims. Fuck Mugisha, I didn''t want the smoke with the Vodun in the first place." You do a lot of peripheral vision training in traditional Kung Fu. In most schools, that means tracking your finger without moving your head; at my house, it meant that Ma would swing a heavy metal ball tied to a string around you and occasionally clip you in the temple if you didn''t duck fast enough. If you ducked too fast, though, you had to eat a chili as a forfeit. My eyes moved from Alpine and the other man at the far front of the store, who I decided looked like a Freestyle guy, but my focus was on the run of mirror tiles at the top of the wall. There, I watched as Nordic Combined pulled out a quick injector EpiPen-esque device from a pouch on his belt, and as Cross-Country silently unholstered his pistol behind me. Seeing Cross-Country draw his gun, I decided to take a few seconds to Upgrade one of my Starting Feats. I had wanted to use the base version at least once in a fight before spending more Experience on it, but it felt extremely relevant right now. With 25XP, I took Slippery Target up from a Minor to a Major Feat. Formerly, it would only work once per round, which was not ideal when surrounded.
[Major Feat] Slippery Target Once per turn, when someone misses you with an attack, you may force them to attack someone else in range using their same roll. You may choose how to spend their additional successes should there be any.
Alpine was a difficult man to read; his face was placid as a lake, but there was a touch of frustration in his voice. "We can trust him to work in his best interests. There''s twelve million dollars in this for you, Li, and you get to take out a leech that''s been feeding on this city since the Eighties." I verified in a mirror tile that Robert had made it into the backroom and shrugged, taking both hands out of my pockets now. "That would be a winning pitch for me, brother. But there''s this one small problem: the genre divide. You see, you''re doing some Shadowrun-style shit with a voodoo gang that ends in guaranteed tragedy, and I''m on my action-adventure vibe. Your mistakes end in you guys dying, and my mistakes end in me having sex with my ex-girlfriend despite both of our better judgments. Oh, also, I just noticed this shop has a sprinkler system." "Kill him." Unfortunately for me, Alpine''s squad had those annoying Team Feats that exist exclusively to torture Players because only NPCs ever have the foresight and coordination to get them. That, and if you and another character ever take a Team Feat in a game, it only guarantees that one of you will die and the other will have wasted a level up. Something, perhaps, that Alpine and his men should have considered. Because of their situational Team Feats for outnumbering and surrounding an opponent, they had huge bonuses to Initiative, Attacks, and completely ignored penalties to calling their shots. Unfortunately for the surprisingly competent mercenaries, golly, if all of those things didn''t help me more than it did them. Before Alpine could finish issuing his decree, Cross-country lifted his already drawn pistol and aimed it for the square of my back while still making sure that none of his allies were in the direct trajectory of the bullet ¨C rather predictably, if I said so myself. Slippery Target was more of an active ability than its rules text implied; it required setup on my part, but it likewise ensured I was capable of said setup. I spun, rolling my attempt to Dodge as he made his Attack, and caught his wrist with my elbow, directing his aim toward Nordic Combined. The mercenary would have hit most mortals, I would think, but I was of a different class. What that meant instead was that in the split second of Cross-Country firing, his steady wrist and years'' trained aim were all pointed at his ally for just long enough for the bullet to leave the barrel. Guns had insane Base Damage in the system. They had their downsides as well, of course; they needed ammo, special Feats to do anything cool, were bulky, etc., but at the end of the day, getting shot even once was a very, very bad time. The bullet emptied NC''s skull, painting the contents across a rack of herbs behind him. I was barely cognizant of that, however, since my focus was occupied entirely with Freestyle, whose quickdraw Feat had allowed him to raise his own pistol with remarkable speed. Since Cross-country was directly behind me, he had only a narrow area he could target, my left shoulder, without, in his mind, a risk of hitting his ally. During the same spin that had seen my right elbow collide with Cross-country''s wrist, my left hand was snapping up, filling that narrow region where I assumed, correctly, that Freestyle would call his shot. He was a phenomenal killer, but with the Happy Idiot, I was a better dodger. The mercenary fired, placing the shot in the exact, two-centimeter diameter circle that it needed to be in order to do the most Damage to me and not risk hitting his ally. Using my Force Armor, the battle-hardened bones of my Eagle''s Talon, and pure, superhuman martial prowess, I snapped my wrist back just in time to clip that near-perfect, deadeye shot, counting on the man not to miss. In my periphery, I watched as Cross-country took the bullet in his arm. He dropped his gun, but the man was big, hardy, and still very much in this fight. "No guns!" shouted Alpine, jabbing himself with his own quick injector. At least, that''s what I thought he said. My ears were ringing loudly. Damn, and here I''d been hoping to use the big man behind me to soak up another round of fire. Fine, it was time to test out the building''s sprinkler system then. I held my arms out wide, recalled the star map of gunpowder in the room, exuded my Qi, and clapped my hands, rolling an explosive Aura + Elemental Control. The last time I''d done this, there had been an essentially unlimited amount of fuel from the vats of moonshine all around me. That was far from the case in the herbalist''s, but I still had a lot to work with. Alpine had forty-nine bullets, the corpse of Nordic Combined had forty-eight, as did Cross-Country behind me, and Freestyle had, frankly, too many bullets, at least two hundred distributed across his utility belt and cargo pants. When I included the dried herbs, I had 8 additional Dice available to me. Okay, Maria, you asked for a commotion. I used all 8 Dice, igniting every speck of gunpowder in this room in a wave that exploded outward at the same speed as the sound from my clap. Immediately, my arms and wrists erupted into flames, but it was mostly cosmetic this time; I was still under the safe limit for Fire-Proof. I did, however, almost immediately after that, take five Murderous Damage from the shrapnel, even after taking Blissful Assassin, Force Armor, etc., into account, as all of the several hundred ceramic pots the herbs had been in were turned into makeshift frag grenades. I could not hear, and I could barely see when I opened my eyes. Beyond just the mass of smoke and dust in the air, the sprinkler system had also activated, dropping a sheet of black, awful-smelling, rust-filled water onto my head, blinding me further. But I could feel him. Either Cross-country and Freestyle were dead, or they had, all at once, decided that they had no desire to kill me at all. But there, in the center of the room, was an event horizon of hatred and warped, corrupted Qi. I watched through the smoke as Alpine began to stir, picking himself from the ground, and decided that I was not above putting down an injured opponent while he was still stunned. I dashed forward with a single lunge, choosing to break the Happy Idiot to double any potential Damage, and slammed my heel down where his neck was. My foot passed straight through, feeling only the floor despite it appearing as if it had hit Alpine dead on. I had just long enough to think, An afterimage?, before I was charge tackled from behind hard enough to smash the glass door of the shop off the frame and leave a vague James-shaped dent in the steel roller blind. Instincts saved me from the worst of the Damage, but I was still pushed past an Injury Threshold, my ribs crying out for rest. Spinning around, I focused the might of my telekinesis into my Force Armor just in time to take another furious body slam from the battle-mad mercenary. This one hit hard enough to break the steel blinds free from one of their rails, thankfully providing me with some clean air and light. Alpine stood over me, panting, his eyes so bloodshot they may as well have been a demon''s. His veins pulsed and squirmed under his skin, rebelling against the stimulants pumping through them. I don''t know how much he had taken, but I didn''t need to roll a Medicine to know that he would die from it. Death was written all over him, most so in his smile, the only emotion I''d seen the man display thus far. Peace would be his soon, and in the meantime, he got to enjoy beating the hell out of James Li, the man who had taken everything from him. I used the fresh air to use a charge of Circular Breathing and got ready to tank another blow from the merc. But my preparations were for naught. The cavalry had arrived ¨C my eardrums healed just in time to hear the bark of a police pistol. Alpine hit the ground, lifeless, with a dull thud and wet splat of bloody flesh, a smoking hole in the back of his skull.
[Encounter Complete] Defeated Alpine and his crew of mercenaries. Reward: 12 x 5 = 60XP
Maria coughed, holding a rag over her face as she made her way to me. "You good?" she choked out. I held up a shaky thumbs up. "I''m chilling." Foreplay Noir A face meant for movies stared back at me from the medicine cabinet mirror, striking and beautiful but with a hard look I recognized from the streets. This was the man whose gaze you avoided on the subway, the hardened triad killer on his way to work, the cop you prayed didn''t show up to a call. Then, after an Acting roll, it transformed back into James Li; its eyes gaining a reassuring confidence, its lips quirking up with an easy smile. "You''re alright," I said to the reflection. "Yeah. You''ll be better tomorrow." Maria did a double take when I exited Mugisha''s cramped bathroom, almost half-annoyed by my appearance. I understood where she was coming from; I was suddenly fresh and clean while she was decidedly not. After sticking my head under the faucet and running a wet rag across my body, my 8 Dice in Presence and a mild reality-bending Special Feat had done the rest, leaving me dashingly dirtied at very worst. Even my joggers, which were in tatters, hung off my legs in a way that could have conceivably been an intentional albeit bold fashion choice. The sneakers were ruined, though. I had burned the pair until I could be sure there was no blood soaked in the threads and left them in the trash; there was simply no saving them. But ignoring that I was now barefoot, shirtless, and in ruined pants, I didn''t look much different from when we''d met on the street. Maria, on the other hand, was still coated in the dense smoke she had burst into, smelling of the several hundred herbal grenades I''d set off. A thick caking of ash clung to her sweat-damp uniform and legs, particularly heavy where the splashes of muck and blood had been. With a dull buzzing sensation in my head, I noted the gooey droplet of possibly melted flesh on her bike helmet and realized that chunks of my enemies must have plastered the ceiling before dripping down onto her. Maria didn''t question my sudden cleanliness, but I watched the fact get shelved neatly away for another time. She''d always had a keen intellect; I''d argued once that she was too smart by far for the BHPD. She had, in turn, said that I was too smart to be doing half the shit I did, but that didn''t stop me either. My ex-girlfriend turned friendly neighborhood bike cop was being stoic, but I could see the simmering anxiety in her body language, invisible unless you knew her well. Maria was erroneously concerned for me ¨C it was strange and nostalgic to see over three years after our breakup. "Someone left you a change of clothes in the backroom," she said, deliberately flicking her eyes in the direction of the camera in the corner of the ceiling. Her unuttered request was to be wary of what was said, but I had a better idea. I started pinching my fingers, using the motion to guide my Qi as I telekinetically severed the little wires poking out the backs of the many cameras in the room one by one. The snipping sounds caught Maria''s attention, her eyes flickering between my hand and the cameras ¨C this, too, would be filed away for later. "I take it the old man didn''t stick around?" "If he did, I can''t find him," said Maria, scowling at one of the walls. She was looking for a secret entrance, having noticed, as I had after the fight, that the office/preparation room was slightly narrower than both the front shop and the backmost storage room. And despite the fact that we could still hear the churning of the generator in the basement, there were no obvious ways down. Nor had there been cellar doors in the alley or a little door next to the entrance that would have led to stairs up. It was possible the entrances to both were in one of the buildings to the side, but considering the cyberpunk corpse still plugged into the computer system, I doubted it. Still, that plausible deniability worked as a good first line of defense against searches by law enforcement. She would need a warrant to do more than look around. Not that it would matter in this case ¨C Maria wasn''t even inspecting the correct wall. For all her intelligence and talent for observation, the cop hadn''t grown up with a thief father or spent several years on elaborate stage sets. My money was on a small hatch hidden under one of the room''s wider refrigerators, which would probably be on rails to allow for quiet exit and entry. I hadn''t rolled for Investigation, but it felt intuitive enough. You just needed to think like a criminal or a set designer, and the logic followed; it was much easier to hide a hatch and a space between the floor joists than it was to conceal a full Scooby-doo style door panel. "It''s probably for the best," I said, not terribly invested in her investigation. There were a lot of feelings and thoughts fighting for a place at the forefront of my mind, and none of them included a desire to reveal the badly beaten Mugisha''s secrets to the police. "He probably went off to get medical treatment. Man was in a bad way." "Mm. Maybe. Go get dressed. I''d like a word," she said, using her most compassionate tone of command. Maria had all sorts of ways of telling you what to do. "I am on a date right now, you know," I grumbled. I half-expected her to look irritated or jealous, but if anything, she seemed relieved that I wouldn''t be alone tonight. Ridiculous, but I suppose it was better than the alternative. "I''ll be quick." "Eh, fine. Hood theaters usually start late on Friday nights anyway. They sometimes don''t, though, so¡­" I trailed off intentionally, letting her know in so many words that I reserved the right to leave if she took too long. "I''ll be quick," she repeated. "Please." I left Maria to do cop stuff on her belt radio, mentally committing to wait no more than five minutes. It was nothing against the woman, but I was aching to cuddle up between Shania and Aminah in the dark, climate-controlled comfort of a movie theater. All the chaos in my head would quiet down once I could get back to the girls and our date. Once in the storage room, I disabled the cameras by clenching my fist and crushing them into crumpled little balls with Qi. These had to have been how Grady the cyborg saw through my stealth Stance. I was speculating, but I couldn''t see any other options, and the lag in the camera feed would explain his helplessness once I was on him. The reason I''d rolled unopposed to attack him was that his brain hadn''t registered I was there yet. Or something like that, at least ¨C I''d gained some Electronics, but there was a vast ocean between my new competence and the cutting-edge world of cybernetics. Well-to-do civilians had access to advanced prosthetic limbs, but implants like those of the hacker were extraordinarily expensive and rare in the West, usually reserved for the military or PMCs. Tariffs and understandable fears of data security and terrorism had paralyzed the transhumanism trend in America. For as short-sighted as the government usually was, you didn''t have to be a genius to look at the ultraviolence proliferating across Asia to recognize the need for caution. Not to give them too much credit, as soon as a domestic tech giant properly entered the market, I was sure we''d be as cooked as anywhere else. Robert had left me a full outfit folded nicely on top of a box by the door; no shirt, but it had a sweater, pants, and loafers. I slipped on the handmade sweater, striped with gorgeous red and black traditional African patterns, and resolved to keep it intact for as long as I could, it instantly becoming one of the nicest things I owned. The pants, basically capris on me, were red linen and the loafers, black snakeskin with decorative brass buttons, oozed steez. In a display of ludicrous politeness, the injured Robert had cleaned the shoes prior to leaving for medical treatment, something I only noticed because of a few thin lines of dust he''d missed. I rubbed the dust between my thumb and forefinger ¨C it had developed that grimy sticky quality it could get after years of neglect. From that and the aesthetic, I pictured this whole outfit having been put aside for emergencies sometime in the 90s or late 80s. Though granted, the man could have just had vintage tastes and a particularly dirty closet. Something about the age and coloration of the outfit felt relevant to my broader situation in Harbor Hill, but my brain couldn''t finish the thought. That damn mental buzzing was back. The neuroelectric fire starter was clicking, but the gas wouldn''t ignite. Red stitch-work on black snakeskin ¨C no, not snake, alligator. Black-dyed alligator leather, red pants, and a red-and-black sweater¡­gang colors or a tasteful commitment to fashion from an otherwise unassuming man? "James!" "Huh?" I jumped a little, surprised that I hadn''t noticed Maria enter the room. "What are you wearing?" Maria was in only a black sports bra and matching boy shorts, her short-cut brown hair dripping slightly from her own hobo shower in the bathroom sink and a crucifix dangling from her neck. She''d done her best to wipe herself clean, but there were still gray streaks of soot here and there. Her body had leaned down since we''d dated, the abs and contours of the muscles visible under an almost non-existent layer of fat, her veins casting shadows in the overhead fluorescent lighting. She looked like a boxer moments before a title fight, almost unnaturally fit. Maria had finally done it ¨C she''d crossed the line between a talented amateur and a real fighter, someone too strong to exist outside the Martial World. At some point, when you were good enough, you would be inevitably drawn into the Underworld as though the weight of your martial arts was pulling on the threads of fate as a planet might space-time. Not that the phenomenon was truly supernatural, but ours was a chaotic Earth. Maybe you''d go a decade minding your own business before three guys tried to mug you and your wife one day, and then, bam! Congratulations, you''re in the Martial World, caught in the cycle of violence just like the rest of us freaks and psychos. However, what was happening here was very intentional. Maria had hammered her body into this shape with regular Hard Training, living on the edge of serious injury for years, a fact written on every taut inch of her. Good for her. Life had to have been hell, working a long, demanding job and then training on top of it. If she kept this up for long enough, she''d develop Qi, though the timing of that could differ radically from person to person. Mathew Kingsman, my mother''s senior-most student of twenty years, lived under similar circumstances and was only beginning to access his Qi network now, in his forties. Matt was a longshoreman instead of a cop, but I''d argue that was worse. They were always scrapping down on the docks. The regular need to beat ass kept a lot of those jobs from being automated away. "Don''t get any ideas ¨C my clothes are drying. The smell was getting to me, and I wasn''t going to sit in it for another three hours." I bit back all of my many reasonable complaints about the BHPD; she''d heard them all before anyway, and this was the longest we''d gone without fighting in years. "Three hours? There''s no way they''re still going to take that long to show up, right?" Maria disguised her own displeasure for her colleagues by turning away, kicking out the brick propping open the back door and locking it. "Someone''ll probably be by before then, in maybe an hour or so. I asked if you were alright earlier, by the way, while you were lost in your loafers." "Thanks, but I''m good ¨C just admiring my new fit. Hey, you don''t happen to remember what colors the kids playing dice in the alley were repping, do you?" Maria pursed her lips and stared intently at my face before shaking her head with a sigh. "You look like half the guys that show up to slam poetry night at the Orb-Weaver. People are going to think you''re one of those girls'' Chinese uncle." Damn, I was hoping she hadn''t noticed the two teen girls earlier; she''d be needling me with this until the end of time. I should have assumed Maria would clock them even while angrily biking away. "Also, purple, white, and black ¨C what those kids were wearing. Prince fans, I assume." At my confused look, she added, "Purple Rain, James? We used to listen to it all the time." "Oh, right." I smirked. "In my defense, I remember being fairly preoccupied anytime you put on Prince." She rolled her eyes. "Nice. Real classy. And turn your phone off if you haven''t. Those things have new vulnerabilities every week." I reached down to the pile of trash that was my joggers and pulled what remained of my phone from the pocket. Shrapnel had destroyed the back entirely, a piece of ceramic jar still half embedded inside. "Way ahead of you. Going to start framing these things ¨C think this might be my fourth in a week. I''ll be the first person to develop telepathy out of spite pretty soon." Maria nodded tersely at the fancy brick and scanned the room for any cameras I''d missed, making sure we were theoretically unsurveilled before she continued. I held back a groan; I didn''t know if I could handle whatever serious discussion she was setting us up for. "I," she started slowly, "want to apologize to you, but I don''t know where to begin." I let out an involuntary, harsh laugh. She glared and crossed her arms. "Is this funny to you?" I waved a hand apologetically. "My bad, my bad. It''s just, it sounded like you asked me to turn my phone off so no one could hear you say sorry." "Oh." The heat in her voice left her, and she relaxed, giving me a rare look of chagrin. "And what if I did? Maybe I didn''t want to leave you with a recording." I slipped into the loafers. They were as comfortable as they were stylish, if slightly small for my feet. "If it helps, I also owe you an apology. My opinions on your choice of career haven''t changed, but I didn''t need to be such an asshole about it at the time. At some point, I switched from trying to convince you to just being a dick." "You were an asshole," she said sharply. "But you weren''t wrong. Looking back, it feels ridiculous to think it would matter to the department that I was dating a vigilante. Every cop spouse is either running a low-level grift or is, at the very least, drunk driving on the regular. It''s a sick joke." Something about an apologetic Maria made me feel uncomfortable ¨C it was too discordant, like seeing your dad cry. "For the record, dumping me to join the historically corrupt Black Harbor Police Department is still the shittiest thing someone''s done to me, and that includes multiple attempts on my life." "Thanks, James," she said dryly. "You really know how to rub salt in the wound." "You didn''t let me finish. I was going to say, putting resentment aside, there''s a big difference between me burning down a Triad warehouse and some cop wife running red lights. I gotta think it would come to a breaking point for the department at some point. No matter what I think of your dream job, I shouldn''t have asked you to choose between me and it." She barked a bitter laugh. "See, that''s where you''re wrong. You''re more popular than me. You burning that moonshining operation down earned you a lot of fans in the force, whereas drunk driving is one of those topics we all avoid bringing up." "The BHPD knows about that, huh? Shit." "Everyone knows about that. You were seen glowing gold and fleeing from the burning building, idiot. It''s the talk of the neighborhood." "Ah. I was hoping the storm would have¡ª" "Stopped people from noticing the fire tornado? The one that punched a hole through the clouds?" "Weren''t you in the middle of apologizing to me?" Maria smirked and took a seat on the big box the clothes had been left atop. I joined her, sitting close enough that I could feel her warmth through my sweater and pants. She surprised me by scooching over and leaning her still-damp head against my shoulder. We sat in silence for a short while. I knew that I ought to get back to Aminah and Shania soon, and I was sure Maria had her own duties to attend to, but there was an unspoken agreement between us at that moment. We both needed the breather. "Sorry, you''re on a date. I''m being the bitch ex-girlfriend right now," she said after a minute or so. Despite her words, her head stayed firmly planted where it was. I took her hand, interlacing our fingers together. "You shot a man for me; think you''ve earned the privilege." "You could have taken him." A familiar pride in her voice made my heart flutter ¨C a conditioned response that I couldn''t help, I told myself. "Thanks," I said softly. "Clean shot though, very badass." Maria turned and rested her chin on my shoulder, face close enough that her breath warmed my neck and chin. There was an air of playful smugness about her that I realized I might have missed a bit. "Those fucked up scars on your back, they from that moonshining operation?" "Yeah, like ''em?" "They''re a fucking jumpscare. What gave them to you? The whispers and gossip around Chinatown is that you fought a ''curse''." "It''s a¡­long story." Maria effortlessly picked up on the source of my hesitation. "Not sure I''ll believe you? Don''t worry about it. What''s that line from Hamlet, ''There''s more in this world, Horatio?'' I''ve been feeling that hard since I started patrolling." "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," I corrected automatically. She rolled her eyes. "Always forget you''re a theater kid." "You read philosophy in your free time, you dweeb. You''re the last person I want to hear that from." "I write it now too, or write essays in response, at least, got a newsletter and everything. The systematic introspection has been really helping me develop my mind-spirit connection as a martial artist ¨C you know, if I had to sell it to a jock, fighting-autist." She winced dramatically. "God, what was I thinking? I can''t believe I dated a jock theater kid; those are the absolute worst." "Wrong, nothing''s worse than a jock chess guy. Unless you were talking about theater kids, in which case it''s the sad boy hybrid. But let me reiterate, you literally have a philosophy newsletter, one of the most annoying hobbies I can think of." She smiled and flicked me painlessly in the chest. "What, it''s a good newsletter. People seem to be enjoying the discussion ¨C people with PhDs and constitutional lawyers. You want to read it?" "No." Maria laughed. There was a heavy pause. Three years ago, this would have been the moment in the conversation when she''d have said, ''I love you,'' and gone for a kiss. "You know, the irony isn''t lost on me that we spent all that time arguing about how our futures were incompatible and now we''re here, together. In this same, weird situation." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. I leaned my head against the concrete wall behind us and looked at the full shelves of imported dried herbs and the odd office product, and then down, at my handknit unc-sweater with its ornate African patterns. I must have looked like a rare Chinese member of the Nation of Islam. "O day and night, but this is wondrous strange," I quoted with a sigh. "What are we doing here, Maria? Bike cops don''t patrol Harbor Hill. Why have you chosen this quixotic quest of yours?" "Would you believe I know what I''m doing?" "Okay. Sure." She gave me a skeptical look. "Just like that? I thought you''d push back more." I shrugged. "Not like you would have listened anyway. Besides, I was hoping the faith might be reciprocated." Maria chuckled. "The only way you''ll believe I know what I''m doing is if I believe you know what you''re doing. Now that sounds more like you." "Your words, not mine. But, I mean¡­" "Ha. Fine, it''s a deal. I won''t pick at your ridiculous life decisions if you don''t pick at mine. I''d rather die than quit, and you''re just as stubborn as I am." "True." The thought of Maria dying young was viscerally unpleasant, but she was a warrior, and it was the life she''d chosen for herself. I had to respect it. "So, now that''s out of the way, why did you ask me to turn my phone off?" "Right, sorry, I said I''d be quick." Maria slid slightly away and let go of my hand, switching into a more professional mode. The bra and panties somewhat ruined the image, but I wasn''t complaining. She crossed her legs under her and started cracking her knuckles ¨C one of her tells that she was nervous. "This isn''t a sob story¡ªI genuinely think it makes sense for us to team up¡ªbut I saw some shit that I know you''d want to deal with, too, the most fucked up thing I''ve ever encountered in my life." "Shoot." She nodded. "Right. So, I''ve been trying to figure out ways to deal with the rot in the BHPD since I joined." "Naturally." "Yeah. But it''s not been easy, and here''s where I''ll give you your flowers¡ªI''ve concluded that it is impossible to do from just within the department. There are bidirectional forces at play here; yes, corrupt cops are soliciting bribes, but there are also major criminal actors bribing, blackmailing, and pressuring what would otherwise be ''good'' or at least non-dirty cops to conform to the status quo. We can''t deal with the problem unless we deal with both sides." I raised an eyebrow. "What are you proposing, Maria? You''ve seen firsthand what it means to ''deal'' with problems in the Martial World," I said, gesturing to the closed door between us and the dead Grady. She grimaced; this sort of compromise from her would have been unthinkable for the Maria I''d dated. "I know. Hear me out; I''m getting to it. Lots of people kill investigations in Black Harbor, right? There''s so much noise and it''s so routine that I''m willing to bet that there are orgs covering up crimes that aren''t even related to them; they just don''t want the heat near their own shit, or there are cops that are so used to covering for gangs that they kill things during paperwork without being asked. And, of course, the atmosphere rewards laziness and shoddy protocol, which means that those become the norm. What it all works out to - or what I had thought it worked out to, was that it would be impossible for me to find a single source for the worst of it, that I''d be tirelessly taking it day by day for the rest of my life." "But there were times," she continued, "where the entirety of the department moved like a well-oiled machine to kill a story. I wasn''t on the gang task force or homicide division, but I''d see it happen here and there ¨C never had a name or a clue as to the common factor, though. So, obviously, I started trying to follow the money. Who is the richest person in Black Harbor, James? Do you know?" I shrugged. "The Cunningham family still owns Cunningham Electric outright, don''t they? I guess them probably." "Not even close. They''re just provincial billionaires. Think bigger." "I''ve got places to be, Maria. Can we skip past the guessing game?" I sighed. "I don''t know, is it a shipping magnate? They can''t all be overseas. Or maybe the Lavender Rail people ¨C that shit''s been a monopoly." "Closer, but you''re off by orders of magnitude. Those are people whose wealth can be fathomed and theoretically calculated on paper. You could, if you were good enough, look at Siannon Cunningham''s assets and debts and arrive at an approximation of what she''s worth. No, this is someone whose wealth fluctuates by billions every second, to whom money and resources are intangible fictions to enthrall the masses. His name is Garrett Evans, the board president of the Evans Group." She paused dramatically, waiting for my reaction. No wonder she was having trouble making inroads with other cops; all that philosophy had her talking like a coffeeshop revolutionary. "Never heard of him." "Isn''t that insane? James Li, Black Harbor''s uber townie, doesn''t know that there''s a company trading with trillions of dollars in assets in the city, most of which is controlled by one man? Oil and gas companies advertise for some godforsaken reason, but we''ve never seen an Evans Group billboard in the city they were founded in. Does that make sense to you?" I tapped my wrist where a watch would be if I owned one. "Okay, I''m following along, but again, Maria¡ª" "Yes, I know, on a date." She did another scan of the room for anything that could be listening and leaned in closer, dropping her voice low. "The Evans Group controls most of the major pension funds in the city, including the BHPD union''s. That was how I first heard of them, but it was all I could get. After exhaustive digging, I found some signs that they might have been laundering money for organized criminals in the Eighties, but by the Nineties, they had so many subsidiaries and overseas shell companies that you''d need a team of accountants to track anything." I quirked my head; there was still a solid static fuzz over my thoughts, but this was ringing a bell. "Wait, Evans, is he about six-foot-two and well-built, with white hair and an ornate cane?" Maria sucked in a breath and leaned forward. "You''ve seen him? That''s huge; he rarely leaves his Greenbelt mansion, been that way for decades." "At the Kingfisher''s opening dinner, the Crane''s new fortress downtown. He appeared to react to my gaze, which should have been virtually impossible at the time. For most mortals at least; I''ve got this new Stance. So far it''s only been bested by Iron-Crutch Li, the legendary Daoist Immortal, and the dead cyborg a room over." "Shit, that all but confirms my worst-case scenario. Even with everything I had found, I couldn''t be entirely sure; the man is practically a ghost. There was literally nothing I could find that pointed to the Evans Group having anything to do with the day-to-day corruption in the force. If it hadn''t been for McFadden¡ª" "The mayor?" I said skeptically. Gerald McFadden, billionaire car dealer, was the city''s newest ever-smiling tyrant. I distrusted him out of principle ¨C I mean the man sold used cars, for God''s sake. What were we doing, people? "He actually did something good?" "No, but he made enough waves that I finally got a half-decent look at what was beneath the surface. I''ve been curious about the state of Harbor Hill for a while. The murder rates been biblical here for as long as we''ve been alive, but when I joined up, I learned we borderline didn''t have anyone working the neighborhood ¨C administration being reluctant to send officers into danger, I figured, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. BHPD doesn''t send cops to Harbor Hill because it''s too dangerous, and Harbor Hill stays too dangerous for cops because none of us patrol it." I had very differing opinions on what having two fat donut-chewing fucks posted up in a squad car on the corner did for a neighborhood, but I kept them to myself. "Then McFadden wins the mayoral race off the back of promising to direct resources from wealthier neighborhoods into poorer ones, and suddenly there''s this gold rush of labor fraud. Every other cop is supposedly getting paid overtime and hazard pay patrolling the Hill, meanwhile I''m seeing them post pictures from the craps table. Extremely annoying, but I''m a rookie thinking to myself, well, eventually, they''ll have to actually follow through on this, right? The mayor''s office is going to throw a fit once they realize how bad they''re being swindled. So, I leave it alone, focus on what I can do." She continued, growing more heated. I could tell this rant had been bubbling inside her for a minute. "Then a year passes, and what do you know, response time averages are way down in the Hill, and positive police interactions are way up. McFadden''s plan is an unambiguous success, or at least, someone is spending serious money and manhours making it look that way. And it''s smooth; everything about the cover-up is just working, from the top brass all the way down to volunteer dispatch. What I used to only see on occasion is happening en-masse, every day." "Which is why you volunteered for this crazy beat." "Eventually, yes, when I got desperate enough, but I tried for other more sensible routes first. Unfortunately, by early on in my career, I¡ª" She wobbled her head back and forth. "My principles," she corrected, "made me a known entity. My family kept me from getting shafted with traffic duty, but I wasn''t allowed near anything that could give me a clue." Maria''s eyes unfocused, staring through me into the middle distance. She took a deep, calming breath. "Then¡­providence. God delivered me to the evidence I needed and lit a fire under me ¨C pushed me to do what I had to do. It''s why I''m asking for your help, why I''m compromising like this." I frowned; this was more religious than she''d ever been in the past. "One night, I''m stuck escorting a paramedic team responding to a heart failure at a luxury high-rise downtown when we hear this blood-curdling scream from the penthouse upstairs. I go to radio it in while running up the stairs, but ¨C and this is going to sound crazy, but bear with me ¨C it''s dead, like no power, no static, nothing, and I swear, I can feel God or an angel, or some divine power, telling me to screw protocol and get my ass up there." She shuddered, and her words took on a staccato rhythm, as though she was half hypnotized. "The penthouse was owned by a forensic accountant with a wife and two kids. When I get there, the door is thrown open, and he''s crouched over his daughter''s tutor, eating her, tearing through her flesh and bone like cotton candy while she twitches and gurgles. And his eyes, James, his eyes are these sick, green balls of pus with fucking maggots dripping out of them like tears. I empty my magazine into his skull, taking the top half completely off, and the body stands up and charges. I back up and get into the stairwell just fast enough to trap one of its arms between the steel door and the frame. It goes blindly for my throat and recoils when it grabs my crucifix necklace like it grabbed a flame. I start slamming the door with my shoulder, again and again, until I crush the flesh and bone and sever the arm. I can hear it trip and fall back, so I reload, throw the door open, and empty the magazine into its knees, all seventeen rounds. That''s finally enough for the demon or whatever nightmare was piloting the corpse to leave the accountant and try to hop into me. I black out. All I remember is the void, floating, naked save for my crucifix, the only sounds I can hear are my own words, prayers. Then I snapped out of it; I wake up on my back, not having moved from where I''d fallen, with the sounds of dispatch coming in clear through my radio." She paused, frozen, caught in that moment again. Maria had inherited her father''s machismo and aversion to emotional honesty. She''d always preferred to be treated like one of the boys. So, instead of reassurance, I went with, "Damn, that''s fucked. I fought a Hungry Ghost at Bell Street ¨C sorry, forgot to answer you earlier. Way worse than your thing. You woulda been pissing and shitting, probably." She shot me a grateful look, before papering it over with an annoyed scowl. "Asshole. Anyway, the man ran one of the forensic accounting teams for Evans Group. I got to watch firsthand as the whole story and incident disappeared overnight ¨C finally giving me my first real clue on who was pulling the strings. Four dead, cannibalized victims, two of them children," she snapped, "gone without a trace. It pulled it all together ¨C showed me some identifiers that separated an Evans cover-up with the other sort. I noticed an unusual number happening in Harbor Hill, and the rest is history. So, are you in?" "Am I in for what, woman? I know what I would do about the problem, but how the hell does this team-up work in your head? Keep in mind, I''ve got a million-dollar bounty on my head and am embroiled in a gang war already." She crossed her arms. "That''s not stopping you from having threesomes with high schoolers. Those girls are a little young for you, don''t you think, James?" "How did I know that would come up? Look, it''s a simple question, Maria. Help me understand how the two of us are going to be applying bi-directional forces to this police corruption problem. If you were just asking me to go kill the guy, it would be one thing, but you aren''t posted up in the Greenbelt with a sniper rifle; you''re biking around Harbor Hill like a dipshit." Maria smirked and swung her leg over mine, straddling me and wrapping her arms around my neck. I held myself back from a biting comment ¨C it was absurd that she thought she could sway me with sexuality. She was hot, but I still had enough self-respect to not hook up with my ex. "Trust me, James, I know exactly how best to use you in a tight situation." She emphasized her point by rocking her hips forward, teasing my now semi-erect cock through my pants. "This feels like cheating," I grumbled. "Shut up." She ran her fingernails across my scalp, pausing at my temples, where she began to massage me gently. "You''re going to do what you''re wont to do, start fights, create chaos, burn down buildings¡ª" "I''ve burned down one building¡ª" "Except that you''re going to do it to targets I''ll point you at, like my trusty hound. Ah¡ª" she stopped me from responding with a finger on my lips. "Don''t worry, I know you''ll be hitting your own targets as well. For those, you just have to keep me in the loop. The more crimes I see covered up, the better picture I''ll have of who is dirty and who they''re working for. We can piece this puzzle together, and it''ll give me some much-needed clout and leverage in the department if I bag more guys like those mercenaries in the front." I held her by the sides, running my thumbs across her abs and rolling a Sensuality + Martial Arts to titillate her, applying just the right pressure to call to mind some of our finest trysts. Two could play at this game. "Then what? You get your full corkboard with all the many dirty cops in Black Harbor strung up with their benefactors ¨C what do we do then?" Maria licked her lips. "Take it to the feds." I laughed. "Come on, be serious." She must have felt the same way at some level because she didn''t push back. "We can figure it out when we get there then. Either way, you can''t effect purposeful change to a system you don''t understand." I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the Latina tomboy sexpot on my lap, actively trying to influence me with her body. She hadn''t proposed anything too crazy, but I could feel the desperation in her. Maria was traumatized by what she''d fought in that penthouse, and it had driven her to the point she was willing to call me, of all people, in to help her. That was a terrible start to this partnership. But I didn''t have much of a plan myself beyond beating the hell out of enough dudes that they got the message, and that was more of a half-baked idea than a valid strategy. I was more or less stalling until I could get the rest of the Party here to help. In the meantime, Maria would be a better ally than most. Plus, I should keep an eye on her; it wouldn''t do to let my ex go full Lovecraft protagonist. She was already past the ''Ignore Obvious Deathtrap'' stage and beginning to descend into the ''Moral Compromise'' spiral. If I didn''t intervene now, I might not get another chance in the future. "Alright, I''m down. Mostly because it sounds like I''d be doing half of this anyway. Let''s be real, I would have figured out the Evans connection soon enough. I''d already seen the guy at a Triad club."
[Hidden Quest Complete] Make an ex an Ally. Reward: 15XP, +1 Insight, Gain Ally Maria Ramirez
She pressed her chest forward, molding her body to mine, and hummed contentedly. "I knew you''d come around," said Maria, her tone sultry and victorious. Her breath warmed my lips. "One last thing before I send you on your way then." I quashed the small voice of reason in my mind reminding me that this was a mistake, and savored the feel of her warm brown skin under my palms. Her thighs felt powerful as they squeezed my hips. "What''s that?" I said, leaning ever so slightly forward. "You''re probably pretty pent up. A life-or-death situation will do that." Her hands drifted down to my chest. "I wouldn''t want to send you back to your date on edge. You know what you should do?" "I''m all ears." Maria pushed off my chest and hopped onto her feet. "You should jerk off ¨C Or else those blushing virgins won''t know what to do with you." I nodded to myself and sighed. "Ah. Of course." She stretched out her back, arms above her, tantalizingly exposing all the contours of her abs. "I can''t believe you''re parading those two girls out in public. If you''re going to be a degenerate, at least do it in private, James." "It''s because I called you a dumb bitch earlier, isn''t it?" "Want me to grab you some tissues?" Maria started to strut away, accentuating the sway of her perfect ass. "Trash can, maybe?" "Jokes on you, woman. I think you''re cuter when you''re vindictive." Maria blew me a kiss. "Bye, James. I''ll be in touch with a secure number. Enjoy the fumbling hands and the feeling of teeth on your massive cock." And with that, she gave one last challenging smirk and slammed the door. I grumbled and stood up, adjusting my pants a bit. She was right. I was pent up. "Fucking, Maria." Harbor Hill Lights Harbor Hill Lights? Gunshots, an explosion, and the ensuing pungent cloud of smoke had chased all but the most suicidally unbothered locals inside. Many had sought shelter inside the theater and were now loitering around the lobby, sharing overpriced snacks, playing arcade games, and waffling between whether they wanted to actually watch a movie or not and, if so, which one. They joined the many who were here to enjoy one of the last Friday Evenings left in the year. The days were growing shorter as the season came on, and soon this hour would be reserved for Friday Nights. I could barely recall the chaos of the world outside while in the lobby ¨C could barely recall anything at all. There was an overwhelming but pleasant noise in here, the unintelligible sounds of mirth played to a backing track of Top-40 hits, that drowned out the dull drumming in my head. Had I been a teenager, I might have snuck past the bored attendant checking tickets, but I was an industry professional now. I had an obligation to support my local theaters. They were the last bulwark between movies meant to capture you for hours and ones made to be half-watched while scrolling on your phone. I wanted to feel something when I watched a movie, not listen to the same exposition for the third time in case I missed it while gaming on the second monitor. I was waiting in the considerable line, idly watching two middle-aged Mexican men play god-tier King of Fighters on a cabinet nearby, when I remembered I had meant to spend my Experience before returning to the date. Any compunctions I had about seducing the teens had been splattered across the walls of Mugisha''s ¨C I couldn''t even think of why I''d been reluctant to do so in the first place. I was okay with brutally killing my enemies, but I wouldn''t have sex with two eighteen-year-olds who were throwing themselves at me? What kind of schizophrenic morality was that? Age gap discourse barely existed in this world; there were too many confusingly hot septuagenarians running around, confusing the conversation. That was a purely Alan hangup, and he was as exhausted as the rest of my conscious mind. As for the power gap ¨C what, was I never going to have sex with a normal human again? Every day that passed moved me closer to myth than man. I had a responsibility for self-care that triumphed any paternalistic protectiveness towards Aminah and Shania, a responsibility I''d been shirking. This last week had my brain feeling like an overworked boiler; if I kept pushing it, James Li would go the way of the Overlook Hotel, potentially literally considering my Fire-natured Qi. Having resolved myself to the seduction, the question was what I should buy prior to completing any Hidden Quests. Rewards for these sex Quests were usually related to my partner''s Skills and Attributes, which had been easily observable thus far. Not to reduce them to a few words, but Marianne was a nurse and single mother, Annie was a fitness influencer and grease monkey, and Maki was your typical Miko turned gritty loose cannon detective witch¡­Well, alright, maybe Maki was harder to profile than the other two, but the point was I had decent expectations for what their specific Quests would give me. It was harder to tell with the girls, though. Aminah, at least, had a preternatural ability with animals¡ªeven I couldn''t coax Smoothie onto my lap without touching him, and he was my Familiar¡ªbut Shania was too reserved to be more than a responsible older sister and diligent student. Her father had spiraled into bitterness and paranoia before the divorce and his subsequent mysterious death. In his crash out, he''d become verbally abusive, taking out his frustrations on those around him, even slut-shaming his eleven-year-old daughter because she reminded him of his dropping out of high school to help raise her. Marianne separated from him quickly after that, but the experience had lasting effects ¨C Shania was shy around her peers and paralyzingly so around boys. A fundamental process of growing up had been arrested by the abuse, leaving her terrified of intimacy and her sexuality. I was ostensibly here to fix that tonight, though I had to wonder if having me as a first time would do more harm than good in the long run for the girls. Whatever ¨C there was more to sex than physical pleasure, and I was far from the only superhuman lover in the world. Even if I did ruin regular men for Shania and Aminah, surely there were cute, emotionally sensitive Immortal boyfriends out there for them somewhere in this lunatic asylum of a universe. Fucking everything else existed; it couldn''t all be bad. Regardless, trying to conceive of their futures was largely pointless; neither girl had yet been given the space to develop. Aminah had explored her talent for animals in the context of a Science Fair because that was what was allowed by her strict parents. Who knew, maybe in a few years, Aminah would be into rodeo and Annie Oakley-style marksmanship, and Shania would be in Japan, having felt called to walk the path of a bonsai master. A lot could happen in your early twenties. With that in mind, I decided it was best to prioritize the Attributes before the Skills. Both girls were intelligent and empathetic - not as exceptionally as Maki, maybe, but they were still notably so for average humans from non-Underworld backgrounds. Lucky for me, my Wits and Empathy had been hovering tantalizingly at 5 Dice for a while, which meant that this was a perfect opportunity to finally bump them up. The ticket counter snapped me out of my thoughts. Behind the glass in a booth still stained from when they were allowed to smoke cigarettes inside, the clerk asked if I was sure I wanted to see the 6:05 showing of Chauncey Burn. "It''s only 6:40," I said, "there''s a chance you guys just started playing the trailers." The thirty-something with dyed pink hair and deep bags under her eyes grinned lasciviously. "For sure, there was an OD in the matinee show, fucked up the whole schedule," she said. "Nah, I was asking are you sure, because you could also hang out at the arcade for twenty minutes until my shift ends. You can watch whatever you want at my place ¨C got a 4k TV and everything. Want to know what I''ll be doing?" She licked her lips. That was probably creepier than she intended, but I appreciated the effort. "Thanks, but I''m meeting some people inside." She shrugged, having expected the response. "Figures. I had to shoot my shot, though. I''m sure you get it; you own a mirror." I shook my head, smiling as I walked away. It took a certain kind of person to work for peanuts somewhere in Harbor Hill that semi-regularly let you out past midnight. Once free of the line, I gave the lobby a last scan for any visible threats and spent my Experience, dropping 120 to get up to 6 Dice in both Wits and Empathy.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Have 6 Dice in Wits. Reward: Gain Special Feat The Download [Special Feat] The Download For you, Round 2 is when the fight really starts. Your unconscious mind continues to crunch critical decisions long after the moment, constantly envisioning alternate possibilities and solutions. Once you''ve engaged in conflict or competed against someone, you get an additional Die to face them in the same manner again in all subsequent scenes. This is highly aggravating to be subjected to. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Have 6 Dice in Empathy. Reward: Special Feat Yearning Song [Special Feat] Yearning Song You have an uncanny knack for understanding what people truly want, whether they can admit it to themselves or not. The more time you spend with someone and the more intimate you get with them, the more you will intuit their deepest desires. They will attribute this to your natural talent rather than any supernatural cause.
I didn''t need the warning that came with The Download; I''d played fighting games online before. I knew the feeling well. However, even if it turned out that I was somehow supernaturally annoying to fight twice, that was still one of my least monkey''s paw-esque Special Feats. Yearning Song, like most Feats heavy on romance and sex, was apparently without drawbacks, though that last line had worrisome implications. Overall, they felt like the right purchases, and both would be useful going into the date regardless of whether I earned Dice in them afterward. That left me with a little over 80 Experience; I bought another 3 Dice in Animal Handling for a total of 5 and saved the rest for an emergency Style Maker Minor Feat. I let go of all further thoughts about the system. That was it; I''d checked off all the little boxes and done everything I reasonably could to be safe. I''d even made a quick lap around the building to check for any surprise bastards hiding in the alleys before coming inside. I was set now. I could go into this without complicated concerns for future plans and just enjoy myself from here on. The weekend had begun. Chauncey Burn was a historical drama based on an old novel about a young governess sent to the countryside manor of minor English nobility. With almost three hours of dry romance and stuffy accents, it wasn''t my usual affair, but hey, it was nice to switch it up every now and then. I took the red carpeted stairs to the second level, where all the low-budget art movies were relegated to. The smallest theaters were up here, and outside of special screenings of Bollywood films, it was usually dead at even the busiest hours. Tonight was no different. After sunset, you might see some teens on the second level, looking to get away from their parents to make out in the dark, but it was early for that crowd. Besides, it wasn''t the Nineties anymore; people had streaming services and laptops. It was cheaper, safer, and far more reasonable to cuddle with a screen at the foot of your bed than it was to spend forty bucks to neck while ignoring some arthouse romance for three hours. The difference in sound between the echoey lobby and the second-floor hallway gave the impression of a deafening silence despite the muffled orchestral scores coming through the walls. Between that and the emptiness stretching to either side of me, the space had a distinct liminal eeriness. I stepped to the side as three EMTs exited one of the theaters on the way to my destination. They looked exhausted, overworked, and in no particular rush as they wheeled their unconscious, morbidly obese patient to the elevator. A part of me wanted to offer my aid, but what could I reasonably do in the situation anyway? They''d already done the hard work of lifting the guy onto the stretcher, and all my medical abilities required me to use Erotic Sorcery. No, this seemed like a routine call for an ambulance crew ¨C not the place for a youxia. I stopped mid-stride. An ambulance crew? I''d been hyper-alert for any response, official or criminal, to what had happened in Mugisha''s when I''d done my quick lap around the building. I hadn''t seen anything. For the EMTS to be inside and working as I came up the stairs, the ambulance would have had to already be parked nearby. Usually, they backed the truck up as close to the doors as possible ¨C Surely, I would have noticed that. In fact, no matter what my mental state was, I''d go so far as to say it was impossible that I would miss an ambulance with its lights on when I was actively looking for one. So, then¡­ A woman''s shoulder clipped mine as I turned to look at the EMTs. She was crying, coughing as she held her throat. "Stop!" yelled a man, running after her. There was a beeper on his belt, meaning he was either a doctor, a drug dealer, or a time traveler. "Hey, fucking stop! Relax, alright." He grabbed her by the arm and turned her around. She slapped him hard, and whatever paper-thin mask of contrition on his face vanished, revealing only rage. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. "That was fucking rape," she started to say between coughs, "I told you¡ª" The man grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. "You think that was rape, bitch? That was a blowjob. You''ll know when I''m fucking raping you, whore." Uh oh, guess I was doing a bit more killing today. Shame. "Yo! What is wrong with you¡ª" Glass crunched under my foot as I moved to intervene. I looked down to see a broken, dirty needle ¨C no, needles, plural, I corrected. The floor was littered with dirty needles and glass crack pipes. The more I looked, the more I saw; they were everywhere. Barely an inch of carpet was uncovered, and those scarce inches were wet and stained with a brown muck that seemed to seep out of the threads. A sharp, sour sweet smell hit my nostrils like a flame, almost making me wretch. How had I walked through this without noticing? I furrowed my brow and paused. Something was wrong. The mental static that had followed my killing of the mercenaries was back in full force, worse now than before. I had to help the girl, and quickly, but something¡­something was very wrong. If I could just think¡ª "No, please, no," pleaded another voice behind me. Two teenage crust punks who looked like they could have been sisters were crouched over a third. His eyes had rolled up in his head, and he was seizing on the ground, foam on his lips. The girl who had spoken was trying to shake him into consciousness. "Fuck, no, no, no, not like this." "We need to go," whisper-yelled the other girl, pulling at her shoulder. "Get off of me, he''s dying! Dying!" "He''s dead." The non-hysterical punk grabbed her maybe-sister by the chin and hissed cruelly, "Because of shit you sold him, dumbass. Shit we sold ten other people tonight. Are you trying to get us sent to prison for life? We. Need. To. Go." Wait, I could maybe deal with an overdose, or at least keep the guy alive long enough for help to arrive. I''d have to use Love Doctor, and the guy would have a wicked boner, but I could keep his heart beating for a few minutes without too much difficulty. Hadn''t there just been some EMTs here? "Hey, hang on," I said. My voice sounded confused and distant even to my own ears. The psycho to the other side of me slammed the girl into the wall again. "Which is it going to be, bitch? You want to go back inside and finish what you started, or do you want to go in the bathroom and learn just what the fuck you''re accusing me of? Huh!?" She made a horrible, wet, gasping sound of pure despair. I felt as though I''d been punched hard in the gut. The echo of her sob was going to bounce around the walls of my skull for a long, long while. The Empty-Headed God swept through the visions like a strong wind, temporarily blurring reality as my mind tried to reject whatever was happening. Some instinct buried within me had made me slip into the Happy Idiot without conscious effort, and the effect of the mental defenses the Stance provided was immediate. My mind was twisting and ephemeral in this state, unshackled from responsibility and material concerns by blissful ignorance. Even still, when the wind passed, I remained in the nightmare ¨C there were still needles littering the floor, and the two scenes of mundane horror continued playing out to either side of me. But my thoughts were clearer, or as clear as they could be in the Happy Idiot. Whatever blinding caul that had been cast over me was closer to mesh netting now. I was suddenly aware of the tens of thousands of invisible floating presences in the air and walls of the hallway, flitting around and wishing death upon me with all of their feeble wills. Clinging to my back was the familiar and pathetic spirit that I had chased away from Pha Thet, much braver now that it had returned for me with its legion of allies. If I hadn''t been in the Happy Idiot, I''d probably have listened to the first impulse to summon the Hakkotsu no Ha to my hand and stab through my shoulder into the thing on my back, killing it just as I had threatened to earlier. But I was the Empty-Headed God right now, and such violence was so not the weekend vibe that I needed right now. I''d lose my mind if I had to spend the rest of this date with Funikugami''s sword hidden under my sweater. Instead, I craned my neck and looked at where I could feel the spirit on my back. It was still invisible to my eyes, but I wanted to do this right. We were going to talk this out even if it killed me ¨C maybe especially if it killed me. Did that make sense? I couldn''t tell. I was slowly losing the ability to parse my own decisions. "No, thanks," I said, politely waving it away. I had no expectations of what would happen and was pleasantly surprised to feel the spirits and see the illusory world around me tremble, as though they, too, were suddenly unsure of how to proceed. How pitiful ¨C Funikugami would have never. The little crow-headed shit would only be scheming harder in their position. I sighed. "I get it," I lied. I had no idea what was happening. "You''re like, uh, an evil dickhead born from evil dickhead shit. But listen, and this is probably antithetical to your whole steez, but there''s more to this place than all the worst things that happened here." Again, the world shook. The spirits swirled around me restlessly. Holy shit, was this working? I gestured to the man now dragging the girl back inside the theater. "For example, I''d bet my life that orders of magnitude more nuts were busted consensually here than non-consensually. And these guys," I said, pointing to the punks. "Way more people have done an enjoyable, non-lethal amount of drugs at the movies than have overdosed tragically. I bet half the employees here are high right now! As for the dude on the stretcher, I mean, if the movie was good, that isn''t the worst way to die. If I had a heart attack while watching Jackie Chan''s Who Am I? I''d have been alright with that, and that''s far from peak Chan." The system translated my words into an Affinity + Persuasion, generously granting me an extra Die for the argument. Luck was on my side too; I rolled probably just enough with a critical, giving me six Successes. There was no sound or light show to represent my victory. One moment I was trapped in these collected nightmares of the past, and the next I was back in the hallway as it had been moments prior. The thousands of dirty needles were gone, as were the other people. I was alone again in the liminal space with yet another concern for another time.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Rebuff The Misery''s first attempt on your mind. Reward: 10XP, +1 Insight Bonus, Escape unscathed: 20XP, +1 Willpower
I stroked my chin and considered the pop-up. How fascinating. The wording all but guaranteed they''d be back for me another time and probably with a stronger attack, but that was future-me''s problem. What caught my eye, though, was the Bonus; I''d expected one, but for getting through it non-violently, not this. What would have happened had I summoned the Bleached Bone Blade and attacked? I''d assumed that the spirits would break once they saw me kill a few of them with the cursed sword. Individually, they were barely more than gnats, and I had to imagine that confronting the fact you could die would shock any being who was learning it for the first time. But, in retrospect and being honest with myself, that line of logic had been entirely conjured up after the fact by a mix of bloodthirst and revulsion at what I was seeing. If they hadn''t been routed after the first round of combat, it would have been like fighting raindrops in a storm. In the limited range that Smells Blood gave me to sense murderous desires, I had felt thousands of little sparks moving around my head, points of hatred glowing like stars in the night sky. I couldn''t have fought that. Maki and I had been prepared to face the Egui, and I''d had the help of three other masters against the Flesh Puppet. You didn''t just throw down against supernatural horrors in this world, not by yourself, and not without knowing what you were fighting. Had I not received a Bonus Reward for using a non-violent method because the alternative was simply impossible? The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Unbidden, I realized I wasn''t alone in this hallway. Those shapeless, malevolent spirits hadn''t left; they''d only disappeared from my senses. They were still here. They had been here before I''d come and would be here after I left. I swept my hand through the empty air around me and thought back to Pha whirling around in the street with a knife, mad-eyed and possessed. The man was a trained fighter from one of the most hardcore martial arts in the world, lethwei, the Art of Nine Limbs. You had to have that dog in you to practice lethwei. Those lunatics hardened their skulls for headbutting. Training the Eagle''s Talon had been bad; I''d spent long, awful months striking stones, breaking my hands, soaking them in Dit Da Ja for hours, and repeating every day without rest until I could use the deadly technique. They did the equivalent of that to their heads. Pha was a strong-willed man, there could be no doubt of that. After who knows how many hours of fighting for control, he''d even seized his muscles up at the end. Yet, I had found him swinging at shadows, surrounded by his terrified family. Would that have been me had I drawn the Hakkotsu no Ha? Would Shania and Aminah have found me in three hours, fully battle-mad and insane? There was a broader lesson to be learned here about escalation ¨C to invite violence into your heart was to open yourself to The Misery that followed. Ugh, I hated allegories. More importantly, my decision to preserve the vibes instead of fight had saved me from possession, or worse. I''d followed a ludicrous impulse, and it had worked for once! Finally! I put my hands on my hips and blew out a long breath. "Man, we''ve seen some rough shit lately. A lot of really¡­really bad stuff." I sort of trailed off for a moment while nodding at an innocuous point in space. "But," I said, gathering myself again, "the vibes must be preserved, James. That''s the real takeaway here." A smile grew slowly on my face as I continued to nod at nothing. "The Empty-Headed God was victorious, and the Carrion King and his little bitch-made sword were proven to be dumb as hell. Ha! What an idiot." I beamed. I might finally use the shrine in my meditation chamber just to rub this win into his nose. Or beak, I guess. Hmm, what now? Could I really go back to the date after uncovering the spiritual poison corrupting the neighborhood? What was I thinking ¨C this was clearly a question for the only part of my psyche that had been proven effective against The Misery. "O ye mighty fool," I said aloud, stretching my arms wide in exaltation of the blind, idiot God within me, "What shall we do now?" I pretended to think about it. In actuality, of course, I would simply declare the first thing that came to mind, but this was an important part of the process. Hemming and hawing, screwing up my face, staring hard at the floor, and resting my chin on my tightly clenched fist, I hit all the aesthetics of difficult contemplation. Were anyone to see me like this, they would have seen the Platonic Ideal of Thought. Rodin would have melted his statue down at the sight and started over from scratch. Finally, I looked up as though I''d had an epiphany and imagined a big, old-timey lightbulb flashing above my head. "I want to get silly with it, baby," said the Empty-Headed God. "Let''s have some fun." I nodded. Yes, that was right. I had to slip free from the weight of the world if my battered psyche was to begin to recuperate. And I mean, jeez, it would be pretty rude of me to turn the guy down now, not after he''d saved my life. "Okay, one last time for the people in the back. Now, the weekend has officially begun." Harbor Hill Lights 2 Chauncey Burn was in the middle of a long-panning shot of the English countryside when I entered the theater, the camera following an early twentieth-century steam train as the opening credits played. It was a hopeful start for the main character''s journey with some excellent sound design. The rumble and rattle of a train rolling along the tracks, the clinking of tea cups and saucers, and the click of a cheap latch on a battered suitcase all served to transport you to a different world and a different time. You could close your eyes and picture yourself as the anxious but eager young woman on the way to a better life. I paused in the aisle. Would I have agreed if the Producers had asked me to participate in the show instead of tricking me? I couldn''t say. Shania waved to catch my attention, returning my attention to the present. What did it matter now anyway? We were here now, and that was all there was to it. There were six other people in the theater, one of whom was dead asleep and probably homeless. You could get away with a good six to nine hours of sleep for the cost of a ticket if you picked the right film and ignored any attempts to wake you from the minimum wage employees. That was cheaper than anything you''d find outside of a trap house hostel, and was climate-controlled to boot. The other five consisted of a young couple who were already at the over-the-clothes fondling stage of their night and three middle-aged women, wine-drunk and chatting loudly. One of them wolf-whistled at me as I walked past. "Seats are full, sugar. How about you squeeze in with me?" catcalled another. I saw the top of a bottle sticking out of a large purse on her lap. I ignored the women; they were a part of the scenery at a hood theater. In a more packed room, you''d have dozens of them providing commentary and joking with each other the entire movie ¨C it was par for the course and could even be charming if you came prepared. I was a fan, but then I mostly watched ''dumb-guy'' flicks, the sorts of movies that lost nothing from having people shout jokes at the screen. Transplants and my bougier friends would sometimes complain, but you could always go downtown or to the Greenbelt if you were after the more classic theater experience. Shania and Aminah quickly vacated the seat between them of snacks as I approached. We were in the backmost row in what my friends and I called a ''make-out corner'', where the slightly off-wedge shape of a theater would produce a few rows with more seats in them than the rest. The half wall to keep you from falling down into the long hall to the side of the stadium seating obstructed a part of the screen but also afforded you a bit of privacy in a more crowded movie. A not insignificant percentage of people copped their first feel in corners such as this one, a population that would soon include my two dates if I had anything to say about it. "Make-out corner, huh?" I whispered, sliding in between them. "Interesting choice." The girls radiated embarrassment. Shania held up her phone, showing off a notes app set to dark mode. "We didn''t want to disturb anyone." I glanced at the women several rows down. One of them took a swig directly from the bottle before passing it to her friend. The third woman was lighting a blunt. "Sure, very considerate of you." "They showed up after we did," she protested. I slung an arm around her shoulder and tilted her chin up with my finger. "Aww, so you don''t want to make out then? I''m gutted." I said, leaning my face down towards her. "Um, I, uh," she stammered, freezing up. I grinned. "This is all you''re getting unless you give me a sign you want more." My mission tonight was to get the eldest Greene child more comfortable in these situations. Shania gulped and tensed before forcing herself to relax. Closing her eyes, she moved fractionally closer, her lips parting slightly. I''d chosen my words carefully to include nonverbal communication, and took the invitation, kissing her. I started slow ¨C this was Shania''s second kiss, her first having been with me the week before, after I''d rescued her from a mugging. As was to be expected, she was amateurish and unsure of what to do, mostly staying still and pliant, letting me do with her what I pleased. That was fine by me. The goal was to have Shania be okay with romance and boys, not to become a seductress. If she wanted to be swept away by Prince Charming, then I would be happy to deliver, but it took two to tango. Cinderella still had to put on the slippers and go to the ball. Chilled by the theater air conditioning, her chocolate skin swiftly warmed to my touch. Shania moaned into my mouth, small hands clinging to my sweater as thirteen Successes took our kiss from good, past incredible, and all the way to revelatory. I had to be careful not to knock her glasses off her face as she grew more careless, getting lost in the kiss. She lifted up off her seat a little to get as close as she could, opening her mouth as my tongue entered to titillate her own. I followed my instincts - called to claim the sprite of a girl. The arm slung over her shoulder moved to grab hold of her curly, natural hair with a firm but not painful hold, and the hand under her chin traced its way up. Her cheek, soft and smooth, felt completely at home in my battered palm. We kissed until she was panting for breath, and even then, I had to hold her by the hair when I backed away to keep her from following. Her eyelids fluttered, and she breathed a few haggard breaths before remembering where she was. The movie had transitioned to a manor interior and the low orange of fake gaslights coming from the screen could barely illuminate the details on her dark face, but her eyes were clear and full of emotion. She studied my face in silence before letting go of my sweater. I smiled, gave her a little peck, and turned to Aminah on my right side. She squeaked in embarrassment at having been caught watching intently. People affected by Heroes Harem thought I was justified in taking multiple lovers, coming to their own conclusions why, but they were still capable of feeling jilted or jealous. To my pleasant surprise, there was none of that here. Aminah was awkward and uncertain of how to carry herself in this situation, but under that was only a strong pride for her friend. I would have to take care to preserve that kindness when training her. These two were much too sweet for the brutality of my version of Black City Kung Fu, but it was an adaptable art. I''d figure something out. Aminah had been fretting with her headscarf, wrapping it around her fist multiple times and pulling it tight to her scalp and neck. Yearning Song, my Empathy Special Feat, was quick to draw my attention to the binding and how it must have partially restricted her breathing. The Feat''s definition of ''what people truly want'' seemed to include kinks and fetishes ¨C no surprises there. If I wasn''t unreasonably horny after the fight in Mugisha''s, I might have been reluctant to listen to the Producer-fed information; this was a kissless virgin after all, following the guidance of my interdimensional eldritch overlords and taking a forceful approach with the girl felt inappropriate. The kind and sensible thing to do would be to ease her into the process of self-discovery and make sure she was at least consciously aware of her desire for dom and subplay. But I was unreasonably horny. I followed my Feat-inspired instincts and reached out, going not for her chin but her neck, and pulled her to me, pausing right before the kiss. I didn''t choke her, not so early in the night, but the power dynamic was enough to trigger a shift in her demeanor. Where seconds before she had looked conflicted and confused, her face was now transformed into pure anticipatory excitement. From the point of contact at her neck, my force pythons extended invisibly out and down, one painfully encircling her chest right under her breasts, pulling her t-shirt tight around them, and the other moving lower, restricting her diaphragm and shortening her breaths. She gasped and lolled her tongue out of her mouth, pushing herself harder into my grasp. I couldn''t tell if she was aping some hentai she''d come across or if this was a natural response in a porn world, but it hardly mattered in the moment. Again, my instincts trumped any sense of propriety; I spit into her mouth. The saliva, enhanced by my immense Qi, lit a fire atop her taste buds, sending a powerful shiver down through her body. Aminah swallowed it down with a gulp and whispered with a dreamy smile, "Thank you." Good lord, between that and her penchant for League of Legends, the girl was shaking out to be quite a degenerate. I obliged her dark desires and kissed her hard. With Shania, there had been a controlled, traditionally masculine energy to the kiss ¨C an answer to her unspoken desire to be led through the moment. This, though similarly requested by Amina, was forceful, barely controlled, and commanding. The Dice Gods must have been as pent up as I was; Sixteen Successes was a pleasure I couldn''t begin to imagine and might go my life without being on the receiving end of. I bore down on her, pinning her to her seat and forcing her chin straight up as we kissed, emphasizing my power and position. The elbow of the arm choking her found a home in her cleavage while my force pythons began to writhe and slither; the one under her breasts moved up slightly to tease her through her shirt and bra while the one previously around her diaphragm lowered to encircle her hips. My other hand slipped in between her jean-clad legs to grab a meaty hold of her soft upper thigh, the ridge of it just barely touching her clothed sex. Aminah let out a strangled, needy moan and began to buck against me, seeking, begging for more contact. She wanted this more than words could capture. Her hands tried to grab at my pants, but the third of my three force pythons snapped out and pinned them together. Finally, as her movements grew more frantic and desperate, I stopped and released her.
[Ally Quest Complete!] Take Aminah Akhtar''s first kiss Reward: 5XP, +1 Animal Handling [Hidden Quest Complete!] Edge someone in public. Reward: 20XP, Gain Major Feat All Eyes on Me [Major Feat] All Eyes on Me The thrill of being seen pushes you past your limits. Gain a Bonus Die for actions that would be considered spectacles when undisguised and in public.
Aminah slumped into her seat, chest heaving as she caught her breath and came back down to Earth. She reached across me, wiggling her fingers until Shania took her hand for support. They shared a giggle before the sound of a door slamming played through the huge theater speakers gave them a jump and reminded them they were here for an assignment. I stretched out my back in my seat and yawned. "So, other than the two of you, what do we have for snacks?" Aminah bumped me with her shoulder. "That''s all you''ve got to say for yourself? That kiss might have changed the trajectory of my life. You''re not getting off that easily." I wagged my eyebrows. "Neither are you." She blushed bright enough to be seen on her light brown cheeks through the dim lighting. Shania, sensing her friend''s plight, reached down and plopped down a bucket of popcorn onto my lap. Aminah got her bearings after and held up some candy excitedly, a little too eager to comply. "Chocolate-covered pretzels for the savory, gummy worms for the sweet, and milk duds for the creamy," she said, shaking a box for emphasis. Did the girls think candy could distract me away from teasing them? If so, they''d have to learn that James Li was the Platonic Ideal of incorrigibility. "Chocolate, sweet, and creamy ¨C just what I had in mind for tonight, thanks." Shania jumped in once more as Aminah returned to pink. "We also got you a slushy, but it''s a little, um, melted." "Nice. Blue is my favorite flavor of slushy." "Do you want your jersey?" asked Aminah, pulling the Peregrines merch from her large purse. "I like your outfit, by the way. What happened to¡ª" "After," I said, taking the jersey from her, grateful to see it unharmed. Perhaps I''d invest in a Kevlar wetbag to keep my clothes safe during future missions. Pulling my sweater over my head, I paused, shirtless, to savor the looks I was getting from my two companions ¨C it was nice to feel appreciated, especially after my conversation with Maria. Though, their expressions when I redressed made me feel like I''d kicked two puppies. "What''s the assignment, anyway?" "We just need to note three changes from the book to the movie for a discussion on mediums of storytelling," said Shania. "Won''t take too long," added Aminah, doing her best sultry voice. "That''s all? Why not pick a movie that''s been out?" Shania shrugged. "She said it was more fun this way, but we think the school is using this as a ''field trip'' to meet state standards." "Huh. Fair enough." It was good that the girls were busy with the movie, because I went at the snacks like an animal the moment the first Milk Dud touched my tongue. My id was inflamed. I was hungry, I was horny, I was losing my mind. Milk Duds were possibly the heaviest candies in America, basically just dense balls of chocolate and caramel. They gummed up in your teeth, took a while to melt on your tongue, and were not meant to be consumed quickly. My dentist had once warned me that they could pull out fillings. I tilted the box back, packed my cheeks like a greedy squirrel, and started chewing through them semi-angrily. How dare they taunt me with their stickiness!? I defeated the Duds handily, only having to use my telekinesis like a toothpick once. To prove it wasn''t a fluke, I did the same to the gummy worms, devouring them as a single gelatinous orb. From there, I alternated between fistfuls of popcorn and chocolate pretzels ¨C an inspired decision, if I said so myself. Some might balk at the saltiness and the mix of faux butter and too-sweet chocolate, but those people were cowards and fools. They couldn''t dream of matching my unsurpassed ability to eat movie snacks. Within minutes, I was left with only the mostly melted slushie. I eyed it like a broke smoker would a half-burnt short on the sidewalk; even in my hedonistic haze, thirty-two ounces of sugar water was pushing it. If it was still icy, I''d of course be testing my Fire-Qi against brain freeze right now, but¡ª Hey, there''s an idea. From a spiritual perspective, freezing or cooling something with my Fire powers felt unintuitive, if not outright impossible. My Qi hungered; it was a roiling, churning engine of destruction that wanted to consume and obliterate anything in its way. I was sure I could establish dominion over an existing fire and command it to cease, but that was very different from cooling something that wasn''t already aflame. That was from a spiritual perspective, though. Various Ally Quests from training and fucking Annie had granted me a surprising number of Dice in Physics. The woman definitely downplayed her intelligence, likely for the same reasons I did ¨C smart, charismatic, and beautiful was a recipe for resentment. Regardless, my senior student had given me 4 Dice in Physics, roughly the proficiency of a competent undergraduate student, not that it meant much to me. I didn''t have the personality, patience, or desire to put it to use. Honestly, the most my dumbass thought I''d ever get out of my Physics Dice was a Feat for throwing stuff good. But with my disappointingly melted slushy in hand, I may have finally found a use for the Skill. Temperature was just the average measure of kinetic energy in the atoms of a substance, and heat was the transfer of that energy. Kinetic energy? Flowing forces? Heat? Those were my specialties. Theoretically, I could use my Physics Skill to unify my Elemental Control (Fire) and Telekinesis. I cupped the bottom of the slushie cup, started stirring with the straw¡ªsimply freezing it would ruin the consistency¡ªand closed my eyes, entering a meditative state. This was surely irresponsible to be attempting with other people around me, but that wasn''t important at the moment. We were doing science over here, alright? Cut me some slack. I pictured the vibrating, colliding particles that made up the slushie. It didn''t matter that I couldn''t imagine the specifics of their structure ¨C this was a visualization exercise to guide my next move. Deep breath in, sap the buzzing atoms of their power, draw it into you. Exhale, expel the energy. No, that wasn''t working; too much Telekinesis, not enough Fire. We may have been doing science, but this was still a spiritual practice. I needed to embody the fickle, unhinged rage of Fire. Reality and the established laws of the universe had to burn away in the face of my wants. Deep breath; Give me your power. Exhale; Worthless, you are fuel. Deep breath; Heat, it''s mine. Exhale; I want it. Deep breath; I am the King of Fire. Exhale; Your heat belongs to me. Deep breath; Mine, mine. Exhale; Give it. I felt my palm grow hot as I continued my circular breathing; that was either a sign that this was working, the heat flowing into my body, or a sign that I was about to accidentally melt the plastic of the cup and spill semi-boiling sugar water onto my lap. Checking now would disrupt the process, so instead, I blocked out the sounds of the film and tuned my ears into the slushie ¨C if it started to bubble, I''d stop. The system interpreted my experiment/ongoing mild psychotic break as an Aura + Physics roll. Today was truly a banner day for firsts: first kills, first time using Physics, and hopefully, first threesome. Seven Successes, nice. I raised the cup up without opening my eyes and took a long sip from the straw, smiling. The texture was perfect, just between liquid and solid, the ideal slush consistency. Mmm, blue. I opened my eyes ¨C very nice, nothing was on fire. The girls were glancing curiously at the frost that had formed over the cup but continued to take notes on their phones about the movie. I tried to piece together what was happening in Chaunce Burn by reading their combined notes, but they were just lists of what had been changed from the book. Having missed several important character and setting introductions while making out and doing impromptu Qi experiments, I was pretty lost. Just going off of the acting and cinematography cues, though, as far as I could tell, the story was setting up a love triangle between the main character, a young governess, the aristocrat who hired her, and the patriarch of the family, said aristocrat''s father. The main character''s name was Penny, and the other two were Darvish and Frederick, but who was which escaped me. Also, did lords sometimes have different ''lord names'' than their actual last names? Why were the British like this? If I ever heard one of these fancy motherfuckers complain about Chinese names being hard to remember, I was slapping them. During a scene that could be best described as a bizarrely erotic violin lesson, I leaned over to ask Aminah, "Was the book this horny?" "It was a slower burn, but definitely yes. A lot of late-Victorian novels contained barely disguised softcore pornography. It was a reaction to a crackdown on outright smut in penny dreadfuls." "Damn, I got to read more." The patriarch, a fifty-something silver fox, had the main character sitting between his legs on the same piano bench, chin resting on her shoulder. The camera made sure to focus on his beard as it scratched her pale, pink cheeks, interspersed with a weird number of shots of her stocking-clad feet curling in the rug. I guess it was to show her nerves, but there was a suspicious amount of screen time for her toes. Shania had the same thought; I read over her shoulder as she wrote, ''more feet stuff??? Literally how??''. "How much was in the book?" I whispered. "Too much." I furrowed my brow as I tried to go through the classics of literature I could recall from this world, which was to say, very little. Would it shock you to learn that James Li had spent most of English class goofing off? Young James had paid attention for Shakespeare, for the usual theater kid reasons, and Thoreau, who he viewed as an American Daoist. With Alan''s knowledge, I think teen me might have enjoyed anti-war novels as an exploration of violence from the perspective of those not born into it, but I never had the grades or the desire to make it into advanced classes. Actually, did this world even contain the works of Vonnegut or Joseph Heller? Maybe I''d spend some time tomorrow going over the differences in culture and history. It didn''t shock me that art was hornier in a porn universe, but I did wonder how far it went. How had the presence of martial artists, monsters, and gods changed things? It was a shame Alan had never read the Gita or the Norse Sagas; the differences between those of this Earth and my last could have told me a lot about cosmology here. The fact that I had the room in my mind to contemplate these things didn''t speak very highly of Chauncey Burn. Good luck thinking about comparative literature while watching Ong Bak or The Raid, was all I was saying. I ended up taking the trash down to throw out just as an excuse to be free of a particularly lengthy dinner scene. The acting, which had been passable if dull at the beginning, was starting to chafe as the movie went on. Honestly, considering the time and effort that had gone into framing and shooting the violin scene, I had a growing suspicion that the movie was just a vessel for eroticism ¨C a suspicion that was confirmed moments later when the film transitioned into a scene in which Penny and the two young wives of her love interests shared a ''tense'' bath together, gratuitous titty shots and all. I slipped into the Innocuous Oaf as I made my way back to my seat. The three turnt-up aunties were too busy catcalling the screen to catcall me, but a few rows behind them were the young couple. On my way to the trash can, I noticed that the girl had discreetly removed her bra at some point, and I didn''t want to scare them off from enjoying themselves. I was a sex-powered demi-god; as a matter of principle, I could not allow such a cockblocking to occur on my watch. Good point, me. On a whim, and to make doubly sure that a great time was had, I snuck behind the couple and laid a gentle hand on each. Using very basic Erotic Sorcery, I increased their lust and sensitivity, as well as giving the boy a small blessing of sexual endurance for good measure. It was a long movie. "Have fun," I whispered. Neither had the wherewithal to penetrate the Innocuous Oaf, especially now; the girl was suddenly too busy going for her boyfriend''s zipper to notice the stealthed sex-god behind her, and the boy was too busy trying to pull her shirt up to get a mouthful of titty. Currently, they were working at odds with each other, creating a tangle of limbs and clothes, but I was sure they''d figure out the order of operations soon enough. The main character, Penny, was using a luffa to scrub the bottom of her mistress''s feet in the bath as I sat down. Penny''s actress wore a look of restrained distaste while her scene partner had a sadistic and imperious expression, resting her other foot on the lower-class woman''s shoulder. You could, if you squinted, view what was happening as a non-sexual demonstration of power rather than what it obviously was. "Jesus, you weren''t kidding," I said, exiting Stealth. "Who directed this ¨C Tarantino?" The girls jumped in surprise as I suddenly reappeared in the seat. I don''t think I''d ever get tired of doing that to people. "This part''s from the novel," said Shania with a sigh. "Why didn''t they give us books like this to read in class? I''d have paid way more attention." Aminah pushed the armrest between us up and sidled in closer. "You say that, but you aren''t imagining the awkward class discussions led by a tipsy, recent divorc¨¦. At least the only boy in class is gay ¨C I might literally die otherwise. We''re done, by the way; we''ve both got more than enough for the discussion." "We should finish the movie, though." Shania sounded nervous. "You never know with Ms. Davidson; there might be an essay too." I was pretty sure that was her fear of intimacy, and of what might occur after the movie talking, but in her defense, she wasn''t the one with a full-ride scholarship already in the bag. I took Shania''s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "All good. I''m curious to see how much hornier this can get, anyway. We should keep track of the foot shots ¨C this could be a fun drinking game." She said nothing but scooched closer and leaned her head on my shoulder, taking my hand with both of hers. It was very cute and chaste, and I almost didn''t want to spoil the saccharine mood by pushing further. Almost. A force python extended out from the hand she was holding and wrapped its way up her arm like a vine, across her back, and down the other arm. Its touches were neither forceful nor sexual, but I had shaped the telekinetic limb to be flat and thin like a ribbon and threaded it underneath the sleeves of her blouse to be in direct contact with her skin. Shania looked up, half-excited, half-anxious, but I quieted any questions with a quick kiss and a wink. Not wanting to leave her best friend out, I slung my arm around Aminah''s shoulders and made sure to shift my weight slightly so that she could feel my greater mass pressing down on her. She let out a pleased hum and nuzzled in closer. Unfortunately, the scene shifted to one of the rare instances in which the main character was actually performing the job she''d been hired to do, meaning that two young children were on the screen. They may not have been literally present in the room, but getting any spicier with them still felt wrong. We''d be fine, though; it couldn''t have been more than thirty or thirty-five minutes into the movie, and there had already been two insanely horny scenes. Chauncey Burn had a lot of sexual tension to fit into its almost three hours, apparently. There would be more opportunities to escalate. Thankfully, the kids Penny had been hired to be a governess to were less real characters and more plot devices to be swiftly replaced with another tense, hushed conversation in a dark, gaslit room. In the relative quiet, the lip-smacking and heavy breathing of the couple I''d blessed traveled and caught the attention of one of the three drunk aunties, who turned around and started to guffaw. I wielded my killing intent like a spear and directed the full fury of it at the woman, rolling a raw Aura to keep it from affecting anyone else. Her loud laughter and whatever crass comment she was about to interrupt the couple with died on her lips as she froze. Her gaze moved instead to meet mine, just barely visible in the make-out corner. It was dark, and she was a good distance away, but unless she possessed no survival instinct whatsoever, my intention was clear. I will erase you. She snapped back around and took a shaky sip of wine. Luckily for her companions, they were already too faded to be cognizant of either her behavior or the sounds of the couple. Hopefully, the wine and weed would put them to sleep soon; I did feel bad about the killing intent. I didn''t want to levy it against them, but it was what it was. As long as they stayed the fun aunts, it wouldn''t happen again. The sloppy mouth sounds of the two teens caught the attention of the girls as well. Aminah rubbed her thighs together and forced herself to stare dead at the screen; I was sure she was barely holding it together after the edging earlier. Shania, though, seemed entranced by the couple, specifically by the girl''s exposed shoulders and back. In her ensorcelled lust, she had pulled her shirt completely off, leaving her nude from the waist up. We could see little from where we were, but enough to know that she had pulled her boyfriend''s head to her chest, one hand presumably stroking his hair while the other was clamped over her mouth ¨C ah, wait, not clamped; she was sucking on three of her fingers, probably enjoying the alien sensitivity I''d bestowed her with. Might have gone a little overboard there. The girl was black like Shania, and I at first assumed that she was merely picturing herself in her position, vicariously getting her titties sucked, but Yearning Song stepped into flesh out the exact fantasy. It was the exposure that fascinated her, informed the Feat. To armchair psychologize a little, her father shaming her for her dress in early puberty had left her with a bit of a complex for showing off in public. Well, well, well, a couple of real freaks, these two. Exhibitionism and BDSM ¨C they were certainly living up to the stereotypes about shy girls there. Not that I was complaining. Now, how did I want to do this? There were some Feats calling out to me, and while I wanted to let loose and have some mindless fun, it wouldn''t do to be haunted by a bad decision anytime I checked my character sheet. That said, I didn''t exactly possess the mental capacity for long-term planning at the moment. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I let Style Maker guide me, limiting myself to a single Minor Feat. Quest Rewards seemed to be slowing down, but investing Experience in a sex scene had more than paid for itself thus far. My subconscious got to work; the problem for my extremely horny and fraying mind was that I had two girls here and only five arms, including the telekinetic ones ¨C and those were crude and designed more for battle than the bedroom. The result was the following:
[Minor Feat] Squid Devouring Maiden Meditation Upgrades Three Python Force Technique. When removed from the chaos of combat, your talent for tactile telekinesis is considerably improved. Your rivers of force are doubled in length and number and can better carry non-harmful Qi techniques.
Shania was covered from the neck down, wearing a navy apron dress, a white collared blouse, black tights, and Mary Janes ¨C the very image of a reserved wallflower of a girl. The apron dress might have been a bit daring on its own; the side slits on its knee-length skirt extended to the upper thighs, and it was tied at the back with crisscrossed straps meaning most of her from neck to the small of her back would have been exposed. On a more endowed girl, there might have been an audacious amount of side-boob on display as well, but the petite Shania had nothing to worry about there. Importantly, the dress was designed so that it could be worn without tights or a blouse underneath; she might turn heads, and it wasn''t suitable for church, but she''d be far from breaking any laws. Shania sucked in a sharp breath as I began to roll her tights down her legs with a telekinetic limb while the one already under her blouse undid the clasp on her bra. I felt her entire body tense and sent a comforting warmth through the force pythons, rolling the odd combo of Sensuality + Elemental Control (Fire) for the first time. I only got three Successes on the Dice, but with my guaranteed Successes from Hero''s Harem, they were enough to at least keep her from outright panicking. "Kick your shoes off," I whispered to her. She hesitated for a few moments before complying. "Thanks," I said, and then following an urge from Yearning Song, added, "I''m proud of you ¨C very brave," earning an embarrassed but delighted smile from the girl. I leaned down to finish extracting her tights from her ankles and passed the balled-up cloth to Aminah. The Pakistani girl was confused for a second before realizing where the tights had come from and stowing them safely away in her large purse. She gave me a thumbs-up and even sidled an inch away to signal that she was okay with me focusing on her friend. I slid an arm around Shania''s back and under her apron dress and began to undo the buttons of her blouse. My telekinesis could have pried them apart with minimal, if any, damage, but it was safer to do manually; besides, I wanted to feel her flat tummy under my hand and wanted her to feel my callouses as I exposed her inch-by-inch. My Feat-inspired instincts reassured me that she wanted to experience a man''s lusts - wanted to be the object of his desires. Once the buttons were undone, I roughly tugged on her shirt and bra to try and remove them without taking off her dress as well. It took some doing, but I had limbs to spare to help me along, and the manhandling only added to Shania''s experience. She had remained fairly tense as I was working on her buttons but relaxed minutely as I started tugging on her shirt ¨C giving in to the fantasy, maybe? Her body was still far from loose, but I knew that alone was a major victory. The next step was going to take some setup, though. I tilted Shania''s chin up, tearing her gaze away from the titty-sucking she''d been staring at as I stripped her, and kissed her again. The system was kind enough to let my earlier kiss roll ride but made me roll again as my hands got to work underneath her dress. She was thin enough that I could feel her ribs and every twitch of her abdominal muscles under my palms. I found her dainty body more and more alluring as I stroked her from belly to sternum, her small breasts barely filling my cupped hands. Shania had been my first and truest damsel, something which her petite figure reinforced on a visceral level. As the sight of Aminah had sparked Alan''s latent kink, now James was discovering something about himself. It felt very good to be the hero treating himself to the damsel. It felt right. Something approaching a growl made its way out of my throat as my hands grew more vigorous upon her flesh. Seven Successes became nine after bonuses to molest and grope her, finally putting a crack in Shania''s phobia of intimacy. Her arms came up and wrapped around my neck, her chest thrusting itself into my hands. I dug my fingers into her hips and pushed my thumb just above the band of her panties, dragging it up slowly to her sternum, reveling in the sensation of her tiny, hard nipple against my palm. I took my time feeling her up, never lingering anywhere for long, massaging what few muscles she had from her waist to just below her neck. She was soft and smooth, a wisp under my ministrations, unlike any of my partners thus far, her weakness like an aphrodisiac, begging me to claim her as my own. Shania''s lips and tongue grew more insistent as she endured the treatment, asking me in every way but verbally to continue. I forced myself away from her before I got carried away; there was a plan in motion. That had all been set up. "Take your panties off." The Dice were ready to be cast with that line, but I stopped the system from interfering. This part, at least, I wanted to be organic, for whatever that was worth. Her eyes went wide, and she gulped nervously. I watched the terror start creeping back into her expression and features but stayed the course, holding my hand out in anticipation for her panties. She looked down at her shirt and bra, which had fallen off my lap and onto the floor. We both knew the state of these old, sticky tiles ¨C it would be humiliating to put either of them back on now. The deep rumble of the actor playing the patriarch in Chauncey Burn came from the movie theater speakers. "This pale flesh awakens a dark devil in me." Out of my periphery, I saw him hold Penny''s hand to his face, grip hard enough to leave marks on her wrist. Shania mouthed something to herself, a mantra perhaps, or maybe just some confirmation. Summoning confidence, she nodded, pulled her panties down her legs, and put them in my ready hand. Then, to my genuine surprise, she pushed her apron dress down as well and added it to the pile of clothes on the floor, leaving her completely naked apart from her socks.
[Ally Quest Complete!] Convince Shania to strip nude and indulge her exhibitionism fetish in public. Reward: 35XP, +1 Empathy, +1 Medicine Bonus, She went beyond your request sans roll: 10XP, +2 Craft (Tailoring) Bonus, Convinced Aminah as well: 25XP, +1 Animal Handling
Tailoring? Odd, she hadn''t expressed any interest in the hobby to me thus far. Ah. Yearning Song connected the dots for me; Shania''s simultaneous interest in and terror of more revealing clothing had stopped her from fully exploring fashion and design. The Feat also assured me that she would love cosplay. She''d likely used her family''s relative poverty to justify developing the skills while dreaming of the fits she''d make had she the confidence. "You''re stunning," I said, raking my eyes down her nude form. Her hairless, closed pussy lips were shining in the low lighting of the theater. "Incredible." "Thank you," she said softly, a small but extremely proud smile on her lips. Wisely, she used the opportunity to take her glasses off and put them into her clutch for safety. "Aminah''s sister used me to show a new beautician how to operate the laser at her job." She gulped, and her smile grew wider. Spreading her legs, she added, "My skin feels super smooth now." I ached to verify that claim, but before that, I picked up the bundle of discarded clothes and passed it over to Aminah to put in her purse. She was enraptured by what had just happened and seemed to have transcended her mind entirely, taking the clothes from me in almost a dream state. I half expected her to be equally as nude when I turned to her, but it seemed she''d been too stunned to move. "What are you waiting for?" I asked. She quickly stuffed Shania''s clothes into her purse, not daring to take her eyes away from the two of us, as though this dream might end if she did. "That''s not what I meant." Aminah blinked and pinched her upper arm to check if this was really happening. She pointed at herself. "M-Me?" I nodded and she burst into motion, reaching for the hem of her t-shirt with one hand and starting to pull down her headscarf with the other. Yearning Song, the MVP tonight, made me grab her wrists and halt her just as she revealed her tummy. She was eager to comply with my order, thrilled even, but the glimmer in her eyes told me that I could elevate this fantasy of hers even further. A more reasonable version of myself would have paused to consider the consequences of indulging her fantasy, but that James Li was not present. I''d left him to catch his breath outside Mugisha''s; tonight''s James Li was the least reasonable man in Black Harbor. Well, alright, that was hyperbole, but I definitely wasn''t worried about the future as I spun Aminah around by the shoulder and pulled her back to my chest, my hand clasped firmly around her throat. Rivers of force flowed out from my palm, pulling her shirt aside where necessary to tantalize her flesh. With a thought, my telekinetic limbs shredded her shirt to tatters and cleaved her bra apart. Aminah was much more endowed, and I enjoyed the feel of her upturned, perky breasts in my free hand, groping them and rolling her painfully hard nipples between my fingers. My grip on her neck kept her from making more than choked sounds of pleasure and pain, though I had to bind her legs to keep her from kicking and squirming too much. The image of walking out of the theater with Shania on one arm, wearing only her apron dress, and Aminah on the other, dressed in nothing more than borrowed tights and a too-small blouse, came unbidden to me. Next thing I knew, my force pythons had torn the girl''s jeans and panties off her legs, leaving her in only her shoes and a disheveled hijab, half falling off her head. Her bucking and squirming took on a new direction, going from random jerks to purposeful attempts to get any contact, any stimulation at all, for her soaking and desperate sex. I tightened my grip on Aminah''s throat, fully restricting her breathing this time, and used my other arm to pull Shania in for another kiss. She needed no urging from me to put a hand on her friend''s tender breasts and start groping them in my place. Shania was gentler, though no less enthusiastic than I had been with her best friend''s chest, in a way that my Empathy Attribute was quick to notice. The curiosity to experiment with Aminah had been there prior to anything I''d done tonight. I sensed that the Pakistani-American girl was close to a climax, having been on the edge for a while. Acting quickly, I threaded a figure-eight around both teens'' hips with a single force python, making sure it was applying pressure over their dantians. Rolling an Erotic Sorcery, I tied their rising pleasures together, linking Shania''s to Aminah''s, and Aminah''s to Shania''s. The effect was barely noticeable on Aminah, who was nearly insensate as was, but it struck Shania like a bolt from heaven. Her groping of her friend''s breasts became much more forceful, even going so far as to pinch and tug on her poor nipples. I could have expected that, though, now that she had the biological feedback to know Aminah liked pain, she would naturally be less reserved. What I didn''t see coming was her other hand taking my own and moving it to her neck. No matter how unexpected, I didn''t question the request, and soon, both girls were being held tightly to my chest as I choked them. The pain and asphyxiation weren''t my idea of a good time, but who was I to judge? They appeared to love the abuse. Following the logic, I used my telekinesis to bind Shania''s legs as I had her friends and considerably increased the pressure to something outright painful, activating Slut-making Strikes to bring with the pain equal parts pleasure. For Aminah, however, I released the hold I''d had on her arms, allowing her to join in on the groping, turning the two a bit to make it easier for them to reach each other''s chests. I didn''t know why they limited themselves to just their tits ¨C perhaps any further was still a step too far mentally, or maybe they''d been primed from watching the couple a few rows down. Less than a minute later, the oxygen deprivation in Aminah''s brain kicked off an orgasmic cascade through the two girls. She came with a total body, shaking, squirming, almost violent climax that tore through her and straight into her best friend. In turn, Shania''s orgasm traveled through my force python into her friend, where their mutual pleasure began to echo between them, only stopping when I ended the spell for fear that they''d pass out.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Make someone cum in a public setting. Reward: 15XP Bonus, Two people at once: 30XP, +1 Random Attribute (Endurance) [Hidden Quest Complete!] Give two best friends a life-changing gay experience. Reward: 50XP, +2 Random Skill (Necromancy) [Hidden Quest Complete!] Cause someone to develop a BDSM fetish. Reward: 20XP, Gain Minor Feat Fearousal [Minor Feat] Fearousal There is something about the terror you inspire in others that they find strangely exciting. You gain a Bonus Die to seduce anyone you''ve rolled Intimidate against in the same scene.
I held the two brown girls, one caramel-toned, one dark chocolate, to me as they came down from their ''life-changing'' high, stroking their sides and alternating between them as I peppered kisses and whispered compliments and reassurances. They were soaked, both from their leaking pussies and the sweat that clung to them, and the theater was chilly. To keep them comfortable, I infused heat through my rivers of force and made sure to keep the limbs moving up and down along their bodies, massaging their exhausted muscles with vibrations. Chauncey Burn continued in the background, its plot now a complete mystery to me. I couldn''t have told you what was happening if I tried, nor did I particularly care. Shame, I guess I was going to remain a dumb-guy movie enjoyer. There was still a show to be enjoyed, though ¨C two, in fact. The couple I''d blessed with my Erotic Sorcery had moved to the other make-out corner at the far end of our row. I didn''t know why they hadn''t been there to begin with; maybe they''d come when the room was entirely empty, or maybe they''d actually intended to watch the film. The girl was riding her boyfriend, entirely naked and probably making a mess of his jeans. She was in full view of us, the corner only protecting from the rows below, but didn''t care. If anything, she seemed to like both that we could see her boobs bouncing and that she could see me playing with Shania and Aminah. The boy was being a gentleman, though, with only eyes for his girl, by which I mean he was busy nursing on her teats ¨C man, that guy loved sucking titty. Amen, brother. The second and superior show, in my opinion, were the best friends clinging to my sweater. As they regained their senses, they started giggling at my compliments and kisses while staring into each other''s eyes. I could see that both were weighing whether or not to start making out with each other and, to aid them along, recast the sorcery that connected and reciprocated their pleasure. With the comfort of knowing that the other liked what was happening, the girls slowly began to kiss, starting with little quick pecks interspersed with gleeful, hushed laughter and moving into exploring one another''s mouths with the tips of their tongues. No words were exchanged between the two, but after fully recovering and having grown comfortable with making out, they started to undo the button and zipper of my pants. Shania''s smaller hand slipped under my boxers while Aminah began tugging at the waistband, only sparing a glance up to check that I was okay with what was happening. At my smile and nod, the two freed my enormous cock of its prison. Thank god, finally. Even the least reasonable version of myself was capable of respecting the pace of two virgins, and the show had been fun for me too, but goddamn, was it time to get my nut off. Any longer, and I would die ¨C just keel right over in my seat and fucking die. The girls froze at the sight of the pillar, a sensible response, however, I was hurting over here, and I''d just had confirmation that both girls now had a BDSM fetish. At another time, I''d have loved a double handjob; loved literally feeling the two grow more confident around a penis, but I didn''t have the patience in me. Thankfully, both Shania and Aminah were empathetic enough to sense my need and gave me permissive smiles as they felt my telekinesis push their heads lower. They slid down, kneeling on the filthy tiles, reveling in the nasty, humiliating nature of what was happening. I made sure to keep in contact with them as they did so that my tactile telekinesis and the sorcery tying them together stayed up. "It''s huge," whispered Shania, giggling. "It''s perfect," added Aminah. She reached for her hijab but paused to look up and ask, "Do¡­you want me to keep it on?" I thought about it, turning my eye inward to my Alan half. Alright, big dog, what''s the verdict? He was¡­ambivalent? Yes, and not just faking it either, I didn''t think. Hmm, it seemed that the visual cue for a religious girl wasn''t a part of whatever kink he had for them. I smiled down at her and decided to lean on Yearning Song some more. "Your hair is so pretty. I want to see it." It was one hundred percent the right move for the situation. Aminah''s eyes widened, and she gave me a look of pure love and adoration. Neither of us were into race play, I suppose, but Aminah was very, very into the idea of shedding her parent-imposed self-image and reveling in the joy of debauchery. She whipped her headscarf off and threw it atop her purse, shaking out her luscious, wavy pitch-black hair. Then, having reached an even higher level of enthusiasm, she took my cock in her hands, needing both to circle it fully, and gazed up past the pillar of meat into my eyes. "I want to choke on this." The vulgarity out of the otherwise innocent girl caused my dick to twitch in her hands, a fat dollop of pre-cum dripping onto her thumb. That was the first drop of a storm ¨C it was like an internal tap had turned, the dollop of pre becoming a continuous drip, more and more leaking out and over Aminah''s hands. Oh, right, all of my cum Feats ¨C how could I have forgotten? With the Die of Endurance I''d just received, I produced 121 times what I would have normally of the reality-bending fluid. At some point, later obviously, I''d need to get a hold on that. My cum and pre-cum were hotter than a normal man''s, affected like all parts of my body by my ludicrous Qi and Fire-nature, and also stayed at a constant temperature. Instead of cooling as it met the chill of the theater, the juices seemed to react like scented wax on a tea warmer, giving off a thin mist of incense. The scent of my natural lubricant grew thick in the air around us. To me, it was a heavy but unoffensive smell with vague floral undertones, but to the girls, it was ambrosia. Shania licked her lips, extended a shaky palm onto my cockhead, and rubbed it in a circle, spreading the lubricant around the bellend. She pulled her hand back, catching the strands with her fingers and marveling at the heat and feel of the sticky, slippery goo. In a near daze, she brought her hand up to her face and dragged it down her bottom lip and onto her neck, looking up at me in awe as she mimed choking herself. My dick twitched at the sight, causing Aminah to giggle at the sensation. She started to stroke me, though paused and kept herself to my bottom four inches when she noticed Shania bringing her head to the top of my cock. The petite black girl gave me another welcome surprise ¨C she placed her bottom lip on my shaft, the warmth of her breath making another huge, milky bead of pre-cum surge out of my tip, and dragged her lip up, catching a pool of my fluid. Grabbing her friend by her neck, she pointed Aminah''s face up to the ceiling and delivered the pre-cum into her mouth with a passionate, messy kiss. I swallowed down my saliva; this was getting to be too much for me. "Girls, I''m not going to last long like this," I confessed. My force pythons emphasized the words and jerked them closer to me. Shania and Aminah shared a pleased smile and a last, quick kiss before turning their attention back to my cock. Starting at the base on opposite sides, they started lapping and slurping their way up. In the shadow of the make-out corner, Shania was but a silhouette against my thigh and her lighter-skinned friend, making the pink of her tongue and white of her eyes stand out all the more. Both girls had one arm around the other, their naked bodies pressed in close together. Shania''s small hand cupped my heavy, churning balls, occasionally bringing the pool of pre-cum there up and letting it drip off of her palm onto my cock head. As their tongues danced atop my cock, battling each other for the opportunity to lap directly from my oozing slit, I decided it was time to take it further. Telekinetically, I pulled their arms behind their backs, binding them at the elbows. Aminah immediately understood my intent, practically purring as she took a deep breath and let her jaw hang open, lolling her tongue out. I wrapped the shy Muslim girl''s midnight black hair around my fist, making sure to pull it tight enough to hurt, activating Slut-Making Strikes to amplify her enjoyment, and grabbed a handful of Shania''s curly, natural hair as well. My mind would be empty of all higher-level thinking soon, so to be extra certain they''d have a good time, I tied my pleasure into the same spell that was linking theirs ¨C though mine was monodirectional. I did want to last longer than a few seconds, after all. My cock stretched Aminah''s jaw wide, and I wasted no time in pushing her down, hitting the back of her throat with a loud, wet ''GAKH!''. I held her there, letting the fluttering of her throat massage the tip of my dick, making a mouthful of spit escape past her lips. Shania was there to catch the mix of saliva and pre-cum, her face buried in my balls. I rubbed her nose and mouth in the mess, creating a frothy glaze that reflected the light. Maria was right ¨C I was definitely feeling some teeth from Aminah, and the blowjob was decidedly her first ever. But my Force Armor took any bite or pain out of the equation, and there was something to be said about how incredibly into this both girls were. Even before I''d linked them into my sensations, their eyes had nothing but enthusiastic consent in them. I pushed Aminah''s head down, ignoring her gagging, and entered her throat, taking her almost halfway down my length before ripping her back up to catch her breath. She only got a single, pained but delighted gasp of oxygen before I entered her throat again. This time, I pushed her down slowly, very slowly. Her eyes went wide at the pace and the realization that it would continue until she was level with her best friend, nose buried in my sack. Aminah''s gagging and retching was loud enough that it caught the attention of the couple at the other end of the row, who decided to stop holding back. The black girl started slamming her hips down onto her boyfriend''s lap, filling the room with the sounds of wet flesh on flesh. One of the aunties started hooting, and another howled with laughter, but I ignored them; it was too late for an audience to interrupt what was happening. Finally, as I hilted myself in Aminah''s throat, the lovely, sweet, masochistic brown girl came for the second time tonight, her eyes rolling up in the back of her head. The pleasure traveled through my telekinetic limb and straight into Shania, who cried out loudly, vibrating my balls with her shouts. I rolled an Endurance to keep it together for just a bit longer. There were two throats to fill, and I didn''t want to leave either girl out of the fun. Pulling Aminah off me by her hair caused her to cough up an absolute waterfall of gunk onto her shivering breasts and the entirety of her friend''s face and shoulders. Shania was still coming down off her borrowed climax when I hit the back of her throat and discovered the girl had no gag reflex. She could barely open half of an eyelid through the mess but used what little she had to smile with her eyes at me. I slammed her face down into my balls, splashing my thighs and her chest with the collected fluids. At the utmost limit of my patience, I started to fuck her face properly, without a care in the world beyond getting my nut. I shot three massive ropes of cum straight down Shania''s throat before I had the sense of mind to pull her up, filling her mouth with another three ropes. She swallowed what she could, but as it started to break the seal of her lips, I pulled her fully off me and started covering her face. Aminah was still coughing, nearly unconscious, but I made sure to bring her in close to get her fair share. Man, I''d forgotten how long and intense my orgasms were with all of the cum Feats. It also turned out that the difference between 100x cum production and 121x was fairly significant. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to cancel the sorceries on the girls and release them from their bindings twenty seconds into my climax so that we weren''t all left powerless to the pleasure. By the time I came back to Earth, there were two brown girls painted white, head to knees in my cum, and quite a few notifications from the system to go through. The buzzing in my head was also significantly diminished, and my thoughts were much clearer than they''d been since the fight in Mugisha''s.
[Hidden Quest Complete!] Get a blowjob in public. Reward: 20XP, Gain 2x Random Tokens (Artifact) Bonus, Extremely messy: 15XP, Upgrade Social Lubricant [Major Feat] Social Lubricant (Upgraded) Other people who have consumed your semen gain a temporary +2 to Charisma and Empathy for as long as it remains in their system. Consuming your semen in enough volume and with enough frequency can lead to epiphanies, resulting in permanently increased Social Skills. [Hidden Quest Complete!] Take two oral virginities in the same scene. Reward: 50XP, +2 Random Skill (Medicine) Bonus, Throatfuck both: +1 Random Attribute (Endurance), +1 Random Attribute (Agility) [Ally Quest Complete!] Participate in an act of extreme exhibitionism with Shania. Reward: 40XP, +1 Empathy, +1 Leadership [Ally Quest Complete!] Sexually dominate and humiliate Aminah into multiple orgasms. Reward: 35XP, +1 Animal Handling [Recurring Quest Complete!] Have a notable sex scene. Reward: 5XP, +1 Acrobatics
As fun as it was watching Shania and Aminah scoop the cum off themselves and into their mouths, I needed to do something if I didn''t want to get banned from this theater. I''d thrown my drink cup away, but the girls had bought themselves two sodas. Emptying one half-full container into another, I telekinetically gathered up the remaining semen on their bodies into the large plastic cup. The girls pouted at me as I stole away their treats but perked up when I handed them the near liter of still steaming hot cum, complete with a lid and straw to share. "How attached are you two to finishing this movie?" The question cut through the hedonistic haze that had descended upon them, making Shania freeze as she realized she was sitting on the tile floor, completely naked and sticky with cum at a public venue. Aminah had a more pressing concern, though. "The date won''t be¡ª" "The night is far from over. We''ll have more time, actually, before I''ve got to give you back to Marianne." "Cool," she said, beaming. "Shanny, I''m borrowing your blouse." Harbor Hill Lights 3 The unusually deep waters where the Beagle met the Atlantic affected atmospheric conditions in strange and unpredictable ways. A submarine canyon began where the river ended with minimal gradient, going from a few hundred feet deep at the mouth of the Beagle to a horrifying six thousand at the outermost boundary of the harbor, with mini-fissures branching out from the main channel like roots from a stalk. From above, the sharp contrasts of depths in the bay made it look as if the river was bleeding milky black corruption into the ocean, a lesion on the face of the planet. There was an inherent wrongness to the color of the underwater chasms as if there was more to the darkness than the mere absence of light. Even I, a stalwart defender of the city and all its quirks, had always found the blackness at the center of the bay viscerally disturbing. The beaches were great¡ªthe best in New Jersey, I''d say¡ªand the islands that ringed the harbor possessed a stark, haunting beauty, but it did not do to stare too long into the seas beyond. Something about the interplay between the freshwater outflow, the tides, and the many narrow fissures made for notoriously unknowable currents, so much so that recreational scuba diving was illegal in Black Harbor. There were horror stories of commercial divers being pulled into the canyon suddenly and without explanation, their partners turning around to see them fading into the darkness, buoyancy devices utterly useless before the drag. Tonight, those strange currents from the underwater Beagle Canyon had brought with them a sharp chill to the surface. Since we''d been in the theater, the temperature had dropped precipitously to not-quite-freezing but well below sweater weather, and the salty gusts were downright biting. For the plebs without Fire-Qi, at least, we three merry travelers were more than fine. I, a living furnace, kept the girls comfortable in their new outfits, cranking my body temperature up and exuding my aura in a dense cloud around us. The moving ten-foot or so radius of intense heat I emitted caused the moisture in the air to condense at its edges into a moderately thick fog, but that, too, was welcomed by the girls ¨C one more barrier between them and prying eyes. Shania wore only her apron dress sans underwear, skin still shiny from sweat, and Aminah''s breasts were pushing the buttons of her borrowed blouse to their limits, her too-small tights almost transparent against her slick brown skin. My two dates may have been excited by the idea of exhibitionism, but they were still shy and reserved all things considered. Aminah, in particular, seemed grateful for the supernatural mist; this was the first time since childhood that she was without her hijab in public. The girls walked just slightly ahead of me, practically skipping with excitement as they shared my cum, taking minuscule sips from the straw to preserve the ambrosia for as long as possible. I was a bit too hot to walk arm in arm with, but they made sure to slow down every once in a while to bump their backs into me, jumping away in mock surprise when I used the opportunity to cop quick feels. Aminah''s butt was soft and bouncy, begging to be spanked, and while Shania was petite all over, she had the foundations for a great ass. It just needed some nourishing ¨C once we got her doing some squats and eating right, her Greene DNA would flourish. The night was young and full of sound, the whipping of wind, the honking of late evening traffic, and the tired but loud chatter of retail and service workers on their way home from jobs in better-paying neighborhoods. Most avoided the alleys, and those that didn''t were keeping clear of the rolling, mysterious fog bank, but they could be heard trafficking the busier streets to our sides. The smell of bodega sandwiches and fast-food fryers cut through the salt-rich wind as all the little shops that clustered around subway stops did raucous business. I had taken the girls into the alleys to avoid the crowds, not to spare them from the embarrassment, but for safety. The narrow quarters of the alleyways benefited my fighting style, and more to the point, I couldn''t get jumped if no one knew where I was, or by no one on my level, at least. There was the theoretical issue of The Misery, as the system had named it, to be concerned about. Much like the theater hallway, this was a largely empty, liminal space that had seen its fair share of horrors, but I couldn''t see it taking another crack at me tonight. Shania and Aminah were too bright and joyful; misery, capital-M or not, could not exist in their presence. Within our little bubble of warmth, hidden away by brick and fog, the madness of Harbor Hill was a distant and irrelevant memory. All things had to come to an end, though, and if there was one thing worth returning to the material world and all its unfortunate realities for, it was a hot slice of pizza. We dipped out of the alleys onto a major avenue as we neared our destination, a ''$2 Dollar Pizza'' not too far from my home. It was my favorite style of restaurant, just a hole in the wall with a limited menu, in this case with only two options: slice and whole. No toppings were offered; as far as the owners were concerned, we should be grateful that they kept a cooler with drinks. I loved a business with open disdain for its customers; it was very Black Harbor. I paused in the glow of bright white fluorescents and neon reds to put my hands on my hips and tut up at the sign. "Two Dollar Dollar Pizza," I said, reading it as it was literally written. "I remember when it was a One Dollar Dollar Pizza, you know." A nearby middle-aged man eating a slice off a paper plate raised his eyebrow. "Ain''t no way. You woulda been a damn baby then." "Used to be able to get a bowl of soup for a nickel," added another older man in a heavy, battered-looking coat, joining in on the banter. He stepped in and got the door for us, smiling good-naturedly as he did. A lot of homeless guys liked to act as volunteer doormen when panhandling. "Here, my brother, let me get that for you." I''d have riffed back, but my Alan half was in the middle of a minor existential crisis. In a few seconds, he had rejected the assertion that it had been that long since there were Dollar Pizzas, realized he hadn''t been to one in over fifteen years, felt very old and out of touch, remembered that he was twenty-two now, and was in the middle of considering if he was allowed to still feel old or not anymore. I settled for handing the old man a few rolled-up twenties and ushered the girls inside. Alan could ponder all he wanted, but I needed to eat something substantial after the candy and popcorn binge. Movie theater popcorn was oddly satiating, but never in an entirely pleasant way. Shania and Aminah stiffened at the sight of two goth e-girls eating at one of the standing counters inside. The goths, however, made no indication that they recognized either of my dates, leading me to believe that they must have gone to the same school but hadn''t met before. I''d intended to take a pie to go, but this was a good opportunity to break the girls out of their shells and see Social Lubricant in action. The 2 extra Dice in Charisma and Empathy would hopefully be enough to get them through an awkward introduction. I slung my arms over their shoulders and gently pushed them to the same side as the goths while gesturing with my head, rolling a Deception to influence their choice while masking my intentions. "Save us some counter space," I said, walking away to make the request seem more like an order. The system never told me the opposing results to Social rolls, but by the way both girls fast-walked towards the corner with the e-girls, I assumed I''d been successful. Love''s Deceiver, the Rake-Archetype Feat I''d gotten for kissing Shania and Marianne on the same day, came in handy, adding a few Dice to trick my lovers. How appropriate. Counterintuitively, the lines at $2 Dollar Pizzas were the shortest during the busier hours. Without a need for toppings and a steady stream of reliable customers, the turnaround on slices was close to immediate, and they could move whole pizzas in single-digit minutes. The kitchen pumped out pies as fast as they could, confident that people would buy them before they could get cold ¨C so I was alarmed to receive a delivery only seconds after I''d given my order. Someone bopped me lightly on the head, and a familiar voice from behind said, "What''s good, Chinatown? Guess who just broke his speed record?" I turned around to see Tips, one of my fellow freerunning deliverymen, a tall, skinny man with an almost coal-black skin tone and tight braids. "Tips?" He shoved a fat, yellow envelope into my hands and snapped a picture of me holding it as confirmation for the Runr app. "Boom, minute-nine, baby. Know you''ve never beaten that." I blinked down at the envelope; the bulge in it had the shape of cash, but that would have had to be a lot of money if it was in anything but singles. "Minute-nine?" I repeated, more to myself than him. How long had I been in the store? Someone had called in a Runr order, got Tips the package, and had it delivered within two or three minutes at the most? That was a message, to be sure. "How?" Tips stepped around me and ordered himself a slice and a coke. "I''m godlike is how." I kept myself from scoffing. My speed record was fifty-eight seconds, but that wasn''t the issue at hand. "No, I mean, I just got here. How did you know where to find me? And isn''t this mad late for you to be working?" The freerunner opened his mouth to quip, but paused at my expression. I must have been considerably less playful than he was expecting. "Shit, bro, you''re in high demand, I guess. I''ve got push notifications for Diamond Runs set-up. Saw the price, hopped out my window, picked up the package a block away and didn''t think twice." Tips notably didn''t mention who had sent me the package, nor did I think he would. He was already eyeing the door uncomfortably. We were friendly, but we were far from friends. As two of the only Certified Diamond Runners working Harbor Hill, Tips and I were in direct competition for the highest-paying tier of jobs. That wasn''t something that normally got in the way of my other friendships, but it had been a sticking point between us in the past. You had to have a certain number of completed deliveries to hit Diamond, and maintain a pretty vicious average delivery time to stay in the tier. Tips had dipped under the threshold for a month because of a rusty ladder snapping off its brackets under a lache, injuring himself and damaging the package, and accused me in his anger of sabotaging it. I''d brushed it off as completely ridiculous; we didn''t train together, I didn''t know his routes, and it would have been beneath me to begin with. He ''dropped it'' but didn''t let it go, so after a few weeks of putting up with passive-aggressive jabs, I assured him that if I ever had a problem with him, I would just break his legs like a man instead of conniving or whining like a child. Not my finest moment¡ªsometimes I forgot how non-martial artists treated threats¡ªbut that had been prior to Alan''s influence. I had a young man''s pride back then. Tips had ordered a single slice so got served first while I was still waiting on my whole pizza, contemplating how I wanted to play this. I didn''t want to make a scene, but this might be the last time I''d get to ask him questions. He could tell he''d fucked up. It wasn''t exactly cool to surprise one of your boys with a gang delivery; there could be literally anything in this envelope. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. "Aight, Chinatown, I got to gamble this Diamond money away, you feel me, so¡ª" He tried to play it smooth, pivoting on his heel to start walking away. I bumped my loafer against the side of his sneaker and extended my force pythons up his legs, squeezing painfully against his knee. He wisely stopped moving. "Hold up, bro." My tone was friendly, and my demeanor shifted from serious and confused to relaxed and easygoing. "Don''t you want to know what I got?" "Not really. I never do." That followed. I avoided the sketchier work, sticking with business-to-business deliveries or hospital jobs, mostly going to and from labs. Private Runs, especially in Harbor Hill, were too likely to be either guns or drugs ¨C those I left to Tips and others who were only concerned with price and not what they might be facilitating. Ignorance was a virtue in his field. "Mm," I said, unconcerned, tightening my telekinetic hold on him. I slid a finger underneath the seal on the envelope, opening it in full view of Tips, and whistled softly. That was a lot of money, maybe fifty grand or so in a mix of bank-fresh hundred-dollar bills and loose, non-sequential twenties. Tips only grew more anxious with the confirmation that he was in way over his head. "Shit, looks like I''m motherfucking Santa Claus¡ª" I sent another python up and hung it around his neck, not tightly, but to send the message. There was a note in here as well. ''My friend,'' it read, ''your neighbor has been given a basket to hold for you, but I thought it was best to send this separately. He is a reliable man, but money makes beasts out of the best of men. The basket was packed in such a way as to be obvious should there be any jars missing. Please inform me if such a thing occurs. We will be in touch. ¨C RM'' I smiled and patted Tips on the back, retracting the pythons. "Your lucky night, Tips." He chuckled nervously. "Hey, uh, yours too, my man." Ah, that was right. I kept forgetting how hard it was to communicate threats subtly with the Happy Idiot up. I rolled an Intimidation. "No, Tips," I said slowly and condescendingly, "it''s your lucky night because this was from a friend. You get to go to bed with your knees bent the right way." "Yeah¡­" Tips swallowed, mouth dry. "Thanks, I''ma," he trailed off, flicking his eyes to the door, asking permission to leave. I nodded. "Yeah. I''ll see you around, Tips." "Ha, yeah." He started taking slow steps toward the door. "I was actually thinking about ditching my lease and heading to Miami for the winter." Truthfully, I had nothing against the man. Even if there had been a bomb, a threatening letter, or poison in the package, I wouldn''t have taken it personally ¨C I''d have beat his ass to learn who''d sent it, but it wouldn''t be personal. Diamond Runs could make your week if not month, and it wasn''t like we were close. Was it annoying that he took an obviously shady, gang-related delivery and hadn''t spent a second to give me any information at all? Of course, but Karma had a way of paying back that sort of behavior. Tips didn''t have the money or power to alienate his acquaintances like this. Shit would turn for him sooner or later without me having to do anything. "Smart." I turned my back to him; to the man''s credit, he kept himself from outright sprinting away. I put Tips out of mind and the envelope into my pocket, running my Black Card over the money to send it to the Producer''s extradimensional bank vault. I''d been close with my estimate; the real figure was $52,380. Mugisha either cleaned out a stache for me or had stuffed the envelope with all the twenties it could feasibly hold and still be sealed closed. Shania and Aminah were busy chatting away with the e-girls when I got our pizza, steaming hot and straight from the oven. I slowed down and spent a moment dawdling, grabbing some napkins and paper plates so the girls could enjoy their conversation uninterrupted for a few more seconds. All in all, setting aside that I''d learned we were being surveilled, things were going great. I''d gotten a surprise fifty thousand dollars, the girls were being social while dressed as they were, and I had a box of perfectly acceptable pizza. Even the surveillance had given me a fun idea I''d otherwise have avoided. I slipped in next to the girls, my excitement for the night freshly renewed. "Yo. We''re all set. Who''re your friends?" Shania beamed at me and gestured to the goths. "James! This is Miyo and Hime. It''s so funny ¨C we''ve been in a ton of classes together but never actually talked before!" I looked at the two extremely pale white girls and appended ''weebs'' onto the goth e-girl description I''d given them. "James Li. Nice to meet you." "We know," said Miyo. "We were just showing Shania and Aminah a fancam of you," added Hime, holding up her phone. There was an old clip of me dancing in the rafters above a Gorillaz concert playing. My friends and I would sneak into the arena for shows all the time before they finally fixed our go-to hatch on the roof. "Holy shit. Where did they find that clip? I can''t be older than sixteen there." "You''ve got shooters online," said Hime. "They''re rabid. Worse than K-pop stans." "That''s impossible," I said, not missing a beat. "Fair. As bad then." "We get it, though," said Miyo, giving me bedroom eyes. "Mhm. I''ll be joining the Discord when I get home for sure." I sighed. Annie and I were influencers now; the lunatics would be sure to follow. There was nothing to be done about that. "Well, let me know if they start planning to chain me to a radiator." "Sure." Hime smirked. "We could help you practice escaping too." "I''ve got a radiator in my room and chains to spare," added her friend. Aminah cleared her throat, blushing pink. "So, who was that guy you were talking to? He seemed kind of¡­scared when he was leaving." "Just a fellow roof rat. Speaking of, we''re going to need to eat this here before we head out. You two mind helping out?" "Happily." "It''s illegal to turn down free pizza." "Morally reprehensible at the very least." I held the box for the girls to serve themselves. There wasn''t enough room on the narrow counter to rest the full pizza, something which may have been a deliberate move by the owners. "What were you guys talking about, by the way?" Aminah perked up. "League of Legends!" "Oh God," I said before I could stop myself. No, no, James, don''t disparage their hobby. I cleared my throat. "Sorry, I meant, Oh, good. League of Legends." Hm, that sounded ruder somehow. Aminah rolled her eyes at my distaste but was smiling graciously. "It''s okay, James, Shanny feels the same way. But Miyo and Hime are degens like me! It''s so nice to finally have people to complain about patches with!" Shania bit her lip ¨C a few hours ago, that might have been the end of it, but she actually managed to summon the courage to say what was on her mind. "We were talking about dressing up for LANime Con. It''s the weekend after next in the suburbs, do you¡ªor would you be free¡­" "Ah, sorry. Black Harbor Fashion Week will be in full swing. I''ll either be making deliveries or, hopefully, doing some modeling work. Nothing''s booked for the latter, but if GLB can''t get me a job during Fashion Week, literally what are they good for? All my fucked up scars are below the neck; there''s got to be something for me out there." Miyo jumped in. "What if we dressed Shania up as Jinx and Aminah as Nidalee?" My slice of pizza froze midway to my mouth. The thought of Shania dressed up as Jinx was arrestingly tempting, but I did have to be responsible. Not only would I be working, it was also my best bet at finding whoever Davis ended up as ¨C I had to assume that their model character would be somewhere amidst the chaos of Fashion Week. I had to kindly decline. "Let me see a picture of Nidalee," I said instead. Stupid horny brain. Stupid Happy Idiot. Hime was quick, pulling up an image of a brown-skinned huntress wearing what amounted to a fur bikini and body paint. "We could definitely put the costume together in two weeks. Jinx, too; I already have the wig for that one." I hummed, imagining the two shy girls side by side in slutty cosplay, on their knees before me. Surely there was a compromise I could strike here, some middle ground between responsibility and hedonism. No, come on, fashion shows can take the entire day. When would we have time? I shook my head sadly. It just wasn''t happening; I''d have to deal with that. "What are you two going as?" I asked ¨C you know, to be friendly, a good conversationalist. Any moment now, and I was sure to decline the offer. "I''ll be Miss Fortune," she said, quickly finding me an image of a redheaded pirate in tight leather pants and the world''s most ambitious pushup bra. "And ¨C I''m calling an audible here, Miyo." Her friend nodded sagely. "I understand completely." "Great. And Miyo''s going as Janna now." She showed me what looked like an Emma Frost costume with elf ears and a tiara. Goddamn it. "I could maybe make time before the con, have some fun at my place¡ª" "Deal," said Hime immediately. James. "Well, hang on, let me finish. It might end up being really early, like four in the morning early¡­" Good save, no teenager was going to be thrilled about waking up hours before sunrise. "Yes, anything. I would gouge out my eyes¡ª" Miyo elbowed her friend. "Be normal, bitch. We''re fine with whenever, James." Ah, fuck. I looked to Shania and Aminah for support. Clearly, I was incapable of stopping this myself, but the two wallflowers would surely¡ª "Yes," said Shania firmly, a manic gleam in her eyes. "We want a smoothie to go, though," added Aminah quickly. She was almost purple with embarrassment, but powered through. "Each." "Each?" I swallowed. My mouth was suddenly dry, recalling the brutal milking Maki had subjected me to. "I don''t know, that''s a¡­hell of a way to start out my day." Aminah clasped her hands together and gave me her best puppy dog eyes. "Pleeeease." "Agh! Okay, okay, just stop making that face. Jesus, you''re good at that." She pumped her fist and then, in one clean motion, turned to Shania and buried her face in the crook of her neck as she realized what she had just agreed to. Shania giggled and stroked her friend''s long, black hair. Her face froze in a rictus seconds later, though, and her eyes focused on some point in the middle distance. Well, mission accomplished on getting the two of them to be bolder, I suppose. In a way, this was a brilliant stroke of genius. Remember this when you''re filling up the fourth water bottle for them, dumbass. Hey, it''s the weekend, baby, cut me some slack. Miyo and Hime high-fived. See, these two goth e-girl weeb League of Legends players had the right idea¡­Christ, just thinking that sentence was like getting hit in the head with a hammer. Ah, well, you had to roll with the punches, especially the self-inflicted ones. Harbor Hill Lights 4 Live long enough in Black Harbor and the sirens become meaningless. Ever-present and eternal, your brain reduces them to less than noise - a background hum to filter out. Like cicadas in the summer, you forget about them with time. Even I, someone who could potentially do something about whatever emergency had summoned the sirens, didn''t pay them much mind. Surely, if a situation warranted my intervention, then there would be other, more appropriate signs than the blaring of horns and whistles, like a text or something. Anything would be better, really, the waving of arms, wordless shouting, calling my name, calling a name that was close to mine, anything but the few sounds I''d been conditioned from birth to ignore. "Either of you prone to motion sickness?" I asked my two companions. We were in the alley behind the $2 Dollar Pizza, having parted from the goths with a promise to meet again. As long as nothing too calamitous happened between now and Fashion Week, I had a pretty eventful foursome on my calendar to look forward to. The girls shook their heads, their interest piqued. I could practically see the question written on Shania''s face ¨C is this a sex thing? If so, how? "Cool. Bring it in then, and hold on tight." I held my arms wide and crouched down. They nodded with sudden understanding. Aminah practically threw herself onto me, wrapping her arms around my neck with a laugh. "Are you going to take us up to the roofs?" she asked. "I''ve always wondered what it feels like." "Sure am. And good news, Annie and I''ll have you roof-hopping in no time. Shania?" The skinny black girl nervously straightened her skirt and clamped her legs together, no doubt worried and thrilled by the fact that she had no panties on. I could have pointed out that we''d be moving far too fast for anyone to sneak a peek, but that would have taken some of the fun out of it. "Come on, Shanny, it''ll be fun. James won''t drop us. He wouldn''t offer if he wasn''t absolutely sure of that." "Yeah. I''m absolutely eighty to ninety percent sure I won''t drop either of you. It''s totally chill." Shania gave me a look derivative of one of her mother''s ''Oh, you think you''re cute?'' faces, but rolled her eyes good-naturedly and stepped into the hug. I scooped the girls up and held them close to me, their legs intertwining around my waist instinctively. Black and gold silk snuck out from beneath my sweater and began to flow atop their scantily clad bodies, sinfully mussing their clothing. I made each a climbing harness from the sash, on the off chance I did have to catch them unexpectedly, and then applied some more sensual bindings, framing their breasts and giving them makeshift collars. The slits on Shania''s dress were spread apart under the pressure, and she would have been fully exposed if there was more cleavage for the cloth to disappear into. As it was, she was just shy of indecent exposure and keenly aware of it, judging by her mix of embarrassed excitement. Both their breaths hitched as the silk bit deep, and their nipples hardened, though Aminah''s were more prominent against my side than her friend''s. Her borrowed blouse''s buttons, strained as they''d been before, had popped, causing her bare, perky brown breasts to squish against the wool of my sweater. Once they were snug and secure, and my hands under their bums were there for only emotional support ¨C my own, of course ¨C I jumped up a good ten feet and kicked off a fire escape to clear the roof. There was an awful screeching, banging sound from the rusted metal, but we were a blur a block away before anyone could have noticed. Shania buried her face into my chest, her grip white-knuckling on my sweater. Aminah, on the other hand, howled with laughter, reacting to each jump and turn in a way that told me her eyes were wide open, enjoying the roller-coaster for what it was. I made a note of their individual reactions for future training sessions, already going through a catalogue of good spots in the city to ease them into parkour. Shania was terrified, but hopefully, having an enthused best friend with her would help her get over the initial fear. If I did things right, she''d soon be addicted to the terror and the feeling of release that followed - the mark of a great daredevil and stunt performer. I put my plans aside as I approached Gardens Building B, a thirty-plus-story government housing project and the tallest of its kind in Harbor Hill, beating out Building A by a few floors. It would have taken a few minutes at most to get back to my place, but I had a different idea for the date. There had been three interruptions to our afternoon, first due to the possessed Pha Thet, then because of the mercenaries at Mugisha''s, and finally I had lost control over my lust. The first two were what they were; being a youxia was a lifestyle, not a job. If anything, I liked to think I''d earned some points with the girls for the crime-fighting. However, for as fun as the movie theater foreplay and facefuck had been for all involved, I did feel the need to make up for spoiling our intended plans. The fight at the herbalist''s and my first kills had scrambled my brain, sure, and Maria''s teasing hadn''t helped, but the responsibility was all mine. I had to make up for going so hard, so fast. The moment called for a purely romantic gesture, some way to reassure the girls they deserved more from a date than cheap pizza, a pretty face, and great sex. The coast-facing highway lights had been swapped out three years ago after a particularly bad hurricane for larger models with more give to them. I circled round to an overpass near our destination and used one of the huge streetlights like a springboard, getting more than enough ''oomph'' to send us flying into the open expanse of air, eighty-plus feet above nothing but hard ground. Aminah''s screams turned from excited to terrified, and Shania whipped her head around to see what was happening. The wind caught her glasses as they were jostled loose from the quick motion and forced them tumbling off her face. My hand and sash snapped out, the former catching Shania''s glasses as the latter sailed up and forward, reaching out to grab some decorative brickwork extruding from the top of Gardens Building B, still hundreds of feet away. We experienced a second, maybe more, maybe less, of stomach-dropping freefall before my Steel-Silk Sash went taut and began to reel us toward the building. There had been, I suppose, a minuscule chance that the bricks had spalled to the point that my tactile telekinesis would have had only a layer of choss to cling to, but we were in the clear now. Granted, we were hurtling towards a brick wall at tremendous speed, but this was all according to plan. The girls didn''t know that, though, and were screaming bloody murder, so just to be extra safe, I opened up my system menus at the speed of thought and navigated to a Feat in the Force Armor tree that had been on my to-buy list for a while. This was as good an excuse as any to finally pull the trigger on it.
[Major Feat] Tele Firma You''ve learned to polarize your Force Armor with precision to aid in both movement and defense. Add your Telekinesis Dice when trying to climb or cling to a surface, and to resist any attempts to sweep you off your feet or knock you prone. With a little practice, walking on a ceiling will be as natural to you as the ground.
God, I couldn''t wait to have a fight on top of a moving train. The instant my foot touched the face of Gardens Building B, I ''righted'' our gravity to orient us horizontally to the ground far below. With the tactile telekinesis and the Sash providing us resistance as it reeled us to the top of the wall, I could have easily strolled my way up, but the girls were in quite a state and I didn''t want to prolong their panic. I bounded up instead, crossing thirty to forty vertical feet with every step, each blasting off a layer of caked-on sea salt left behind from Atlantic gales and front-flipped safely onto the roof. The cessation of movement meant my body heat was no longer tempered by the cold, rushing air, and the sudden warmth acted as an immediate balm. The girls stopped yelling and opened their eyes. I lowered them onto the tar of the flat roof gently, untangling them from my sash and slipping Shania''s glasses back onto her face. "Too much?" I asked as she blinked up at me. She opened her mouth, jaw agape at the audacity, and decided to respond non-verbally, repeatedly jabbing me in the ribs with her index finger. Aminah looked down at her exposed chest as if weighing whether or not to cover up, but thought the better of it and buttoned her top with a little blush. She started jabbing me on the other side. "Too much, he says. Too much!" "Dummy. You''re lucky I used the bathroom at the theater." I laughed as they continued poking me in the sides. Now that they were vertical and no longer rocketing through the air, their displeasure was fast fading, little grins threatening to overtake their frowns. "Alright, alright, my bad ¨C probably should have given you some more warning. But I wanted to show you this. Close your eyes and take a listen. You won''t regret it." The girls first glanced at each other to make sure that the other wasn''t actually upset by the experience, best friends to the end. Seeing that the other had recovered from the ordeal, each giggled before following my instructions. I watched their faces as they listened, searching for what I was referring to. It took a moment ¨C as I said, growing up in Black Harbor inures you to cacophony ¨C but the awe arrived for both as I knew it would. Their brains had finally identified the peculiar absence. At around four hundred feet off the ground, the city sounds were washed away by the wind. There were no sirens up here, no honks, no industrial hum, the rumble of truck tires on asphalt did not reach from below, and the airport was on the other side of the city, too far for the roar of the jets to assault us from above. We were alone but for the wind and the occasional cry of a restless sea bird. "Oh," said Shania softly. Aminah breathed out a low, "Wow." "Nice, right? Come on. Let''s see if we can borrow some chairs." The penthouse floors in buildings this size and age were usually reserved for maintenance, allowing for ease of access to the elevator mechanisms, and this one was no different. Even better, the Gardens had their HVAC units built into the side of the building, meaning the roof went untouched outside of the rare emergency. That made it firmly the realm of those stupid enough to climb to the top of buildings from the outside, a community I was a proud member of. The door was predictably unlocked, though I did have to force the rusted hinges open. I cracked it and listened. The chance that any of the hired handymen had stuck around on a Friday night was vanishingly small, but there was always the possibility a building super was using the penthouse to get away from his wife and kids. Only silence greeted me, though, so I beckoned the girls to follow me in. They tittered once we were inside, nervous and excited to be committing their first ''crime''. I couldn''t even remember the first place I broke-and-entered into ¨C the pumphouse on 5th, maybe? This was such old hat for me that I managed to flip the lights on with a bit of telekinesis on the first try. My friends and I had never made it to the top of Gardens B before ¨C the climb up three hundred feet of crumbly bricks was daring even for us ¨C but I''d been on the roof of other projects in the city before and they only had so many layouts between them. "Sick, they got a kitchenette in this one. You two want to see if you can''t make us a pot of tea while I lug up some seats?" A task was exactly what the girls needed to overcome their apprehension. They hopped to it, climbing down the metal stairs into the cinderblock and concrete workspace, and began exploring the cupboards. I doubt they would have normally engaged in petty theft, but stealing three packets of tea was hardly a moral conundrum, and my request meant they were doing it for me instead of a selfish desire for a hot cuppa. This probably didn''t even count as moral corruption. The new mattress I found leaning against one of the concrete walls, however, did present me with a bit of an ethical quandary. Not for the theft, I was sure the workers would be glad to be rid of the thing; it was still in its factory plastic and caked in dust, taking up space that could be better used for tools. There had to be at least five hundred units in this tower ¨C the mattress had probably been delivered after someone had moved out or died, and had found its way to the penthouse by virtue of having nowhere else to go. No, my issue was that I''d brought the girls here as a romantic but non-sexual gesture, and there were some expectations that came with a mattress. Ah well, the alternatives were metal folding chairs and a ratty couch that stank of cigarettes ¨C I was taking the mattress. I brushed the dust free of the plastic cover and used ample tactile telekinesis to walk it up the metal stairs and into the bitter cold of the New Jersey night. Cutting a thin slit along one side of the plastic, I extracted the queen-sized mattress and laid it atop the covering. Once we were done, I''d slip it back inside its sheathe and melt the seal closed again ¨C if I was going to leave an entire mattress on a roof, I was going to at least try to get more than one use out of it. Cross-legged and facing the brilliant rainbow skyline of the city, I took the time to meditate and let my Qi expand outward in a dense dome, going so far as to roll a Willpower and Meditation. As my mind and breathing stilled, so too did the gusts. Strangely, though I had made no conscious effort to push it aside, the whipping wind had split itself to go around the dome of heat, as though generously respecting my space and unconscious desires. Perhaps it was ¨C maybe I''d gotten to the point in my transformation into an archetypical Hero that the weather itself would play wingman for me. I still had over 350 Experience after buying Tele Firma and would likely make another 100 or more tonight, but that didn''t give me license to spend frivolously. Quest Rewards were slowing down and would continue to do so, pushing me ever towards debauchery and excess. The threats, alternatively, were mounting and circling, deserving ever more attention and resources. Just in my immediate future, I had two major goals to accomplish in the upcoming week that could make any stockpile disappear. First, I had to make Black City Kung Fu a more cohesive style with clear paths a student could work their way down to get to where I was now. The Happy Idiot was perfect in that regard. It had multiple, lower-cost Feats to learn on the way to mastery or to branch out from to make the Stance your own. Any student with the Happy Idiot Stance, the Rule of Cool, and Improvised Brawler Feats would be recognizable as a practitioner of Black City Kung Fu, but I wanted more from my school than a bunch of bar-brawling, back-flipping maniacs. As cool as those were, they weren''t necessarily equipped to survive in the city for long. Plus, there were no paths toward my Fire and Telekinesis powers, which had become as quintessentially James Li as my extremely annoying fighting style. And, of course, a true master of Black City had to be able to use Style Maker. That was non-negotiable. If I wanted to create disciples in my image, I had to tie the threads of my build together. That brought me to my second goal. Starting Monday, I was going full steam into a training arc, taking Annie from somewhat of a burden to be worried about, to a full-on ally in arms. Not to say I wouldn''t worry about her after, but right now, the thought of bringing Annie into a mission on par with the exorcism at Bell Street was dread-inducing; she''d have died a hundred times over in the fight with the Hungry Ghost. I didn''t necessarily need more teaching Feats than I had currently to get her up to snuff, but if I was ever going to invest in them, then now was the time. The same could be said for training Shania and Aminah, and even Smoothie to a lesser extent. Now was the time. In the clarity of meditation, I could feel it. There was smoke on the wind, blood in the water, dark clouds on the horizon. It wasn''t simple paranoia based on meta-knowledge and the warnings of others ¨C I could feel it in my core, in my spine. I could see it behind my closed eyes. The Wheel was turning. The despair of decades in Harbor Hill had metastasized into a material Evil. There was a gang war brewing in Black Harbor that was all but certain to spread to New York and beyond. Not to mention the stranger omens, like the soon-to-be enacted repeal of all obscenity laws; I know I had no room to talk, but I couldn''t help but feel that moral degradation portended something darker. And all that was just what I could see ¨C what were my friends dealing with? What was bubbling in the cyberpunk nightmare city of Ryuukai or the infamously cult-afflicted England? By the pricking of my thumbs/ Something wicked this way comes. Were the Heavens kind, Shania and Aminah would have walked through the door to interrupt my thoughts. I would have turned to them with a grateful smile, would have maybe thrown 25EXP at a Minor Feat, and we would have concluded our date. Unfortunately, I was forced to continue my contemplation, my mind turning to how well the girls had performed in the pizzeria. Social Lubricant and a healthy helping of cum had allowed the wallflowers to make friends of the two caustic goths. They may have even developed Social Feats or seen permanent boosts to their Skills if they were lucky. Goddamn it, the writing was on the wall, wasn''t it? The Producers had spraypainted it there for me, just one word in bolded caps: CUM. So annoying. And it was written multiple times too. They''d been subtle at first with the upgraded form of Infused ¨C what else was I supposed to take from the sentence, "The raw crystallized essence in your every cell is of such potency that long-term exposure has positive transmutive effects on your environment and companions." But now I had six¡ªSix!¡ªcum feats that all synergized with each other to push my partners slowly toward divinity. The question I had to ask myself was, was there anything except for pride keeping me from investing in magic cum? The risk of my bodily fluids coming, no pun intended, into the wrong hands was already present. We''d crossed and burned that bridge a while ago and there was no backtracking now. If an evil witch milked a load out of me, it would be bad with or without any more specialized Feats. And importantly, while there wasn''t an evil witch milking loads out of me, there were multiple women that I liked doing so on the regular. Long-term, it made more sense to invest in non-sexual, generic Teaching Feats, things that would give Black City the broad appeal I wanted from it. But we weren''t talking about long-term needs. I was looking at a week in which, save for one or two classes teaching Marianne''s sons, my only students were hot girls. Annie would already be slurping down my special protein shakes on the regular, and Maki, too stubborn to accept training, wouldn''t see any benefits from normal teaching Feats but would gain permanent boosts from the cum ones. An unhelpfully helpful part of my brain offered, We have enough Dice in Erotic Sorcery and Aura that we could make a completely busted, pun intended, Feat using Style Maker. They barely balance sex-related abilities as is. I sighed and waited a few seconds to see if Aminah or Shania would interrupt me. The possibilities with Style Maker began to rush in and fill the space in my thoughts. A simple, when aided by Experience, conscious readjustment to the way that I already passively filtered my Qi would allow me to enhance the properties of my cum that were already present. Damn, it seemed I''d be going through with this. I hated feeling like a monkey jumping through hoops for the Producer''s pleasure, and yet here we were. You know, there''s no shame in ceding some wins to interdimensional gods every now and then. True, but I didn''t have to like it. Well, if I was doing this, I might as well do it right. I started by buying the upgrade to Nature''s Anabolic since it was a no-brainer for training Annie.
[Major Feat] Nature''s Anabolic (Semen Upgrade) Other people who have consumed your semen gain a temporary +2 to Strength and Agility for as long as it remains in their system. Consuming your semen in enough volume and frequency can lead to epiphanies, resulting in permanently increased Skills.
There were multiple ways I could create a broken semen upgrade, but for my pride and ever-dwindling dignity, I would allow my build only one. That said, I wasn''t going to half-ass this either. Whole-ass or no-ass ¨C that was an official Black City Kung Fu tenet. I very nearly went with something that would boost Aura and grant Dice in a few of my Mystical Skills, but I wanted something more universal. My students would benefit from gaining access to Elemental Control (Fire) and Telekinesis, but those might interfere with someone more along in their development, like Maki, who would be better off continuing to pursue her specialty.
[Master Feat] Seed of Power (Semen Upgrade) You have focused your Sorcery inward, to the forge of creation within your body. Your life seed is of incredible potency. The positive transmutive effects of your body parts are vastly increased for your semen. Your semen can cause the rapid acceleration of an individual''s natural abilities and talents when consumed or interacted with in enough frequency and volume. Others who ingest your semen by whatever means gain a temporary +1 to all Attributes for as long as it remains in their system.
I stared at the Feat''s pop-up message for a while, delving into my feelings and thoughts. They said the best way to escape a rip tide was to swim perpendicular to the drag until you could escape. Fighting it directly was a sure way to tire yourself out and drown. You had to relax and keep calm, and eventually, you''d be free. Aminah''s cheery "We''re back!" snapped me from the reverie. "Wow, it got really nice out. Thanks!" "Sorry, we took so long. Mina insisted we let it steep for ten minutes." "We''re Asian, Shanny. I can''t serve a Chinese man poorly made tea! I''ve got my Desi pride to maintain." I turned back and smiled at the two girls. "This Chinese man was microwaving two-day-old coffee until pretty recently, but thanks, I appreciate it. Have a seat. Sorry there''s no sheets, but it''s as clean as a mattress can be. I''m thinking about coming back later and turning this place into a private haunt. If I crouch menacingly on the ledge, I bet I could channel my inner Batman ¨C good way to get into the thug-beating mindset." Aminah handed me a borrowed mug and pushed my crossed legs open, sitting between them. "Might be a good place for dramatic meetings, too! It was surreal and mind-bending stepping out into the warm air; that would definitely put most people at a disadvantage right away. "The quiet, too," said Shania, nuzzling in between her friend''s legs and resting her weight on her chest, making Aminah do the same on mine. We were sitting like spoons in a drawer. "How are you doing that without making fog like before?" "I''m not. The wind is just being polite ¨C it must like you two." I took a sip of the tea; it was excellent. The Pakistani girl had done the Silk Road and her ancestors proud. Aminah craned her head back to look at me upside down and gave my chin a peck. "Yes, it''s us the wind is obliging." Shania raised her cup to the sky for a toast. "Thank you, Mr. Eurus. The east wind from Greek Mythology," she added for my benefit. I muttered my own thanks to the minor wind god, dipped a finger into the teacup, and flicked him a drop over the ledge. It sparkled once, refracting the light of the technicolor horizon, before falling out of sight. The skyline of Black Harbor stretched like a bony ridge from the back of a great primordial wyrm, the tallest of the buildings clustering around the Beagle. Like every Friday night since shortly after McFadden''s election, the river shore skyscrapers were putting on a synchronized light show, LEDs flashing in time across the separate buildings. A shimmering violet band rolled across the city''s spine before being replaced by gold and then green ¨C it was spectacular, particularly from a boat on the water''s surface, like a technological fever dream. They did something similar in Chongqing and other Asian megacities, I knew, but for America there was nowhere else where you could see a show like this one. Even Vegas didn''t make the entire Strip dance in harmony. It spoke to a mutual pride shared by Harborians in their city that even the murderous rivals who owned those buildings could work together to create something beautiful ¨C in theory, at least. It was a shame, then, that this display was also an environmental fucking catastrophe. Since the start of these shows, the number of birds that had suicided themselves full speed into skyscrapers could be measured in the thousands. Everyone had known that would be the result; the phenomenon was well-known and activists had been ringing the alarms during planning, but the city powered through regardless. What were ten thousand birds compared to the value add of a great tourism campaign? To add insult to injury, the energy subsidies that McFadden offered to the various real estate groups in exchange for their collaboration were an obvious funnel for graft. Suddenly, the kilowatts required to run those lights cost two hundred times what they did a few months prior. Funny how that happens. I had to give it to McFadden and his cronies, though; the show was pretty great first-date fodder. We sat for a bit in silence, sipping our tea and enjoying the warmth of the cuddle as a great fiery arrow streaked across a hundred thousand LEDs and a few dozen steel-and-glass facades. Aminah spoke first. "Would it be okay to ask about your heroics outside the theater? A lot of people rushed in when we were in line for snacks, and you seemed¡­" "Out of it?" I finished, resting my chin atop her head. "Sure. I owe you that much for stepping out in the middle of the date. Might not be a bad idea to talk about what happened, either." "Oh. It¡­didn''t go great, then?" I sighed and nuzzled into her thick, black locks. "I like your shampoo," I muttered. "Thanks. It''s aloe plus honeydew." Some predatory bird cast a lazy silhouette in the dazzling red skyline, searching for unsuspecting pigeons nesting in the nooks. Decrepit abandoned warehouses across Black Harbor were the frequent roosts of owls and hawks. Hopefully, if I did enough good deeds, Karma would reward me by having one of them kill my rat nemesis ''off-screen''. "I think," I said, trying to mentally will the bird''s flight towards my apartment, "that it went as well as it was ever going to go. There was this," I paused, trying to put words to feelings, "this sense of inevitability from the second I crossed the threshold into Mugisha''s." I''d have called it the grim presence of death, but I knew exactly what that felt like ¨C he was about four feet tall, had a crow''s head, and whatever the opposite of charisma was. "Fate, maybe ¨C I don''t know. You ever feel like you''re a character in someone else''s story?" "Only every minute since I met you," said Aminah. Shania giggled. The question was fairly ridiculous coming from me, I suppose. "Sorry." "Don''t be. It''s really cool, actually; I feel special, important in a way." "Same," added Shania. Hm, I could relate. I''d felt special and important in Alpine''s story as well. I was the end. "Ah, and what genre would you say we''re in?" Aminah didn''t hesitate for a second. "That''s easy ¨C slice-of-life kung fu sex comedy, of course." "What," added Shania, voice rich with worry for me, "was the genre of the story in Mugisha''s?" I took a sip of my tea. I didn''t want to spoil the moment, but it did feel nice to talk about what had happened. "Gritty noir ¨C no, that was mostly Maria. Greek tragedy. I was the third act, final scene; curtain drop." "Exodus," said Shania, using the proper term. Her voice seemed less affected by the admission than I''d expected. "They''re dead?" "Drinking with the boys in Valhalla as we speak. The shopkeep''s still kicking, though; that was a fat envelope of cash he sent me in the pizzeria." The girls sagged into me a bit at the confirmation ¨C the opposite of my expected reaction. There must have been some subtle concern they''d been carrying since we''d passed the storefront, which, much like the sirens, had been invisible until its absence. Shania sighed. "Then it sounds like you were right; everything went as well as it could go." From someone else, the words might have come across as callous, but there was too much sympathy and relief in her tone for there to be any cruelty in the sentiment. "You think?" She placed a tender hand on my calf and massaged it. "James, it''s good and admirable that you can mourn those men, but I wouldn''t think any less of you if you didn''t. That''s the right thing, probably, to mourn the men and hate the circumstances that produced them ¨C if I was stronger, I''d like to be able to do that myself." "Yeah," said Aminah sadly. "It''s unfortunate, but as much as I''d like to treat men like that as people, when all you can ever be to them is a victim, it''s¡ª" she sipped her teeth. "I guess I just don''t have it me, you know, the depth of compassion needed to grieve them. When I see a news story about a gang member dying, I don''t think about their family, I think about my cousin who got stabbed for no reason. I think about the twenty or so kids who go missing from our grade every year. School just started, and we already have two kids missing." "Three," corrected Shania. "One of the emergency texts was asking about two siblings." "Oh. I don''t even open them anymore, to tell the truth. Too depressing." God, how did people live like this? Alan was old enough to remember them shutting down Washington D.C. over the sniper ¨C would that even register as a news story in this world? "Damn, guys. Sorry for bringing the mood down." "No!" said Shania forcefully. "You didn''t, that''s what I was trying to get at. As bad as it sounds, I''m glad that heavily armed men who feel comfortable with torturing shop owners in more-or-less broad daylight aren''t walking around anymore. It feels like nothing bad ever happens to men like that unless it''s on accident, like they kill each other in a firefight or something." "We have to hate them," continued Shania. "You can''t live your life afraid every day ¨C literally; the brain adjusts. But fear doesn''t vanish, it sublimates. It becomes loathing. I don''t like it, and I try not to dwell on the feeling actively, but I have to acknowledge it''s there, or else it''ll grow out of control." Aminah nodded emphatically. "We know it''s wrong to celebrate death, but when stories of violence are as common as the weather report, the deaths of the violent become like sunny days. Is that bad?" I raised my eyebrows; these two might be easier to train than I thought. Their language sounded somewhat like ''therapy-speak'' but the pseudo-endorsement of violence was different than anything Alan would have anticipated from a therapist. "No, that checks out. If it makes you two feel better, I''m not mourning those men, nor do I hate the circumstances that produced them. It just feels bad to kill people. It''s like, uh, paying taxes ¨C I know I''ve got to do it, so I do, but it still feels bad every time." I paused. God, it didn''t sound great hearing that said aloud, but at the same time, "Huh. You know, I think I was putting off admitting that to myself¡­" Aminah reached a hand back and ran it through my hair, stroking her fingers through my scalp. "Do you feel a little better now?" "Yeah. Honestly, I think maybe the realization that my mind treats killing with the same annoyed acceptance as paying my taxes was bothering me more than the actual killing." I turned an introspective eye to the reaction from my two halves at the confession; yes, that was it. For James, killing Alpine ¨C and specifically Alpine ¨C had been the death of his boyish imagining of what being a youxia entailed. He had known intellectually that some of his enemies would die in combat, and not all of those enemies would be heartless thugs beyond redemption, but it was one thing to know and another to know. Alpine had come to Mugisha''s with a purpose and a vision for the world that he was working toward. He had talked about killing a man that preyed on Black Harbor, and I''d known without an Insight roll that he had been speaking honestly, just as I had known that his vision and mine were incompatible. A stim-abusing mercenary with a team of trigger-happy thugs who were willing to torture to get their way ¨C yeah, it didn''t matter if our goals were aligned. The inevitability I''d felt in Mugisha''s hadn''t been ''Fate'' or ''Death'', or any other cosmic truth. It had been force-of-personality, his meeting mine, and the recognition that they couldn''t exist in the same place at the same time. For Alan, everything was just a lot right now, alright. Someone had to sort out the brain stuff, and that someone was definitely not the twenty-year-old he was sharing it with, but did it really have to be him? Had anyone actually checked that it absolutely had to be him? That was all he wanted to know. Maybe someone else could go check, and then we could all reconvene in a few days or something. As for the third and least talked about of my two halves, the union that came from both, how did I feel about confirming that I had the heart of a killer? Fine. I felt fine. And that was¡­fine. It was a hell of a lot better than the opposite, certainly; living like a saint in this world would be like torture. I sighed and draped my weight onto the girls. A great, metaphysical burden unfurled and slipped free of my shoulders. "Ahh, the knowledge of self is pretty liberating." Indeed, the lingering childish/out-of-context desire to deny that aspect of being a warrior had been acting as a mental block since the fight. I realized that I''d been sitting in silence for a bit now as the girls continued gently massage me, Shania, my calves, and Aminah, my scalp. I cleared my throat. "Thanks, girls. Between the blowjob and the pep talk, you managed to screw my head on straight again." Shania laughed. "Wow, Mina, that''s like the plot of half the books you read." "I know! Do you see the appeal now? It''s cool being the good woman to tame man''s bestial nature, isn''t it?" Shania groaned. "I guess so. I''m still not reading them with you." Aminah shook her friend side to side. "Noooo, you have to! Read smut with me, damn it. You know you want to." "I-I have brothers! I can''t leave books like that lying around the apartment; it would be too awkward." "That''s what e-books are for, baby girl." I smiled into my tea. Even with a bit of a rough start, tonight turned out to be pretty nice. The universe had finally delivered me my ''one normal person'' in the form of a pair of them. I''d killed some guys, and that was a bummer. Nor was I enthused to learn that Maria was spiraling into a loose cannon, Lovecraftian bike cop ¨C the least respectable and most concerning versions of loose cannon cops ¨C but still, it was a good night. "You two are insanely well-adjusted, you know that?" Aminah reached back and patted my cheek affectionately. "If more people talked through their feelings, I''d like to think we''d be the average amount of well-adjusted." "That''s extremely optimistic of you." "Nothing wrong with a little optimism," said Aminah. "Or a lot," added Shania. "Or a lot." I pulled both girls to me tightly and hummed my content loudly. "So wise, so sensible! Black City Kung Fu really lucked out ¨C though, admittedly, the bar for what counts as a responsible member is pretty low right now. Lord knows we could use a good influence or two." "Aww, thanks, Master," purred Aminah. "We''ll try to rub off on you as much and as often as possible." "Thank you, my young apprentice. And so too shall I rub off on you ¨C all over you, head to toe." "Oof," said Shania with a laugh. "Terrible." "Mind out of the gutter, Shanny, we''re only talking about the mutual influence of the student-teacher bond!" I cleared my throat dramatically, and stage whispered in her ear, "Actually, Aminah, I was talking about covering you in my cum." Aminah whispered back, "Shh! I know, I was trying to protect her sweet innocence¡ªow! Hey!" Shania pinched her friend in the side. "Sweet innocence," she scoffed. "James''s magic and your kinky, smut-warped brain made me a masochistic bondage slut for life." "Oh my God, really!? Shanny, that''s amazing! We''re like ultra-best friends now, especially because I think I got your exhibitionist kink, too." I didn''t think that was actually true, or not yet, at least. I needed to do a little bit more pushing there before I earned that particular Quest Reward. "Wha¡ªI don''t have, a¡ª" Aminah cooed. "Look, James, Isn''t that cute? She just remembered getting seen sucking your cock in public." Shania groaned at the memory. "Ha! So cute. You call me Mina, by the way, Master. I keep meaning to mention." "Neat. My own Pakistani Mina Harker ¨C the only character I didn''t want to strangle while reading Dracula." The girls paused and turned to look at me as if I was insane. "You''ve read Dracula, James?" said Shania in disbelief. "How? Where?" I scanned through James''s life fruitlessly for any and all information on Bram Stoker''s Dracula. Nothing. Somewhat desperately, I looked for memories of movies or a show or any references at all to Dracula. Nothing again. Oh God. Oh fuck. Oh shit. There were so many implications for that fact, and they were all terrible. I''d bet my life that Mars was dealing with Dracula''s bitchass off in Keletsnya, which meant that I would either be doing the same or handling the fallout eventually. "Hey, I read alright," I said, trying to pass off the impending sense of doom. "I''m literate." "It''s not like that, James," said Aminah, thankfully more confused than suspicious. "We''re just surprised you''ve even heard of it. Stoker went crazy, I don''t know if you know, and then his estate tried to get it removed from print. I only know about the book because, well," she bit her lip embarrassed, "like Shanny said, I''m really into smutty fiction. I went on a horror smut kick, and it''s like, the godfather of the genre." "Where did you read it?" I said, getting an ingenious idea. "I found a scan from a library in London online." "Cool. Same." "Really? Wow." "Yeah," I said smugly, "what can I say, girls? I possess multitudes." My newest students turned to look at me with awe and amazement as I went from ''remarkable meathead'' to ''total enigma'' in their heads. Goddamn, was I good. I tossed the rest of my tea back and put the mug aside. I was glad I hadn''t just swept the girls from one sex act to another; that would have felt a little gross after the fact, even more so with the $2 pizza intermission. I wanted there to be something memorable about this date that wasn''t sexual. Between the secluded rooftop light show and the girls managing to help me with my mental state, I would say that we had neatly checked that box off. Now, I could cynically earn some sex Rewards without feeling like an asshole tomorrow. The mention of Count Dracula had lit a fire in my heart that could only be quenched with Experience, preferably enough to drown a Dark Lord. I''d been planning to continue the lovey-dovey traditional romance back at my place, mostly for Marianne''s sake. The nurse was too important to me for me to not do right by her daughter, but I could see the truth much more clearly now that the brain fog had been lifted. The facts were that Shania and Aminah were freaks, which was great because I, too, was a freak. Besides, now that the mood was right for it, this was a perfect place to accomplish the true goal behind this date. Marianne had asked me to take the two out not to give them a storybook evening, but to overcome their fears of intimacy. Where better than here to do that? Aminah''s parents were a minor complicating factor, but Lord Byron''s Luck would handle that for me. Rumors of my depravity were supposed to help me, not hurt, and if that didn''t extend to Aminah as one of my three full-time students, then the Feat was useless. "Speaking of Big Drac''," I said, "my own bestial nature is beginning to act up again. In fact, gosh, I''m feeling a little diabolical." My telekinetic limbs extended out, teasing the girls'' arms and legs before taking their teacups away and depositing them to the side; I had a different drink in mind for the two. With a mental shove, I pushed the mattress we were on across the roof to the corner of the building closest to Gardens A and began emitting my Shining Resolve. Building B was taller than its twin, but not by much, and barely had a parapet, meaning that the top floors of the other apartment complex could easily see us, especially with the golden glow of my Aura. "W-wait," said Aminah, shrinking down and pulling her hair over her face, "I have some family friends in the Gardens." "Nope," I said, popping the ''p''. "I won''t wait, and neither will you. If you''re going to train under me, you''ve got to learn that I''m a fighter and a lover, always and at all times. I was going to overlook my baser nature for the sake of the date, but if we''re going to have a deeper relationship, then I''ve got to be true to myself around you. Your training begins now." The system didn''t ask for a Seduction at that; I assumed the girls were already too infatuated to resist or that they had been truly earnest in their promise to train seriously. I stood up and kicked off my loafers and socks. Stripping off my jersey and sweater and stretching out my back, I rolled my first Teaching roll for my two newest students. The intended lesson plan bouncing around my head would be meaningless for extroverted Annie or the supremely confident Maki, but for two shy virgins, it would hopefully be exactly what they needed. I got nine Successes on the Wits + Leadership for the Teaching roll from Cultivator of Men, which would have left the girls with 9 Experience for me to spend on their behalf. But since this was about to be an extremely sexual lesson, my upgraded Special Feat Sex Ed kicked in, multiplying that by four. Damn, 36 EXP for one session; I knew Teaching builds were broken. This was the first time I''d gotten to use the upgraded Sex Ed, and, man, it went a long way to making the fight with the demon at the Kingfisher feel worth the headache. Annie was going to be a monster by the end of the week. "Listen, girls, Black City Style is audacious; it''s bold." I dropped my pants and boxers, now butt naked apart from my sash, and turned to face Building A, glowing gold for all the world to see. "It''s fearless. A Black City practitioner doesn''t give a fuck about how people see them." I turned back to the girls and put my hands on my hips. "Sometimes you got to show the world your whole ass just so you can donkey kick them while they''re awestruck and admiring." I kicked directly behind me, using Lance Pressure to release a shockwave from the ball of my foot that rattled the windows of Building A with a loud crack. Very soon, people would be coming to see what had made that sound. Aminah slapped her hands over her head, so anxious that even the sight of my cock wasn''t enough to calm her. "Oh God, Master. I get the metaphor, but ¨C oh God. My parents are going to kill me. James, you''re the only person in the neighborhood known to glow gold, and you were seen glowing gold earlier today, and we were seen with¡ª" "Bah! Let them see!" I clenched my fist. "Listen, Mina, forget the you of today and her fears, and think of the you of the future! Not long from now, there''s going to be a Mina who doesn''t care about her parents'' rules ¨C a Mina who lives her life the way she wants to and is too strong, confident, and sexy for anyone to do anything about it. Be that Mina, right now, right here!" She gulped, mouth dry, and blinked at me. Shania put a hand on her friend''s shoulder and smiled. "It''s okay, Mina. Your parents will understand." "They will?" "Yes, silly. This was the plan from all along, remember, when we asked James to train us." "Right, but, but I didn''t picture this." She pointed at the projects across the way. There were quite a few faces silhouetted in the windows. Shania stood up, took a deep breath, and pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulder, letting it fall to the ground. Then she bent back down, gave Aminah a kiss on the lips, bundled up the dress, and threw it off the side of the building. I laughed loudly. "Yes! That''s what I''m talking about." Shania put her hands behind her back and gave a little demure curtsy. "I," she licked her lips, "I want to be that future me. I''m," she said slowly, "going to be that future me." Aminah clasped her hands in front of her and looked up at her best friend, eyes wide and wet with pride. "Oh my God, Shanny, you''re too inspiring!" She leaped up to her feet and stripped as fast as she could, tearing the buttons off her blouse and almost falling down in her haste to get out of her tights. Flinging her clothes off the roof, she had a brief moment of exuberance before freezing. She slapped her forehead. "Aaah! I forgot those were yours! Sorry." Shania giggled and pulled her friend into a hug. "It''s alright. I''m proud of you. It''s time I stop dressing like I''m going to church every day, anyway." Aminah squeezed her tight and shook her like a teddy bear. "I''m proud of you! I can''t believe we get to have our first times together." She turned to look at me sheepishly. "Um, we do, right, Master? That''s what''s happening?" I gave her a thumbs up. "Yep!" They were going to get over their performance anxiety and crippling fear of social scrutiny by fucking in public. Genius! She turned rose-pink and looked like she was about to start hyperventilating but kept it together, squeaking a simple, "Cool." "Very cool, indeed," I agreed. Extending out both ends of my sash, I encircled their waists with glowing, golden silk and held them aloft. "But first, since you''re both being such good sports, I''ll let you pick what Erotic Sorcery enchantments you''d like before we begin." The golden glow I was casting through my Qi technique was dim, but people in Gardens A were already rushing to turn their lights off to get a better view. Aminah tried to cover her breasts, keenly aware that she was on display for potentially hundreds of eyes, but I sent a tendril to bind her arms behind her back. Her face flushed a deep red as I triggered her bondage and masochism kinks. I hadn''t gotten a Reward for giving her an exhibitionism fetish like I had with Shania and BDSM ¨C too much overlap between masochistic humiliation and exhibitionism, maybe ¨C but I was hoping this lesson would do the trick. Shame played a role in both, but Yearning Song was telling me that Shania''s kink revolved around the conquering of it, while Aminah''s involved reveling in her shame. "Um, can we get the sensation link again?" asked Shania. "It was intense, but I liked feeling closer to Mina, and getting your pleasure helped me understand what to do." I cast the spell with ease, barely needing to concentrate at this point. The girls shuddered as the magic coursed through them, their dantians flaring briefly to my senses in a way I''d not seen before. That was odd. I focused on what I was feeling through the sash, using Erotic Sorcery in place of Medicine; the side effects would be more than manageable in this situation. They twitched sharply as the lust-tinged Qi slowly and thoroughly inspected them at a cellular and metaphysical level; I didn''t want a repeat of what happened with Annie. One Qi mystery was more than enough. Their hearts were beating in sync, their meager Qi networks were circulating their life energy with the same rhythmic pulses, and ¨C could it be? I pulled them closer to me and held my hand in the space between them, the hairs on the back of it rising in reaction. Incredible, their bodies were intermingling their Qi at a distance. Annie and I dual-cultivated with the ease of two people in near total simpatico, and I doubt we could have managed that, let alone without any conscious effort or thought. The bond was remarkable and unusual, but I couldn''t see any negatives to allowing it to develop further. I withdrew my probing Qi, running my hands along their hips and sides as they caught their breaths. It had to be strange to be titillated at a molecular level; if it was anything like I''d felt from healing myself using lust energy, then they were probably out-of-their-minds horny. I gave Shania''s ass a spank, Slut-Making Strikes on full blast, enjoying the way both girls reacted to the hybrid pleasure-pain sensation. "Fun, hm? And we''re just getting started. What else would you like?" "What¡ªhrk," Aminah gritted her teeth as I sank my fingers into her upper thigh. "What else can you do?" "Stamina to stay awake through the explosive peaks, raising the valleys so you stay in a constant state of arousal, added sensitivity for both pleasure and pain, new erogenous zones¡ª" "We want it all," cut in Shania. "An orgasm block¡ª" "Maybe not that one." Aminah bit her lip, smut-fic-addled brain racing with possibilities. "Surprise us, please, Master." "Oho, I can do that." I chuckled and started to envelop them in the usual lust magic boons as I thought about what I wanted the ''surprise'' to be. It had to be something novel; this was equal parts confidence training, sex, and a way for me to farm easy EXP, after all. The girls, Audience, and Producers would all appreciate the creativity, I was sure. The sensitivity increase and spreading their erogenous zones across their bodies were easy enchantments, natural extensions of basic Erotic Sorcery, but the added stamina required me to gather lust energy from the environment. As I reached into the air around us, a combination of what I felt and my earlier nine Successes for teaching presented me with an inspired idea to take the lesson to the next level. This would be truly devious ¨C one for the ages. I would break the girls of their paralyzing social and sexual anxieties and get myself some more godlike Quest Rewards in one scene. From the unique tones and signatures in the sexual energy, we had attracted an audience of a couple dozen at the very least, judging by those releasing enough lust for me to sense them at this distance. More would be on their way; I wasn''t the kind of guy to summon friends to watch three people fuck on a roof, but it wouldn''t shock me to learn that I was in the minority on this Earth. There was a lot I could do with the kind of power soon to be coming at us, but first, I needed to make sure the vibe stayed positive. Right now, people were curious and amused by what they were seeing, but lust could take a dark turn pretty quickly, and if there was anywhere the many evil presences that made up The Misery collected in number, it would be in one of Harbor Hill''s notorious housing projects. I started with upgrading Shining Resolve, something I probably should have done the moment I hit the prerequisite Willpower, Charisma, and Presence.
[Major Feat] Shining Resolve (Upgraded) You may call upon your mystic might to resist fear and despair, letting you use your Aura in place of an Attribute or Skill for relevant rolls. Doing so causes your body to shed dim golden light in the material world, and your soul to glow like a second sun for anything with the appropriate senses. If you choose, you may allow anyone who can see your light to add your Aura to any attempts to resist fear and despair, but doing so will cause you to glow brighter in both the material and immaterial world.
Almost as soon as I activated the enhanced Feat, the tone of the lust energy I was feeling from the building across the way became ''clearer'', less touched by darker impulses, and much more vigorous. I hadn''t anticipated the latter effect, but it made sense; I imagine a lot of sexual inhibitions were related to fear and past trauma. Was it definitionally a mindfuck to treat depression and PTSD with a public sex show? Yes, but also, who cares? Using the lust of our voyeurs, I tapped into the primordial sensation of being watched, that nameless, universal feeling you got when walking alone through supposedly empty woods, and tied the two together. Most people found being watched by strangers to be alarming, but while Alan wasn''t thrilled to be the subject of so many perverts'' fantasies, James Li was a brain-broken actor. I filtered the feelings through his attention-addicted mind and rolled my Aura + Erotic Sorcery to craft the spell I was after. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. As I had lamented in the past, sex magic was one of the strongest tools in my kit. I''d been aiming for synesthesia, tying the feeling of each individual''s lustful gaze into some kind of physical sensation to give the girls a way to know they were being watched. With thirteen Successes, though, I got something much more potent. Dozens of ghostly, reverent caresses graced my body, mostly centered on my butt and thighs, though there were a strange number of them that circled my hands and forearms ¨C I guess more common kinks than I''d imagined. The reverence and awe could not be understated. This was twice now on this roof that I had discounted the effects of chronic fear on the average residents of Harbor Hill. Just as I had expected the girls to be reticent to endorse my killings, I''d thought that this display of ours would be, I don''t know, viewed as a really fun Friday night or something. But Shining Resolve had temporarily washed away the accumulated stresses of living on the edge of despair. I had silenced the sirens in their minds, and they were responding to the quiet with almost religious and highly erotically charged gratitude. Whoops. Oh well, maybe it would be fine. Yeah, maybe whatever insane cult of personality shit I had just inspired would turn out to be a positive later ¨C nothing wrong with a bit of optimism, right? Or, hey, what about a lot of optimism? Maybe there would be no downstream effects from this at all. I nodded to myself, a beatific smile not quite reaching my eyes, and pushed the spell onto the girls, glad to be free of the not-at-all worrying psychic touches. They jerked against the sash and telekinesis holding them in the air and looked around wild-eyed. I poked each on the mons, raising the threshold of pleasure required to climax three-fold. We''d be testing the power of my stamina spells when they did cum, but I was pretty sure they''d be stuck in a constant cyclical orgasm if I didn''t ¨C fun for them, but less so for me. "Can you feel them?" I asked, raising them higher. The light from my body was bright enough that the details of their bodies could be seen clearly now, Shania''s sex-slick thigh gap and Aminah''s bouncing breasts cast in heavenly gold. "Can you feel how badly they want you, want to worship you, want to be in your place? This is the heart of my Black City style ¨C our audience thinks you''re helpless, who really has the power? Once you have their focus, you can lead them without resistance, use their wants and desires to accomplish your goals." "Oh God, those are their¡­thoughts? So many, there are so many people watching." Mina shivered, crunching inwards and turning as much as she could to cover herself, but that only exposed her back. She jumped as the eyes turned to her cute, spankable ass, and whirled to protect it, accidentally drawing attention to her jiggling breasts. The Muslim girl whimpered helplessly, a bead of her sticky lubricant running down her thighs. Shania twitched and brought her hands down to her butt; her front was facing Gardens A, but she could feel the eyes upon Aminah as well. "Amazing," she breathed out. The skinny black girl gave me a begging look through her thick, round glasses that told me she understood my intention with this lesson and had an idea of her own. I gave her a quick nod and lowered the two to the ground, though not before crisscrossing them thoroughly in glowing silk. They looked almost angelic now. Shania grabbed her friend by the waist and pulled her in close, standing in a way so that our voyeurs could see their breasts mash together. The comforting touch quelled Aminah''s rising panic, and the added sensitivity and shared pleasure made her moan loudly into Shania''s neck. The smaller girl whispered something in her ear and gently lifted her face to hers, thrusting her tongue into her friend''s mouth for a sloppy kiss. Shania''s palm moved from cupping Mina''s cheek to the back of her neck; there, she seized hold, summoning all her meager strength to grab her harshly as she deepened the kiss. The act of being dominated by the petite girl seemed to eclipse all insecurities, and soon she was a pliant slut in Shania''s small arms. "Open," commanded the little black girl. Her friend quickly opened both her eyes and mouth, lolling her tongue out. Shania gargled up a wad of spit and mucus and spat it forcefully into Mina''s mouth. "Chew¡ªngh!" Whatever rush of pleasure that came through their link almost made Shania fall down as her friend started chewing, eyes watering from disgust. "Swa-swallow! God, girl, I can''t believe you never told me how much you wanted to be dommed." "Sorry, Shanny. We didn''t really talk about sex stuff too much, though." "I know," said Shania sadly, "that''s my fault, I know. I was scared you would reject me, I think, that everyone would." "I would never! I love you." "I love you, too. And I know you wouldn''t; I was being stupid. Do you want to stop, Mina?" she asked gently, stroking her cheek. "No," said the taller girl weakly. "But what if it gets back to my mom and dad?" "It''s going to, of course." Aminah gulped, a shock of arousal running down her spine and making her legs tremble. The fear of being exposed and humiliated was doing a number on her confused mind. If I hadn''t gotten her worked up with my Erotic Sorcery, I had to think she''d have bailed by now. But unfortunately for Mina, her fear was only driving the lust that was keeping her here. "It is?" "Yes, it is, but that''s okay. You know why?" "Why?" "Because it''s like James¡ªlike Master," she corrected, knowing the power that word had over Aminah, "said, they don''t have power over you. They''ll be reacting to your actions. So long as you''re ready for it, then you''ll have them at an advantage. That''s right, right James?" "Ha! Well done, Ms. Greene, you''re a fast learner. Yes, that''s essentially the core of the Art. You keep your opponents guessing, getting them to react to you." I almost brought up how I''d tricked the mercenaries into shooting each other earlier, but thought the better of it. Though, now that I wasn''t quite so brain-fogged, at least I could admit to myself how cool that had been. "But, I¡ª" "Mina," I cut her off, "you''ve been putting off this conversation for years. I bet you''ve run through it in your head a thousand times, had nightmares of every potential failure, dreamed of every success ¨C you can do this. And you will, now that you have to." "I can?" Shania gave me an adoring smile, her eyes telling me she had it from here. "You can, baby. And if you don''t believe us, then believe them." She turned Aminah to face Gardens A and stepped behind her. Running her hands up the lighter-skinned brown girl''s sides, she cupped her teardrop-shaped breasts in her small palms. "What are they telling you, Mina?" Both girls squeaked, Shania clenching Mina''s breasts as a rush of sensation struck them. Seeing the teens put themselves on display like that had evidently done something special for the still-rising libidos of our audience. A wave of lust must have crashed down on them, their brains interpreting it as a hundred needy hands or more groping and molesting their hypersensitive breasts. "They''re telling you," continued Shania, her breath ragged, "that you''re a queen, their goddess. I," she paused, before continuing slowly, "I do have an exhibitionism fetish. I''ve always dreamed of wearing beautiful dresses around town, cuts that show off my dark skin and long legs. I want to wear cute pumps and skirts that stop mid-thigh. I want to feel sexy, wanted. I want girls to go home and picture themselves as me, wishing they had the confidence to be what I am. I want to be the person I dreamed about being." "You are! Oh, Shanny, you''re a queen." "So are you! Listen to them, Mina, listen to all those people." She brought her hands lower and lower, teasingly slow, bringing the gaze of the audience down to Aminah''s soaking wet thighs. With two fingers, the black girl spread her friend''s clean-shaven pussy to Gardens A. I doubted they could make out the pink folds from there, but they were sure as hell trying to. The girls let out a single, throaty moan in total sync with each other. "Hng-mm. Ah! They can''t lie, not with their eyes and not to James''s magic." Aminah let out a shuddering breath and sank back into Shania''s hug. "Right. You''re right." She giggled and licked her lips. "We''re going to look so cute together, baby girl."
[Ally Quest Complete!] Give Aminah an exhibitionism fetish. Reward: 20XP, +1 Erotic Sorcery Bonus, Got Shania to take the lead: 20XP, +1 Leadership
I pumped my fist. Had I just broken through both girls'' primary sexual hangups in one go? Marianne was going to be so proud of me. Man, this might have been the first time I was unreservedly happy to have Erotic Sorcery. "Hell yes! I''m giving you both five grand to replace your wardrobes before this date is over." Shania sputtered. "What? That''s insane¡ª" "Nope, don''t care. I want you in sexy wear for all four seasons and every occasion. Don''t think about it like a gift ¨C it''s an order! If you''ve got it, flaunt it ¨C that''s a Black City Kung Fu tenet. Er, unless you''re being stealthy, but that''s just so you can flaunt it harder later." "Mmm, Shanny in lingerie." "Mina! Don''t encourage him." "Damn, I forgot about lingerie." I pounded my fist in my palm. "It''s ten K a piece now, but I''m giving myself permission to tear them off of you, and I want to be there when you try them on." I needed to go clothes shopping anyway, something I''d been putting off for years now; knowing there''d be eye candy on hand might get me to actually go. Plus, it probably wasn''t a great idea to send two untrained girls around Black Harbor with twenty thousand dollars in their pockets. "Oh, Master, imagine her in a pale garter belt and stockings giving you a foot job until you paint her dark chocolate skin a milky white." Mina let out a lascivious titter, drunk off the sex magic and emotional high. "Mina, we''re supposed to be the responsible ones." "If this is training, then why can''t that be? What if you were in handcuffs and needed to pick a lock with your toes? See, foot dexterity, done." "She''s making some good points, Shania, but let''s not get ahead of ourselves. This lesson is far from finished. You''re in the middle of your first performance; let''s make it count." I picked the girls up and maneuvered them onto their knees on the mattress, me standing side-profile to Gardens A for the best angles. We may have made major strides in getting them past their social anxiety, but that was no reason to stop here. The girls leaned on each other for support as another wave of lust hit them. "Ah, the audience realized what they''re about to see, did they? How many people are watching now, would you say?" "Mmah, ahm, a hundred, maybe more," said Shania, struggling to get through a sentence without panting. "Did ¨C you didn''t put on the orgasm lock, did you?" I stepped up and flopped my semi-erect cock onto her face. My body opened the floodgates on my pre-cum in anticipation of what was to follow, the first dollop smearing onto her glasses, the second her cheek. The third drop of pre became one with the steady drip now flowing from the head, running down my shaft and balls to begin raining sticky strands on her collarbones and upper thighs. I''d have found the copious flow to be a grotesque reminder of my own inhumanity were it not for the subtle colors in the semi-transparent liquid. Maybe it was the rainbow LEDs of the skyline or the interplay of shadows from the glowing silk sash, but the droplets seemed to swirl where they lay, their opalescent undertone brighter than before. "Just raised what it takes to hit the peak. Don''t worry; keep pushing, and you''ll be there soon enough. Go on, you remember what to do." The girls wasted neither time nor words save for a single deep breath they took in unison, cheeks pressed together, noses brushing against my frenulum. Their expressions confirmed that something was, in fact, very different with my cum, lighting up with surprise, heads rearing back as the scent hit them. The effect was more pronounced than it had been in the theater, and considering that had been their first time, I took it to mean that Seed of Power had unstated but potent effects on the taste and smell. Shania whipped off her glasses and buried her face where my shaft met my balls, tongue out, and lips ready to suckle. Aminah, having no glasses to worry about, had used the fractional advantage she''d been given to monopolize the tip of my dick. Her eyes fluttered up at me as the taste of my refined lifeforce hit her tongue, giving me a pleased eye-smile. Shania, sitting forward on her knees, head pointed straight up under my heavy sack, hadn''t realized yet that I''d tied their taste buds together and had to catch herself on my thighs, almost faceplanting as her senses reeled. I let a bit of sex magic pool at my fingertips and began to gently massage their scalps, communicating all my pride for them via sorcery-enhanced touch. Shania''s natural hair was spongy and soft under my fingers, ideal for headpats, and Mina''s was silken and thick, made either to be wrapped around your fist or, perhaps, to gently grace your chest as she leaned down for a kiss while riding. Touch to Speak, the Finesse Special Feat, ensured my pride and fantasies for the future were sent at a level deeper and older than words, channeling pure, primal human connection. The girls immediately picked up the pace, beyond eager to please. Shania tried to fit as much of my sack in her mouth. With her tongue out, trying to scoop more of me in, she started to hum and gargle, letting her saliva start to drip down her chin without a care. Simultaneously, she reached back and grabbed a handful of her friend''s shiny black hair, tight enough that it was sure to hurt, and started pushing her down onto my cock before she could catch her breath. I hit the back of Mina''s throat like a hammer, growing to my full size under the dual assault. All my force pythons exploded out of me at once as my subconscious screamed for more. Their hold on the girls was tight and flowing, letting no inch of skin go unmolested. I reveled again in their civilian, girl-next-door bodies, petite cocoa begging to be toyed with, and soft, pliable caramel on their knees before me. It wouldn''t be long under my tutelage for both to gain a hard layer of muscle; I had to savor these undeveloped forms while they lasted. "A hundred or more people," I mused. "Phone cameras wouldn''t be able to get your details, but I wonder, they''re clearly calling in people to come and see, how long until someone with a proper nighttime lens shows up? Not an uncommon hobby, photography." Shania whined and started slapping the back of Aminah''s head hard to get her deeper on my dick, knowing exactly how good it felt for the maso-slut to be used and abused like that. "GHKK!" The Pakistani gagged in shock and then, as she felt my pleasure through our one-directional link, began forcing herself to gag and cough. That let out a fair bit of spittle directly onto her friend''s face, making Shania have to close one eye as it was buried beneath the mix of fluids. Neither seemed to mind, growing only more animated. With how fervent they were, I was starting to think that setting the threshold for climax at thrice the height was a bit excessive. They must have been close to the top, though. Shania''s heavy breathing into my sack had grown ragged and fast, and her hand slapped the back of Mina''s head more and more urgently. I decided I wanted a closer look at what was to be the first in many orgasms. Besides, at this angle, Shania was blocking out a bulk of Aminah''s torso, and that was poor cinematography on my part. I flipped Shania upside down, spun her around using my sash, chest facing out, and pulled her up, locking her legs around my neck. The pink of her pussy was delectable in contrast to her dark black skin, her thighs soaking wet around my face. I held her tight to me, hand digging into her side as the other began mauling her small breasts, and planted my tongue deep into her pussy. Her arms dangled loosely at first, but my fierce treatment of her small, diamond-hard nipples snapped her into action. She reached down, past my cock and balls, to start squeezing down on Aminah''s modest breasts. The system demanded a Seduction here, making me realize that everything prior had somehow been included under my earlier Teaching roll ¨C a fascinating observation to be explored at another time; currently, my tongue was on a much more pressing expedition. Eighteen Successes on the oral, dear lord ¨C that was¡­I mean, I wasn''t even sure I wanted to know what that felt like firsthand. It was, apparently, revelatory, mind-numbing, and explosive, judging from how the girls reacted. Shania howled, sounding somewhere between agony and the black abyss of madness, bucking in my grasp, muscles alternating from absolute rigidity and liquid looseness, her pussy fluttering around my tongue, trying desperately to draw it deeper. Aminah, at the moment before the eclipse of reason, had used her resolve to shove herself down to the base of my cock with one wet ''GLURK'' and was now twitching and trembling, my shaft and sash the only things keeping her from falling limp to the mattress. Fortunately or unfortunately for them, my stamina enchantment kept them sensate as I continued my oral pleasure. My tongue worked miracles within Shania''s cunt, scooping wide at the entrance and drawing hard circles against her g-spot, while my nose circled and teased her clit at a steady rhythm and my force pythons massaged her thighs. My sash, meanwhile, looped around Aminah''s neck like a collar and leash and started fucking her face upon my cock, my hips pumping in time, balls slapping on her chin, splattering her heaving chest with pre-cum and drool. I swear, I could feel Aminah''s heart beating through her throat in between the hard gagging and choking. I''d had more skillful blowjobs, but there was something about the brown cutie''s earnest self-abuse that cut through my sexual endurance. She was barely cognizant and still in the midst of her rolling orgasm when she was right back to slamming herself hard against me, nose hitting my base again and again. Mina was living for this, arching her back and thrusting her chest forward so she could better coat it in the mix of juices, free from all worldly concerns beyond the next thrust of hard dick. I hit my limit just as I felt her movements grow more jerky, her heart rate quickening to a hummingbird''s pace as the lack of oxygen threatened to overwhelm her. Being a considerate lover, I used my makeshift leash to tug her back so the first hot rope of cum could fill her mouth, not wanting to deny her the taste. She tried to swallow as much as she could, but it was a deluge and soon she was choking, strangely thick and almost iridescent white cum falling from her mouth to bathe her front. I let her fall back to the mattress and kept blasting, lowering Shania to the ground as well. The small black girl scrambled to get her mouth around the head of my cock and sucked down several ropes of her own before she was outgunned. My sash pulled her back to the mattress and held her body next to Mina''s as I unloaded the rest of my insane orgasm. The flood of semen post me getting to 12 Dice in Endurance was ludicrous. Cum Overflowing multiplied my already higher-than-normal output by 144 ¨C that was well over a liter now emptied upon the brown girls. There was something so viscerally pleasing about the sight of the pearly white in contrast to their dark skin, particularly compared to Shania''s deep black, that I almost stopped them from cleaning themselves. Not that I was sure they''d have listened; they took to scooping it up and into their mouths like addicts, unable to feed themselves fast enough. They didn''t have long either, or at least Shania didn''t. My mind was aflame with the need to be back inside that perfect pink pussy. Also, with the girls on their backs, the lip of the roof obscured them completely from Gardens A, and while I was quite a sight by myself, we were putting on a show here. I was an artist, and it would not do for our audience to think otherwise. I picked up Shania by her hips and held her back to my chest, feet dangling in the air, and stepped forward so that I was straddling Aminah still on her back. Silk snapped out and pulled Shania''s legs behind my waist and tied them together, her back having to arch dramatically, especially as the silk came up and tied her arms behind my neck. She was now strapped to my front, pussy suspended over cock. Heavy, sticky strands of cum began to dangle down, dripping like wax onto my legs, dick, and Aminah, who looked up at us in almost disbelief. Her tiny friend was about to get fucked like an elf upon an ogre in some hentai, the girth and size of my cock almost monstrous in comparison to the waif. "Clean your friend, Mina; she''s a mess." "Yes, Master," said Aminah, struggling to her knees, arms still tied behind her back. I aided her along with a violent tug on her leash, allowing her to begin her tongue bath, herself still covered in cum. "They''re watching. Oh lord, they''re watching." Shania said airily. "Can you feel them, daddy?" My inner Alan cringed at the moniker, never having enjoyed daddy-daughter stuff, but even he was too deep in the sauce to protest now, and James didn''t give a shit either way. James Li was a people pleaser; if you were into it, then he was into it. "No, baby girl," I said, finding that the term of affection had a very different connotation coming out of my mouth than it did Aminah''s ¨C much naughtier. "Tell me what you''re sensing." "They''re ours," she moaned, Aminah''s tongue running a back along her upper thigh, "completely ours. They''d do anything but look away." "Are you ready to give them a show, baby?" "Yes, please." "And what would you like me to do now?" I was smiling, and she could hear it in my tone. I might have been too goofy to be a natural dom, but the words were enough to trigger the girls'' BDSM fetish, earning a synced gasp from both. "Fuck me, daddy. Fuck meeeeeeeeeee!" I dropped Shania onto my cock, getting three inches into her excruciatingly tight, virgin pussy in a single thrust before her body locked me down. Regardless of how wet and ready she was, without my porn physics, I don''t think I could have managed even that. Her biology and my hentai powers were momentarily stalemated. The head of my outrageous cock stretched her lips to the limit, forming an airtight seal as her inner muscles tried to adjust to the sudden intruder. Gritting my teeth, I lowered Shania slowly down the rest of the way, agonizingly for us both, dragging out her first time as long as I could. As she wailed and grunted, and tears from the mix of pleasure-pain welled in her eyes, the system imposed another roll on me. The Dice were romantic this night. Fifteen Successes ensured that the memory of this moment would be seared on both girl''s minds for the rest of their lives, although I did worry I might have set the bar too high for future dates. At least the ample Successes assuaged whatever gentlemanly part of me was offended by my choice of seduction location. What did fifteen Successes mean here? Well, I followed the Dice-inspired knowledge and began to use my supreme pelvic floor muscles to make my cock jump to the left on the downstroke, hitting an unusually sensitive part of her. My hands on her hips shifted slightly forward, fingertips touching atop her belly button, emphasizing our difference in size and awakening a new specific kink in her for being tossed around. I also began to flex and tense my muscles more, purely to feel larger and more overpowering to her mind. These, and perhaps a few dozen more micro-adjustments, seemed to shatter her mind, capturing her in fantasy as my body adapted to her every subconscious desire. She was openly drooling and babbling by the time I was six inches inside, sometimes repeating ''please'' or ''yes'', but more often than not just making wordless noises. Aminah, though I could have simply allowed her to sit in the shared sensation of Shania''s pussy splitting on my baseball bat of a dick, wasn''t left out of the activities either. Telekinetic limbs mashed her face into her friend''s body, using it as a wet rag to sop up the cum left there. She had just enough sense in her to stick her tongue out and slurp but was otherwise limp in my grasp, an occasional moan and mewl causing her to cough up the spit, tears, and semen pooling in her mouth. My cock bulged out Shania''s belly once it was fully rooted inside her, the tip of her cervix peppering its head with kisses as it spasmed at the sensation. I would have teased her further, but Shania was an incoherent, whining, and at times screaming mess, in no place to understand my words. Her friend was barely better, only her task keeping her from filling the air with her own noises of defeat and pleasure. I forwent making her beg for more and instead went straight to fucking her the moment I was fully hilted, not hard at first, but with a steady rhythm. There was the slow, long withdrawal until I was just barely inside her, and then a single, brutal stroke all the way to the back wall. I repeated that again and again, hands bruising her hips with my grip until Shania was back at the precipice of a massive climax. "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," she started to repeat between mewls and shouts. I lifted Aminah up, choking her still limp body, and brought her face to level with Shania. That seemed to bring her back to her senses somewhat, and the girl managed to get her feet beneath her. Leaning forward, chest against her friend''s for support, she kissed her hard and started feeding her the fresh taste of cum, licking it off of Shania''s lips, chin, and neck and dragging it wetly to her mouth. They came again like that, shivering and mewling. This climax was larger than the last, and I had to wonder if I wasn''t about to reach the limit of magically enhanced stamina. It rippled through them, seeming almost painful, and I had to use tactile telekinesis to keep us three stable and upright as their bodies began seizing. Picking up my pace to join them, I started fucking the thin black girl as hard as I thought she could take, not wanting to test the protections provided by porn physics too much. The wet slapping of my heavy balls and soaked flesh filled the night sky, echoing out in the little bubble of warmth that I and the wind had made for us. I pumped rope after rope inside my petite neighbor until I felt the sticky seed break the seal of her lips around my cock. Quickly untying her limbs, I pushed both girls down to the mattress, chest to chest, as they continued to make out. The rest of my cum was destined for Shania''s back. It was a cruel fate to pull free of the heat of her cunt, but the glorious image of the black girl painted from neck to ass in my white seed more than made up for it. As excited as I was to take my second virgin, the girl was still recovering, and I wasn''t foolish enough to waste a hot commodity like my semen on this sight alone, amazing as it was. I summoned one of the borrowed mugs from earlier and psychically scooped what I could off Shania''s back and thighs, as well as what hadn''t finished soaking into the mattress. Then I summoned the second, brows raised at just how much I was able to still produce three loads deep into the night, and finally, the third, which was similarly filled to the brim. What remained, which was a lot, would have to be absorbed via the skin since I was now out of vessels. Well, I suppose I could have used their purses, but even if my cum did clean things it came in contact with, that felt a bit rude. Having finished my chores, meager as they were, I yanked Aminah out from under her friend and knelt down on the mattress behind her, positioning her to face Gardens A. This wasn''t quite the artistic angle that the previous one was for our audience, but I walked her forward so that she was literally partly sticking clear out from the building''s ledge. Hopefully, the sight of her teenage breasts bouncing as I fucked her doggy style would be enough to make up for the lack of creativity in choreography. She could have, maybe, precariously balanced on her thighs with her abdomen hanging off the thin lip of the roof, but I wanted her on her knees. I kept walking her until her legs were pressed against the very edge and used my telekinesis to keep her from falling forward and off the building. Mina was perfectly safe like that, but I wanted to give the appearance of danger, so I let her sag in my telekinetic hold. Instead, I used the leash around her neck, pulling back on her with just enough strength to keep her stable without fully choking her, forcing her to thrust her chest out towards the building. Her wavy, black hair tumbled around her face; it would provide the plausible deniability I needed to keep Lord Byron''s Luck active. The Feat said it affected rumors of debauchery, and while Aminah had been correct in saying that anyone with a brain would know who my partners were, there was a major difference between leaked footage of a girl who was probably your daughter, and footage of your daughter unquestionably getting fucked on a roof across the way from your family friends. I slapped my cock between Aminah''s ass cheeks and slid forward until our thighs met, pulling her up a bit so she could feel my pre-cum leaking head against her lower back. She tried to rock her hips back and forth, her sensitivity to both touch and the raw eroticism of the moment such that this alone could be enough to make her orgasm again. All my many rivers of force undulating around her body kept her still, though, allowing me to continue my teasing. "Ah!" I spanked her, quite liking the way it sent ripples across her cheek. From behind me came a muffled cry out of Shania, still face down in the mattress. I spanked her again on the other cheek, and then again, and again, alternating sides as Mina''s strangled moans became needier, only slowing down when necessary to keep her from climaxing. The pain-pleasure mix was almost too much for the naturally masochistic girl, so I took to pumping my cock into her ass cleavage, drawing a frothy line of pre-cum and Shania''s juices on her caramel skin. That, too, sent electric shocks to her sex, and it took considerable restraint from me to keep her on the edge, my base urges roaring at me to fuck her properly. After several minutes of the casual abuse and edging, Shania was finally recovered enough to shuffle up beside us. She had cleaned herself of cum and had a palmful of the sainted liquid, the rest either having been swallowed down or had already absorbed wholly into her skin. In a show of total trust, she leaned out and over the ledge, relying on me to keep her steady with the sash still crisscrossed along her body, and slapped her cum-covered hand over her friend''s mouth. Shania opened her mouth in a silent moan, eyes half rolled back in her head. "She loves this; you have no idea how much. You''re such a slut, Mina." Shania used Aminah''s hair like a towel, wiping her hand clean, the humiliating gesture making the masochist whimper. Then she raised her other hand high and brought it down with a loud slap on the girl''s ass as hard as she could, throwing her own head back as the shared pain struck her. "Lord, Mina, what have you done to me? Be rougher with her, James; she wants your worst, trust me." "Good to know." I grabbed a handful of Shania''s peach bum and pulled her into my side, leaning down to kiss her, three pythons enveloping her as I did. One took her hand and brought it to my cock. Her lips and tongue were as pliable and submissive as ever, but there was already a marked increase in skill. She teased me with her little mewls and gasps, dancing the tip of her tongue on mine, begging me without words to savage her. All the while, her hand stroked my cock, occasionally dragging it side to side as a brush to cover the dark red of Mina''s cheeks with the flowing pre-cum. Lack of breath forced her to break the kiss. Shania buried her face into my side, free hand greedily feeling up my back and butt inch by inch. "It''s not weird that I''m calling you daddy, is it?" she asked meekly. I made my cock twitch in her hand, and sent a faux flash of strong pleasure through our connection, disguising it as organically mine. It wasn''t entirely fake, but this way, there would be no doubt in her mind that it was fine by me. Shania tittered and pressed her skinny body and little tits into me harder. "Never mind. Thank you¡­daddy." She lifted her face up and stood on her tiptoes to beg for a kiss. I answered her call, taking her lips again. The system asked for another roll here, a rare Erotic Sorcery + Leadership, for reasons that I assumed were known to only the Producers and Shania''s horny and lovestruck teenage mind. It was a narrative system, though, so these light, gentle kisses of mine must have been significant in some way beyond what we had just done. Whatever was going on in Shania''s brain, I hoped the nine Successes were enough to carry me. She lowered back onto her heels and leaned her head against me in a way that spoke to some bone-deep contentment. "There''s hundreds of them watching us, you know? A hundred tongues worshiping every inch of us," she said with a sigh. "Those kisses ¨C they''ll be dreaming of them tonight, and tomorrow, and maybe every night forever. You''re their god, daddy, and we''re your angels." I hid a frown by sinking my face into her bushy hair, giving her forehead a kiss as I extended my senses. Ah. The spell I''d cast with the two dozen or so watchers from earlier had grown and was continuing to grow second by second, taking on a life of its own. There was a radiance to the adoration and lust subsuming our voyeurs, and not a metaphorical one ¨C to those with the proper abilities, the roof of Gardens Building B was brighter than any skyscraper downtown and more brilliant by far. Hundreds of unique energy signatures were circling around us like a vortex, glowing to my senses and other mystically capable residents in unearthly and impossible colors. I sucked in a breath. Maki was going to be very upset with me about this, wasn''t she? It was probably time to close out this performance. Still, I was a professional, and this was important training; we couldn''t just leave in the middle of the show. No, we had to close it out with a bang. I rocked my hips back, making some room between mine and Mina''s. "Would you care to do the honors, baby girl?" I asked to Shania, her hand still on my cock. "Yes, daddy." She shuddered. "Wow, Mina, I''m about to take your virginity with Master''s godlike penis." "Aww," choked out the light-skinned brown girl. "Sho cu-kh! Cute. Yay!" Shania rubbed the tip of my dick through her friend''s folds a few times, and then a few times more to tease her, even slapping me onto her clit. She had to bite down on my arm at those sensations, though. Rapidly losing the ability to stand unaided, Shania decided to tug me inside after that. I let her lead me four inches deep in one sharp thrust, at which point her legs cut out from under her, knees hitting the mattress. She hugged my leg for support, echoing the strangled groans of her friend as I completed my stroke, slamming to the hilt inside Aminah. My mind''s eye, still partially turned towards the growing erotic energy swirling around us, felt the vortex grow wilder ¨C much wilder. It was like I''d inadvertently lit a spark with her penetration and was caught once more in a flaming tornado of my own making, and while this one wasn''t as destructive as the last, it felt just as dangerous. This little improvised spell of mine was fast becoming an uncontrolled sex magic ritual. Fuck. I gritted my teeth, not in the headspace, to weigh solutions to the problem. It was a problem, though, of that I was sure; the last uncontrolled ritual I''d done resulted in permanent mental and physical changes to Annie that we still didn''t understand. I had to do something with all this power. At least the energy was free from the usual darker undertones of lust, my golden light washing away all fear and despair. Goddamn it, I really had a way of stepping on my own dick, didn''t I? How many times had I felt so clever tonight? How many times did I congratulate myself on this bit of Erotic Sorcery? No, now wasn''t the time for self-reflection ¨C I had to think of what to do. Think, James! Think! I needed something simple to do with the power, simpler than even the most basic Erotic Sorcery blessings to be as safe as possible. My mind was simply not ready to blast Qi into the bodies of so many without any chance of something going wrong. But what did that leave me? Maybe I was going about this in the wrong direction ¨C what did the neighborhood need? What was something small that could make a difference here? Fear and despair, I mused to myself, thinking of the encounter with The Misery. I couldn''t punch my way through The Misery, but if the horde of evil spirits thought that meant they were safe from me, then they were sorely mistaken. James Li was no one trick pony. I was a goddamn dynamo. Underestimate me, will you!? Harbor Hill was so flooded with bad will that it had manifested into a Lesser or possibly even Greater Evil. This whole neighborhood needed catharsis - a good cry and a long rest, preferably. But if that wasn''t on the table, then a hard fuck would have to do. "Sexual catharsis, baby!" I shouted, thrusting my hips forward to batter Aminah''s cervix with my already fully buried cock. This all made perfect sense to me. "Hahahaha! I''ll fuck the evil out of this neighborhood!" My battle spirit was loose, but that was fine. No mortals had anything to fear from me, and hopefully, that would be clear at some mammalian level for them. I hinged my hips back, bringing all but a centimeter of length into the New Jersey night, and started hammering Aminah. The system allowed my earlier roll for fucking Shania ride, my body falling into a hard, but fast rhythm without conscious effort. Telekinetic tentacles continued to molest both girls, driven by my subconscious desire to claim every sliver of them, outside and in, to make my mark on them, mind, body, and spirit. Eyes closed, and with a manic smile frozen on my face, I began working my magic. Sinking into the carefree, go-with-the-flow mind state that had saved me from possession back in the theater, I focused on what exactly had allowed me to escape The Misery''s trap. They, or It, had presented me with a false image of reality, not just the visions of past horrors, but the idea that we were in a battle, fighting for life and death. I had rejected the premise. The Happy Idiot was unmoved by facts, feelings, and any sense of reason in the face of complete and absolute faith in oneself. Being subsumed in the Stance''s final form, the Empty-Headed God, required at some level the belief that you would fundamentally be fine no matter what happened. I rolled another Erotic Sorcery, gathering the roaring vortex around us, almost blacking out from the surge of foreign energy hitting my Qi network, and projected out that belief and faith, getting ten Successes to do so. There would be no material Dice-related benefits, but maybe a spiritual pep talk could go a long way. "Believe in yourselves, goddamn it!" I yelled with a particularly hard thrust into Mina, shaking her body with the force. I opened my eyes to see the girl covered in sweat, drool flying from her open mouth into the air. I could relate ¨C the vortex of erotic energy, once circling us, was now flowing directly through me. My brain was partially unraveling, a big ball of yarn bouncing around my skull, but oddly things felt mostly under control ¨C though that may have been the conclusion of a highly intoxicated mind. My muscles were screaming at me. Alien power was doing a rally race through my Qi networks, barreling into the dividers and splashing mud everywhere. What was happening again? Ah, right. The spell was in play; I''d taken control of the ritual, and all that was left to do was enjoy myself. I just had to get to the end of the ritual, climax, and let it all go - send out my good vibes into the world. "BELIEVE!" I shouted ¨C this time to myself. My exclamation would have seemed an insane thing to yell during sex normally, but the girls were fully enthralled by my Erotic Sorcery themselves. Even Aminah, whose mind should have been goo, snapped out of her pleasure fugue to give me two thumbs up with her arms still bound painfully behind her back. "Y-Yes, sir!" shouted Shania. She flopped onto her back, slid herself between our legs, and began tonguing my balls and Mina''s split-open pussy. Why that had been her interpretation of my order was a mystery; maybe she''d been debating doing it when I''d yelled or something. It was appreciated nonetheless, most of all by Mina and Shania herself. Almost the second the black girl''s tongue met her friend''s clit, they both began to cum. Mina''s cunt was pulsing, her inner muscles desperately trying to milk another load from me, but I had 12 Dice in Endurance and had already cum three times today. It would take more than that. I continued to fuck her through her orgasm, cruelly prolonging it, pounding her already too-sensitive pussy. My teeth held the silk leash, freeing my hands for those bouncing titties. I leaned over her and grabbed a hold of them, pinching and rolling her nipples, abusing them into another sharp climax just as the girl was starting to come back down. Her voice was shattered, just a constant, stuttering hoarse scream, timed to my thrusts. I angled my hips down so that my cock struck the roof of her cunt, coming and going, battering her g-spot with brutal, staccato strokes. Shania''s heavy breaths on my balls were addicting, a joy second only to her tongue bath. Though the girl was taken in and out of her conscious ability to act, she didn''t stop trying, never pausing for long. How long we kept at it like that, I couldn''t say. I lost myself in the moment and the pleasure, battle spirit on full blast the full time, mind consumed by the sensations. As my orgasm approached, though, I had the wherewithal to psychically drag the mattress and the three of us back. It was a wise call ¨C my climax turned the world white and made me fall forward, my full weight pressed atop poor Aminah. Semen blasted her womb and filled her cunt to the brim by the fifth rope. It jetted out and back, leaking out from our seal in a grotesque flood onto Shania''s face and open mouth. As my cum exploded from my cock, so too did the Erotic Sorcery spell, out like a goddamn bomb, sending a shockwave of metaphysical light into those who had been watching and beyond, rippling into the distance, far past what my modest senses could feel. With a wet, gushing sound, I pulled out of Mina and sat back on my heels as I continued my prolonged orgasm onto Shania''s face and chest, with a number of ropes flying out to hit Mina''s prone form, a few even reaching her hair. As soon as the last driblet of cum exited my dick to land atop Shania''s belly button, I rolled over and covered my eyes with my arm. Every muscle in my body hurt, my brain was fried, and I think my soul may have been sore. There were consequences to channeling that kind of power through your Qi networks that I would be feeling for a few days, I suspected. Who knows, had I fewer than my massive 10 Dice in Aura, I might have been crawling home. As it was, I needed at least a few minutes. Luckily, the same could be said of the girls, and there were a lot of Quest notifications to keep me busy in the meantime.
[Quest Complete!] Inspire the creation of a sex cult. Reward: 30XP, +2 Leadership Bonus, Inspired multiple separate cults at once: Gain Major Feat Icon of Lust, Gain Master Feat Icon of Perfection [Major Feat] Icon of Lust Statues, paintings, and other physical representations of you of suitable quality inspire NPCs to new heights of veneration. While in the vicinity of these, they can add an extra 2 Dice to any attempts to pleasure, seduce, or soothe lovers. Artists, when crafting physical images of you, can add 2 Dice to their attempts, though this may result in certain overtones. The effects of this Feat are evident to laypeople but will be attributed to natural inspiration rather than supernatural causes. [Master Feat] Icon of Perfection Statues, paintings, other physical representations of you of suitable quality, and your immediate presence inspire NPCs to new heights of veneration. While in the vicinity of these, training and all pursuits of self-improvement are twice as effective for them. Artists add 3 Dice to attempts to craft images of you, gaining a clear-headed creative high of sorts when doing so. The effects of this Feat are evident to laypeople but will be attributed to natural inspiration rather than supernatural causes. [Recurring Quest Complete] Put on a live performance. Reward: 5XP, +1 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery) Bonus, Sex show: 25XP, +1 Presence [Quest Complete!] Make or inspire over a hundred people to climax in one Scene. Reward: 50XP, Gain Master Feat Scoposthesia [Master Feat] Scoposthesia You gain an additional sense that informs you when someone is observing you directly, as well as their direction and distance from you. This reacts only to direct visual observation but has almost no counter. Watching you through cameras or magical means may baffle your ability to know direction and distance, but more often than not, you will at least know you are being watched and by how many.
"Argh¡­" The Producers were trolling me. Why were those the first ones? It''ll be fine, James. We got this. Yeah. Totally. This would all work out. Oh God, I was going to have to explain the multiple sex cults to the Party at some point. There would be so much razzing. Endless razzing. Also, I was never going to be free of my Challenge, was I? The others would never catch up in Experience if I kept getting horny and doing dumb shit with sex magic. I needed to recruit a deeply repressed schoolmarm or something to bonk me with the horny hammer the next time I tried to get clever. Wait. No, that was actually pretty hot. I needed to develop some self-control. Yeah, good fucking luck there. In my defense, knowing that I could get a broken Feat like Icon of Perfection whenever I was insanely irresponsible was a hard incentive to ignore. I was a victim of market forces, alright, cut me some slack. The Producers had even allowed Icon of Perfection to affect the Experience Shania and Aminah gained from this lesson; they had a whopping 72 EXP each for me to allocate. How was I supposed to feel bad about my poor decisions with wins like those?
[Quest Complete!] Fuck in full view of the public. Reward: 25XP, Gain Major Feat I Know It When I See It Bonus, To an audience of thousands: +1 Random Attribute (Aura), +1 Random Attribute (Strength) [Major Feat] I Know It When I See It What can be understood to be obscene, reprehensible, or pornographic is usually a pretty intuitive judgment call, except for when it comes to you. People, lawmakers, and police included, are far more likely to ''let it slide'' when it comes to your actions for their own reasons. Some may make an exception for you because they view you as an artist above such pedestrian concerns, while others could be grateful enough for your perceived positives that they won''t mind some ''minor'' flaws.
I clenched my jaw shut, the pain of expanding my Qi network in its current state almost blinding me. What did they mean thousands!? How!? Shit, I''d dropped the Happy Idiot at some point while fucking Mina. Well, okay, that wasn''t that bad. How long could I have been in that animal haze, anyway? A few minutes at most? Whatever, the damage was done. Oh, hey, I Know It When I See It would for sure get Aminah''s parents to accept insane sexual training methods! That was nice.
[Quest Complete!] Have a threesome. Reward: 33XP, +1 Finesse [Ally Quest Complete!] Take Aminah and Shania''s virginities in a threesome. Reward: 33XP, +1 Wits, +1 Willpower Bonus, A first date to remember: 15XP, Aminah and Shania Gain Major Feat Two Hearts Beating As One ¨C All of your Skill rolls, abilities and Feats that would affect one girl in a positive manner, now affect her twinned-heart without need for additional resources or rolls. [Quest Complete!] Become someone''s first love. Reward: 25XP, Remove 1 Point of Permanent Corruption Bonus, Two people in one day: Gain Random Producer chosen Special Feat from the Prince Charming Archetype (Damsel Insurance), Gain Item Charm Bracelet ¨C Those you gift these to will receive a bonus Die on all their rolls. While worn, these bracelets prevent the passive loss of your Affection and Lust Scores with the wearers. [Special Feat] Damsel Insurance As nice as it can be to sweep a damsel into your arms and away from Evil, the experience, if repeated, can rapidly lose its charm for everyone involved. Once you have rescued a damsel (gender-inclusive term), Fate will conspire to significantly reduce their chances of being put in harm''s way. Enemies will be less likely to intentionally target them, random misfortunes won''t find them, and in general, they will encounter far less danger in their day-to-day lives. [Recurring Quest Complete!] Have a steamy smut scene. Reward: 5XP, +1 Random Skill (Alchemy)
Man, the Producers were trying hard to butter me up. Still, it was nice to feel appreciated. I immediately spent some of the girls'' accumulated Experience, curious to see how broken Two Hearts Beating As One was. Damn, it seemed that while I''d be able to train one and have both gain the Experience, their pools and stats were kept separate. Ah well, I was sure I could figure out a way to break it eventually. For now, I bought them both 1 Die in each of their physical Attributes. Shania went to 2 Strength, 3 Agility, and 2 Endurance, and Aminah went to 2 Strength, 2 Agility, and 3 Endurance. Mina groaned from behind me, making me turn to see if she''d noticed the changes. The way her shoulders were framed told me that her back muscles had certainly seen some major improvements, but that was the most visual of whatever benefits she''d received. She yawned and winced, clutching her side. "Oof, sore. And hungry. Can''t believe I''m still hungry." Looking around, she spotted the three steaming mugs of cum and nearly leaped to her feet. "Shanny, look how considerate Master was!" "I can''t believe you can walk after that," Shania mumbled, slowly pushing herself up. Oh, hell yes, her butt was noticeably more shapely. She looked at the skyline with a confused frown. "Wait¡­" Shania found her glasses where she''d quickly tossed them aside and put them on. She started to lower and raise them from her eyes repeatedly, mouth open in shock. "Oh my God ¨C I can see. I can see! James, I ¨C is this permanent?" "Yeah. Magic cum," I said, still limp on the ground. Everything continued to ache. "Part of your eventual job as students will be to rescue me when I get kidnapped by witches over it." "Ooh, I wonder if I have any permanent changes," said Mina, handing Shania a mug of said magic cum. "You were inside me for at least an hour, I think." Clinking them together in a cheers, they shared a laugh before taking large gulps. "Ahh, amazing. Thanks, Master¡ªoh, is something wrong?" I swallowed, mouth dry. "An¡­hour? Surely, not." Shania hummed, finding her phone in her purse. "Wow, that''s a lot of notifications. Um, hm¡­whatever." She shrugged and put it away again. "Probably was closer to half an hour or forty-five, actually. Mina, what do you mean you wonder if you''ll have any permanent changes? The fact that you can use your legs at all is a miracle." "Half, half-an-hour¡­" I clapped my hands over my face. "Maki is going to kill me." Oh God, my mother''s Eagle Eye technique was definitely capable of watching all of that in high definition¡ª Nope, not thinking about that. I smiled peacefully. Hey, this was a pretty great date, wasn''t it? I kipped to my feet, actually relishing the pain; it was a welcome distraction. "So, you guys want to cuddle at my place?" Sunday Funday The stairs to Maki''s third-floor University City apartment were marble ¨C slanted, stained, badly lit, and covered in friable chips of peeling wallpaper, but marble all the same. The building was a callback to a time when higher education was reserved for the elites, adorned with Victorian bay windows, ornate gables, and even a tower for those on the top floor. It was a very Maki place for Maki to live, I thought. Although, ideally, she would have had the tower as her bedroom, but you couldn''t have everything in life, could you? The part-time priestess was opening the door when I crested the stairs to her floor, alerted by her spiritual senses of my approaching Qi. I had also emailed her to confirm I''d be stopping by today. Why hadn''t I texted? Oh, no reason. She was as regal and beautiful as always, wearing a floral blouse tucked into high-waisted jeans that emphasized her modest curves and long legs, and an expression of simmering fury for reasons I couldn''t begin to guess. All I knew was that it surely couldn''t have been anything I''d done. I mean, what could she have possibly been upset with me for? Maki sucked in a breath of air, getting ready to tear into me. The inhale a woman does right before she''s about to yell at you is marvelously sexy, which is an opinion that is universally held, of course, and not at all an indicator of any Freudian nonsense. However, as much as I enjoyed the preceding inhale, I could do without the rant that followed. I levitated the coffees I''d brought out of my hand, willing them to hover behind me, and scooped Maki into a hug before she could say a word, picking her up and burying my face into the crook of her neck. Her long, straight black hair, smelling vaguely of cacao, covered my face, blinding me to the grim realities of my new Earth. "Maki-chan!" I whined as I carried her inside her apartment, kicking my shoes off on the welcome mat. "I missed you! Comfort me, Maki-chan; the world has been so cruel. I had to fight two eldritch horrors in two days! And the Cranes still gave me shit information, even though I only fought that tentacle monster because I was their guest! Also, my ex is becoming a Lovecraft protagonist! And one of the Eight Immortals is trolling me! And some mercenaries tried to kill me for my million-dollar bounty! Can you believe it? Only a million dollars! What an insult!" "James!" squeaked Maki, slapping my shoulder repeatedly. From behind her came the sound of poorly restrained laughter. I pulled my face out from her hair and saw, one, an immensely embarrassed Maki, and two, a pale, freckled woman in a long sweater dress and tights with a wild mane of curly brown hair standing behind her. She had a hand slapped over her mouth and another over her stomach, trying to physically hold back the laughter bubbling out of her. Passive Insight on Maki''s uncharacteristically shy reaction and basic intuition told me that this was an ex-girlfriend. From the way she didn''t glance twice at the levitating coffees, I took it that this was the woman who''d helped Maki develop her unique mix of Western and Eastern magic. "Ah." I put down Maki. She pouted at the loss of contact, then frowned and glared at me when she noticed that I''d caught the pout, as if daring me to call her out on it. "Why didn''t you tell me you had company? I would have brought a third coffee." Her jaw dropped, and her hands came up, clenching and unclenching in baffled anger as they contemplated strangling me. I floated an extra-large coffee into her hand, black just the way she liked it, earning an honest-to-God growl from the thin, demure witch. Ah, yes, I was familiar with what was happening here. There were so many different, frankly valid, reasons to yell at me that they were butting up against each other as they vied for Maki''s attention. "You!" "The one and only." I pulled my own to-go cup from the air and took a sip. "I swear the coffee''s stronger in University City." "An email. An email, James! I''ve been texting you for three days! Why haven''t you been checking your phone? Don''t you dare tell me you broke your replacement already." She was being dramatic; it had only been about a day and a half since my rooftop rendezvous with the girls. "Alright, I won''t tell you. I won''t tell you about the replacement to the replacement either. Anyway, I thought I''d try a sort of mindfulness thing and go without a phone for the weekend. You know, be more present in the moment and all that." She studied my beatific smile and narrowed her eyes. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. I cannot believe it. You''ve truly surpassed yourself." "That''s me, always striving for new heights." "New lows! You decided to go without a phone for two days just to avoid my angry calls!? Are you insane? You have bounties on your head, you maniac. Do you have any idea how irresponsible that is? Even for you, James, even for you." "Technically, it''s only been one full day." "A roof, James? What is wrong with you?" "What''s wrong with email? That''s what I''m saying! Our parents got by with email, and they had people trying to kill them too, Maki." "They had landlines! How did you even get my email anyway?" "I sent Susy a message on Discord." She stared daggers at me. "It''s a mindfulness thing," I added bashfully, hiding my chagrin behind a sip of coffee. Motes of green, spiritual energy sparked into existence around Maki, swirling about her and making angry buzzing sounds as they disturbed the air. How lovely, she''d developed a new technique since the Exorcism. I put my hands up. "Alright, alright. I''ll drop the act, goddamn. I needed Saturday off, like, really off, okay? Every part of me was crying out for it. All I did was watch movies, order delivery, and play with my cat. Oh, I adopted a cat, by the way. His name is Smoothie. I would have texted you pics, but then I would have had to mention the Crane stuff, and I didn''t want to stress you out." "You didn''t want to stress me out with cat pictures but were okay with fucking two virgins on a roof for all the world to see?" There was a long pause while I searched for a rebuttal. "That''s what I love about you, Maki, you''re always keeping me humble." The motes doubled in number. I cleared my throat. "So, approximately how many people would you say noticed the, uh, ritual on the roof?" "Everyone! Who didn''t!? Extrasensory perception is the most common mystical ability among humans!" Her guest lost her battle to keep it together, bursting out into laughter, the sound of which immediately stole all the thunder from Maki. The motes vanished, as did her anger, being replaced with only acute embarrassment. "Don''t worry," said the woman in a southern drawl. "She''s exaggerating. I have about the average talent for ESP and only got flashes of the ritual itself, and they were mostly¡­" a blush crept up her neck to her cheeks, "physical sensations, nothing that could inherently identify you with that information alone. What I felt more than anything was that purification spell at the end, and that was all joy. You have no idea how nice it is to sense such a large burst of positive emotion through ESP; there''s nothing I can compare it to. It was sublime." Maki crossed her arms and glared at me. "Tell him about the dreamwalk. And for the record, I was able to see in far greater detail, as was, I''m sure, anyone of any relevance within the Underworld." The woman cringed and averted eye contact, suddenly embarrassed and perhaps a bit insulted to be so casually dismissed as irrelevant by her ex. "Well, yes, I was later able to use a lucid dreaming potion that night to ''relive'' the ritual from your partners'' point of view, it''s true, but I couldn''t handle much before my body woke up. I was both girls in the dream and that was a lot for me; maybe an experienced dreamwalker could have stomached it for longer, but there can''t be more than a double digit number of them in the city, if that. Regardless, the recipe for the potion and the charm I used to protect me in the Dreamworld were from a friend of mine. Not everyone would have easy access to either." "Don''t encourage this behavior. It was beyond reckless. If you were planning to cast a spell of that magnitude, you should have called me ahead of time. And since we both know you aren''t as stupid as you present, that means you didn''t plan to cast that spell at all, did you, James? What were you thinking? A coven of witches would have struggled to channel that sort of power, let alone on the fly." I sighed and briefly turned on my new and improved Shining Resolve, a technique I''d first invented to fight the Hungry Ghost alongside the woman in front of me. Maki only raised an eyebrow in interest, but her ex shivered, nipples hardening to points beneath her sweater dress. She shot me a grateful look as I turned the technique off, and stepped slightly to the side to be more out of Maki''s line of sight than she already was. "Things got away from me. I cast a simple spell that converted desires into physical touch; I didn''t realize how my aura would interact with it. The idea was to prevent any darker urges from taking hold of our audience, but the Hill is so infected by fear and trauma that they responded with an unexpected, almost religious, fervor to their sudden absence. I''m sorry, okay? I confess that I''m pretty out of sync with the average person''s experience of living in a place like Harbor Hill, but my intentions were mostly wholesome." Much of the anger left her at my explanation and apology, but Maki''s face was still tight with annoyance. She''d probably been consumed with worry for me all of yesterday, and there were more complaints still simmering inside her, aching to be let loose from her lips. "Why were you even having a public threesome with Marianne''s daughter? Did you¡ª" Maki''s ex barked a loud laugh. "Oh, I know Captain Handsy and her wandering fingers didn''t just ask that question, because that would be truly shameless. Need I remind you of Swan Lake? Don''t let her fool you, James. You aren''t the only one here with a fascination with ballet." "Yes, well." Maki coughed, intently examining a floorboard. "Ah, forgive me, I should introduce you two. James, this is Zelda Potemkin. I asked her for help with the Pha Thet case. Zelda has witch blood in her matrilinear line and is better familiar with the world of online witchcraft than I am." Zelda smiled and shook her head at the terrible segue. "Nice to meet you, though I wish it was under better circumstances. I don''t think you''re going to like what we found." "You''re going to hate this." We sat down in Maki''s living room, the three of us crowded onto a futon couch around a weary particle board coffee table that had seen better days. The one-bedroom apartment was sparsely appointed, barely decorated at all save for the single large globe on an out-of-place antique end table. Maki had texted me on Friday for decoration ideas; these must have been the result. They were a meager pair, but at least they kept the place from being outright ''depression living''. Maki debriefed me on how Pha Thet''s appointment at the Shrine had gone, though she hadn''t actually been there for it herself. I''d sent the man and his nephew to the Ishida''s to make sure there were no long-term effects from his possession, not having quite understood the nature of The Misery at the time. The Burmese man had been reticent to get into the details of his life, but Maki assured me that her mother had managed to coax out the bulk of the context. He was working three jobs at the moment, splitting his wages between his family in Myanmar and his immigration lawyer. Pha had overstayed a seasonal work visa, having been hired last year to do six months on a deep-sea fishing vessel. It was brutal, dangerous work, rife with exploitation, and, in New Jersey at least, heavily associated with organized crime. Pha hadn''t wanted to say why he''d left his fishing job, but from his vocal and vehement anti-drug stance, Maki''s mother believed he may have seen some smuggling. Life since then had been hard on the man ¨C the cost of principles in this world, I suppose. I doubted he''d reported whatever crime he''d seen; there was no way he''d still be in the city if he had, but it was clear that he''d been living with one eye over his shoulder for a while now. He and his fianc¨¦ in Myanmar had broken up over his ''indecision'', as he phrased it. Pha wasn''t sure he wanted her to move to the States anymore but, at the same, didn''t want to return to Myanmar, viewing it as spitting in the face of all the family and friends who''d helped him establish a life here. He worked as a bouncer at night in a small Thai jazz club and at a short-term loan firm during the day, helping Thai and Burmese speakers navigate the application process. Both were legal, but the immorality of the latter, which was essentially loan-sharking without the toughs with baseball bats, was wearing on him. He was routinely getting into fights with drunken regulars at the club, and his third job in emergency plumbing was cutting into what little sleep he did get. If I had to guess, I would have assumed that Pha had fallen prey to The Misery from exhaustion, but it seemed there was more to the story than that, and I did, in fact, hate it. Maki slid her phone in front of me. It was open to an Xpress channel, this world''s Telegram, more or less. "He was scammed," she said, scrolling up to a long post from the channel''s admin. "It was difficult to machine translate ¨C as best we can tell it''s in a mix of poorly written Burmese and Thai ¨C but essentially¡ª" I threw 5 EXP towards a Die in Thai to fill in the parts I was struggling to understand. "It''s a daily deal for a fucking pdf of magic love spells. Jesus Christ." Zelda shot me a look of surprise. "You speak Burmese?" Maki cut in. "James has a talent for languages." In her eyes was a nonverbal assurance that she hadn''t let on any of my secrets to her ex, as well as a request that we keep her at an arm''s length from anything more serious than internet research. I gave her a microscopic nod. "This shit can''t be what actually got him possessed, right? I mean, these can''t be real spells. Please tell me that people can''t become wizards off of daily deals on Xpress channels." Maki looked to Zelda to answer. "It''s called a ''Soul Harvesting'' scam, and they''re becoming a real problem in the Global South. Pha deleted the specific pdf he bought of ''money magic'' out of terror a few weeks ago, but I had a friend buy me one of their manuals through a proxy to avoid any chance of a contract curse. It was what I expected. The good news is that there wasn''t any contract magic at play, but the bad news is that there were real third-eye meditation techniques present. The rest of it read as theater, nothing you wouldn''t see on WitchJin, but there was a kernel of legitimate mysticism at the start." "The third-eye meditations are meant to hook customers," added Maki. "If you''re diligent or desperate enough to stick through the techniques, you will, even as a total beginner, start to see past the Veil. It''s a recipe for possession." "And if you live somewhere as haunted as Harbor Hill?" I hazarded, seeing the broad picture. "Precisely. With a strong body and unprotected soul, it was a matter of time before something tried to seize control." Zelda continued, "Staring unprotected through the Veil means that something, inevitably, is going to stare back. It''s a vicious scam, if you can even call it that; feels like there ought to be a worse word for it. You start seeing and hearing things that aren''t there, getting weird dreams and awful thoughts and compulsions, and so you go back to the group that taught you magic. And, lo and behold," she tapped on the info for the Xpress channel, pulling up a paragraph advertising special ''Mentor'' sessions at rates that would be expensive for anyone, let alone a poor immigrant like Pha. "They take you for everything you''ve got. We''re lucky that Pha was strong-willed or stubborn enough not to fall for it completely." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I rubbed my temple and asked a question I had a strong suspicion would only disappoint me. "Okay, so all I''ve got to do is find this mentor and¡­" My voice trailed off; Maki and Zelda''s faces told me all I needed to know there. "Unfortunately," said Zelda, "this is fast becoming a classic internet scam, especially in Southeast Asia. I found some small blogs about the Thai government trying to crack down on Soul Harvesting, but the problem was that most of the groups doing them were located in other countries. They''re groups, too, not individuals, and very little is known about them. Different governments have gotten specific channels and servers shut down, but they''re usually ready to go with their backups." I leaned back and stared at the phone in blank horror. "So, what, you''re saying I can''t do anything about this? We just have to accept that there are assholes out there willing to compromise your soul for a dollar?" Maki moved closer, rubbing my knee and running a hand through my hair. "It isn''t a problem you can solve with a fist, James. We can try to educate communities but many of them already have a strong stigma against magic as is. These people feed on the desperate, those willing to dabble in taboo with the hopes of improving their lives. Usually, those who get scammed are too ashamed to do outreach ¨C even Pha has asked that we keep the results of our investigation private." Jesus. If this was becoming an internet ''classic'', that meant thousands were falling prey to it around the world. Romance and employment scams could see you bankrupt and ostracized by your community; Soul Harvesting did both and left you plagued by literal demons. "This is the most fucked up, evil shit I think I''ve seen yet, and I fought a Flesh Puppet on Thursday." Both women looked startled at that revelation, with Maki eyeing Zelda nervously. I knew she wanted to shelter the other woman from the worst of this world, but it felt too pressing to not mention. "Oh yeah, maybe put the word out. There''s supposedly a mage from Keletsnya in town capable of creating Flesh Puppets." Zelda reared back as if she''d been slapped. "Keletsnya?" "You''re familiar?" "My mother fled there as a child. It''s Hell on Earth from everything I''ve heard, a land without hope where the ruling class openly practice dark magic. What are they doing in Black Harbor? I thought they were strict isolationists." "Real estate deals, or trying to at least. The Flesh Puppet was sent in retribution for a bid they lost to the new Crane club downtown." She laughed bitterly. "Talk about the banality of evil. I wonder, though, you don''t think they could be related, do you? The Traveler clans loyal to the oligarchs of Keletsnya are said to be spirit channelers, a bit like what Maki''s family do but with a hell of a lot more blood magic." I thought of Mars'' motorcycle-riding shaman, who was almost assuredly stuck in the Eastern European country. I thought of the forensic accountant from Maria''s story, possessed by a demon, crouched over his daughter''s tutor, cannibalizing her flesh after having butchered his family, and I thought of the man that he''d worked for, Garret Evans, turning to look at me in the Kingfisher as if he could sense my gaze through the Empty-Headed God. I thought of Annie and her surprising connection to Victor, who I had assumed completely lost to me in the vast expanse of Middle America. Could it be related? How could it not be? All these disparate threads seemed to be weaving a grand tapestry around me, too large for one pair of human eyes to decipher. Or maybe tapestry was too optimistic ¨C a net, more likely, and I the prey soon to be caught within. Maki stood up, taking her phone with her. "Okay. I think that''s enough for today. Zelda and I were making brownies before you got here, James. We should get them in the oven if you want one before we head over to my¡ªour family''s house." Zelda frowned. "Maki, we talked about this. You don''t have to protect me. I was overwhelmed two years ago; things are¡­different now. I want to help." The miko seemed to be at a rare loss for words, her eyes flickering to mine for help. "She''s trying to protect me," I lied, "and she''s right. I''m supposed to be taking today easy; it''s been a long-ass week and a half, as you may have heard when I entered. If I''d known Pha''s situation was so serious, I might have pushed this debrief to tomorrow. Let''s switch to lighter fare. I''d love a brownie, Maki." To me, the idea of Maki graciously changing a topic away from what she wanted to talk about just to spare my feelings was absurd. The woman was pathologically relentless and about as reasonable as a hurricane. I was a consummate professional and didn''t let on the fact, but I couldn''t imagine a world in which Maki let me off the hook for anything. If we were alone, she''d have been dissecting me for every relevant and irrelevant fact that I''d kept from her these past days. That was how Maki showed her love, by being extremely involved regardless of whether it was wanted or warranted. But Zelda believed my lie instantly, and without me having to roll to deceive her either. She was mortified at her perceived selfishness. "I''m so sorry, of course. You''re right. We''re supposed to be celebrating!" "Hence the brownies," agreed Maki. "That, and if I brought you on an empty stomach, you might eat us out of house and home." "Hey! I only do that sort of thing to people I don''t like." She grinned and leaned down, giving me a kiss on the lips that lingered for too long to be considered just friendly. "No need to defend yourself, James. I find it charming the way you occasionally test mortals'' dedication to hospitality customs like a gluttonous, wrathful God." "Thanks?" Maki patted my cheek condescendingly and turned around, swaying her hips as she walked to the kitchen. I surreptitiously watched Zelda''s reaction from my periphery. My Harem Protagonist Feats ensured that the people I saved and those close to them thought it was justified for me to take additional lovers, but they did nothing to prevent jealousy or resentment. I didn''t have to worry. Wonderment dominated all other emotions on the Southerner''s face, with a close second being intense relief. "Amazing," she whispered before suddenly asking, "Can I hug you?" "Sure." Zelda scooched closer on the futon couch and hesitated, eyes growing distant for a moment; whether from the proximity to my Qi or because they were flashing back to her dreamwalk, I couldn''t say. Shaking it off, she practically threw herself into my arms, wrapping herself around me and squeezing with all her strength. She didn''t bawl, but she did cry, her breath hitching as tears began to dampen my shirt. I rubbed her back and pressed her head against my chest. In general, I tried not to overly rely on Social rolls and the system, but this felt like an appropriate use for out-of-context powers. I rolled a Charisma + Empathy pool to try and comfort the woman. I was pretty certain of what was going through her head, but was glad to have the ability to verify. "It''s night and day, isn''t it?" I said softly, following the guidance of eight Successes. "She was like a shell of a person when we first met, totally consumed by vengeance. I can''t imagine what it was like to see her fall into that state; it had to be a daily agony for you." That set off the waterworks proper, and she began trembling in my arms, two years of burdensome fears and anxieties being released all at once. I''d be lying if I said that comforting sobbing women was a strength of mine, but there was little I had to actually do except continue holding her and stroking her back and hair. What did it say that Zelda was so quick to believe that Ishida Maki would relent on an investigation to spare someone''s feelings? It reminded me that while on an emotional level, we felt as close as two people could be, I hadn''t actually known the woman very long. Maki was the only person in this world to whom I''d trusted the secrets of the system, at least as best as I could without incurring the wrath of the Producers, and the night of the Exorcism had felt like a lifetime ¨C many lifetimes. But still, a week ago, we''d been strangers or worse, honestly; I''d been a maniac threatening to get myself killed if she didn''t include me in her crusade against the Hungry Ghost. What had Maki been like before Ken died? Who had been the woman, or rather, who had been the nineteen-year-old girl that Zelda had known? It didn''t matter, I suppose. That version of her was gone, replaced by my Maki, a hardened and devoted warrior. Zelda pulled away, wiping her tears with a bittersweet smile. "Lord, look at me, I''m messier than a whole bachelorette party." Her drawl was thicker now. "Said we were celebrating and then started crying, ha." "You''re alright." "Thank you. You don''t know what it means to me. I watched her slowly die, day by day, until¡ª" she shook her head. "I called her a living revenant the day we broke up ¨C it''s haunted me ever since." I wobbled my head from side to side. "I mean¡­you weren''t wrong." "No, suppose not." She trailed off, shifting her position to more comfortably lean against my side. "It still felt like a betrayal to leave her like that." "Don''t beat yourself up too much. Not to be dramatic, but you''d have both died. That thing was strong enough to swallow a God-killing sword and was making a serious play at ascending to full divinity. Me and Maki are a strong duo, but we survived because of luck. Hell, I''d have drowned if a bunch of ghosts didn''t cling to the mortal coil just long enough to pull me out of the canal." "You''re right, I know, but¡­" "Yeah. Can''t logic the guilt away. It''s a bitch that way." I swung an arm over her shoulder, almost immediately regretting it. There were at least two Special Feats on my Character Sheet that caused the system to roll Seduction attempts on my behalf, and those were just the ones that explicitly called that out. I''d intended the gesture to be friendly, but my Feats ensured that it was misconstrued. Zelda pulled her legs under her, a move that just ''happened'' to cause her to mold herself more fully against me, one of her knees resting on my thigh, arms hugging my bicep like a body pillow. Goddamn it, at least let me know how many Successes I rolled, you dicks. A lot, I was guessing. Zelda gave me a grateful, longing look through half-lidded eyes. "Gosh, you''re warm," she said. "When I first got the vision of that thing silhouetted and wreathed in your flames, I thought, ''That had to be metaphorical. I''d have heard if there was someone capable of summoning a fire tornado in the city.'' But there''s no doubting it when you''re this close." I chuckled nervously, wracking my mind for a way to politely extricate myself. "You saw that, huh?" "Now that everyone saw." Zelda took my hand and turned it over, running her nails gently along the lines of my palm. "Say, James, does it bother you that Maki doesn''t consider you a man? It''s very Maki to reject reevaluating her sexuality in favor of reclassifying someone else''s sex and gender instead, but I did worry for you when she told me. It would be extraordinarily rude in any other scenario." "She told you about that?" "Sorry. I pressed her on the issue, if that makes it better. It was pretty clear that she was in love whenever she mentioned you, and I naturally had some questions. She told me her theory that you were more a ''currently male-presenting'' Kami than a man, and that I, a bisexual woman, was ridiculous for asking if she might be bi now." In love with me? That was a bit of a stretch, surely. Or an oversimplification, maybe? I don''t know. Our relationship was complicated. "Uh, to be clear, we''re just partners in heroics¡ª" "And spiritually siblings." "Well, sure, but only because Ken named me his successor. That was mostly for mutual protection; I get to be included in the Ishida''s existing agreements with Kami, and the Shrine adds a fighter to its roster." Zelda laughed and mercifully shifted herself a few inches away into what could be plausibly considered a non-flirtatious seating arrangement. "It''s very cute the way you both deny things in the same way. As far as I''m concerned, so long as it''s all consensual and Maki''s not hectoring you into rethinking your gender identity, then whatever you two get up to in private is fine with me." I scratched my cheek, blushing as I remembered Maki''s frankly insane conviction that it was only a matter of time before I transformed into a living Archetype from a mortal man. She made me promise that I''d let her fuck me as a woman whenever I inevitably learned to shapeshift, something she was completely, one hundred percent certain would happen. "No, no, it''s all good. That''s just¡­Maki, you know? She wouldn''t be Maki if she didn''t routinely say the craziest shit I''ve ever heard." "That''s funny, she said the same thing about you in her own words." The same bittersweet smile returned to her face, her eyes focusing on the middle distance. "Sounds like it was meant to be. I''m glad you found each other." She clapped her hands on her knees and leaned down, picking up her purse from the ground. "So! Want a tarot reading? I''m feeling a bit self-conscious about my own magical abilities around you two." I breathed a sigh of relief, beyond grateful to be out of the emotional woods. Today was supposed to be light work. "I''d love one, thanks. Don''t think I''ve had a real fortune telling before. Should be fun." "I''m going to die!" I said cheerily to Maki when we were outside and on the way to her parents''. "All Death cards every draw. Zelda said there''s only one in the deck, too." She rolled her eyes. "Don''t be ridiculous; that''s not even what the Death Tarot signifies. It''s supposed to represent life changes and transformations, but I''d say it''s much more likely an indicator that Funikugami-sama is preventing your Fate from being read through such pedestrian means. And there are as many Death cards in the deck as there need to be; Zelda is an actual witch, remember." "I don''t know, Maki. Looked pretty cooked to me. Might want to get that eulogy ready." "Some would consider this form of teasing cruel." She side-eyed me, but I could see her lips quirking up slightly. If there was something wrong with me for finding this funny, then Maki had the same condition. Gallow''s humor was a shared affliction amongst those who lived on the razor edge of life and death. I sighed dramatically and put both hands on the back of my head. "Man, pretty freeing knowing I''m a dead man walking in a way, really puts you in the moment. Talk about mindfulness, am I right?" "The more times I hear you say mindfulness, the less convinced I am that you know what it means." "What does it mean? I never bothered to look it up." She groaned and started angrily walking faster while muttering something about emails and believability. I whistled as I followed. It was always nice to spend time with Maki. Sunday Funday 2 In the background loomed a ruined brick building, the cracks on its face spelling in stylized hanzi ''That Beast Inside You''. In the foreground stood a man who was twice identifiable as me, having both James''s broad facial features and body as well as Alan''s beard, barely groomed hair, and favorite sunglasses. His right hand was a bony claw holding a stark-white wakizashi, and his thin, monstrous shadow wore ragged robes not otherwise present in the pencil drawing. I summoned all my acting chops to push aside the acute sense of dread. "Woooow, this is sick, lil bro. You made this today? That''s crazy skill. Reminds me of Vagabond." The eight-year-old nodded, pulling his sweater up over his nose to hide his embarrassment. His mother pulled him to her side, ruffling his hair with pride. "Atsushi-kun wants to be a mangaka when he grows up," she said, smiling down at her son. "He has such talent, no?" "World class, for sure." I patted him on his shoulder. "As long as you keep working hard, there''s no way you''ll fail." The boy let out a barely audible "Thanks" before quickly shuffling back, letting one of his younger cousins step in to give me their gift. My refrigerator would be fully covered once I got home. "Yo, everyone!" shouted Sunada Daigo, kimono flapping as he burst back into the foyer of the Ishida''s turn-of-the-century manor. The man insisted on dressing in Meiji-era robes, claiming it helped him write his novel faster. He had his arms full of artifacts that he lifted up to show me, each radiating a mix of curiosity and power. "Take a gander, my boy! All of these tsukumogami have agreed to serve as Susy''s dowry should you marry her!" "O-Ojiichan!" stammered Susy, flapping her arms in panic. The Ishida patriarch, Ishida Hiroaki, groaned, dragging his hand down his face, looking suddenly twenty years older. "Daigo." Susy''s grandmother stormed over and whacked her husband across the back of the head. "Idiot! What do you think you''re doing!?" "Itai! I''m matchmaking, woman! Don''t interfere! You''ve got to strike while the iron''s hot. A man like James doesn''t stay single for long." "Who said he''s single now!?" There was an awkward beat as everyone collectively avoided looking at Maki. "I''m getting it on the record then! What''s wrong with that?" Things devolved from there into a raucous, not-at-all-serious argument between the Sunada patriarch and the rest of the adults. There was no actual vitriol; it was just an excuse for older members of the families to embarrass the single girls and women of the Clans by jokingly playing matchmaker for those they were closest to. Several red-faced teenage girls ushered Maki and me out of the building not long after. Sunset reds and purples bathed us as we walked back to Maki''s apartment arm-in-arm through the weekend crowds. She stayed quiet the whole way save for an occasional sigh of contentment, my silent company helping recharge her emotional battery. The introvert was exhausted. Maki had been as much of a star as I had at lunch, something she hadn''t anticipated and couldn''t quite adjust to. I thought the attention was to be expected after the Exorcism, but I suppose we all have blind spots in our rational brains where family is concerned. The moment we were inside, Maki flattened her back to the door and slid to the ground, limbs limp and legs splayed out in front of her. "I don''t know how you do it," she said up at me. "It wasn''t so bad. I told you I liked meeting new people." "Ugh. Extroverts." The words lacked any bite, her voice distant and her mind elsewhere. I didn''t respond and let her reminisce in peace, sensing she needed to work through her thoughts. After some time, she said, "Everyone wanted my advice on their personal projects. They were treating me like a genius." "You are a genius." She scoffed and lightly thumped the door with the back of her head. "I used to do this for an hour or more sometimes, you know. I''d come home, close the door, and sink to the ground. And then I''d sit here, sometimes until it got dark, trying to summon the energy to reach forward and take off my shoes." I kept the frown off my face. A despondent Maki sitting depressed in the dark was a disquieting image, but I knew she was too proud to appreciate any overt sympathy. "What does emotional stability have to do with genius? I doubt they were coming to you for advice on grieving." Maki grinned a little at the jab. She enjoyed light confrontation in a way I rarely saw outside of martial artists. "They didn''t treat me like a sage a few weeks ago when I was living like this." She gestured to herself and the almost empty apartment around us, devoid of decorations and most signs of life. "I was a problem then, a constant reminder of what they''d lost. They grieved me like I was already dead. My family kept me at arm''s length, afraid to give me any ideas on magic that could further what they believed was delusion. My own mother¡ª" she paused and shook her head. "No one believed in me. Zelda left, and I didn''t blame her. All of their reactions made sense at the time; I knew what I was doing was self-destructive and probably hopeless, and it didn''t bother me." She sighed and thumped the door again. "Then I met you." "And now it bothers you?" "Yes. You were a complete stranger, you had no context for what I could or could not do, and yet you still believed in me enough to put your life in my hands, even with me openly antagonizing you for the first hour or so." "Longer than that," I grumbled. She ignored the interruption. "I know it''s wrong, and I still love them of course, but since meeting you, whenever I interact with my family or¡­old friends, I can''t help but think, ''Why are you so surprised to see me alive and well?'' It''s irksome, a little needle of discomfort present in every interaction. You took me seriously from the start; it makes it hard to forget that they never did." I smiled and knelt down. Picking up her foot, I began undoing the laces on her sensible walking shoes. She gave me the smallest of smiles and ran her hands through my hair appreciatively. "Don''t give me too much credit. You''ve got to be fully insane to do what we do ¨C that goes for us both. Everything about you I found interpersonally alarming was a plus for monster hunting. The reckless disregard for your life, the single-minded obsession with your goal, the willingness to bet it all on experimental techniques, that''s all standard for a youxia." "Maybe. It would certainly explain the lack of living colleagues. I think you give yourself too little credit, though. You have a natural belief in others that inspires and empowers them; I''ve seen it firsthand in myself, and in Annie and Marianne as well. Either way, now that I''ve known your unshakeable faith, there exists a sharp contrast between that and what I was offered by those closest to me. I''m not sure I can step back into the roles I once occupied for them." "No one''s expecting you to, I''m pretty sure. And if they are, fuck ''em. That''s their problem." I pulled off her shoes and scooped her up in my arms, earning a pleased and uncharacteristic giggle from the beautiful priestess. Winking and switching to highly archaic and formal Japanese, I said, "Biased as I may be, as your retainer, I think you''ve gained a far grander and more noble purpose. Now, miko-sama, where am I taking you?" Maki threaded her fingers through my thick, black hair and pulled me down for a long, gentle kiss. "Thanks. I missed you. I think I might need an incredibly pig-headed, frustrating moron in my life to distract me from the doldrums of modern living." "Anytime. Sorry for leaving you out of the loop. I didn''t realize your time off would be so fraught." "It''s okay. You were kind to think me capable of relaxing." She gave me another quick peck on the lips, then clapped her hands. "I could get used to this. To the bedroom, samurai. Your mistress wishes to lounge." I wagged my brows down at her. "Is that all my mistress wishes to do in the bedroom?" "Hmph. Don''t get any ideas, James. These jeans are staying on until you''ve related every second of every day since we last met." "You sure? I feel like we were getting somewhere with your introspection. You really want to interrupt it for several stories that are going to make you very upset?" "Don''t try to use my crisis of self to get out of confessing, James. It''s gauche." "Just can''t help but notice that while you say you don''t want to retread the past, you still recruited your ex-girlfriend to¡ª" Maki pinched my nostrils closed and twisted my nose. "Gah, fine! Use your words, woman, goddamn." It took hours to recount everything that happened. The days had been overfull, and Maki was excruciatingly thorough in her inquiries, making me wrack my mind for every detail. She made it easy on me, though. Maki''s clothes had to stay on until we were done, but there were no such stipulations for mine. She stripped me naked, reveling in the unwrapping, but kept her touches chaste if sensual. Propping her back up on pillows and the headboard of her bed, she had me lay partially on top of her, resting my head just below her breasts. We spent the rest of the twilight hour and into the night like that, me answering questions and offering opinions, Maki stroking my upper chest and massaging my scalp as she interrogated me. The blinds stayed open and the lights off, leaving us to lie in the reflected orange and whites of the streetlamp and signs outside her windows. Whistling hisses from the ancient steam radiator harmonized with the constant dull thrum of car engines and the unobtrusive screeching of trains braking in the far distance. Her apartment was barely ten feet above the sidewalk, and we could hear clearly the conversations of people passing underneath. Those, too, were nice in a way. They served as a reminder that life continued on, and that there was a city out there worth fighting for. If time stopped and all there was from then on was this bed in this apartment with this woman, then it would have been a welcome eternity. Maki was largely just amused by the Peach of Immortality incident, using the opportunity to call me a momma''s boy. Whatever risks I''d taken by fighting Ma over the fruit weren''t worth chiding me for considering the outcome, and while she was curious as to how I''d manifested the Divine Treasure, she knew I wasn''t willing to get into the details. "Perhaps you could have started the conversation by offering to split the Peach, but you martial artists tend to be all-or-nothing with your thinking. Overall, though, I think your actions were admirable; I''d certainly do worse if it meant making my mother an Immortal." "What about the power I earned after? I''m the ''Paragon of Filial Piety'' ¨C you don''t find that worrying? The more famous I get, the more of an impact I''ll have on culture." "James, you nearly fought your mother to the death to feed her a Peach of Immortality. It''s oxymoronic. How would that even translate as an example for others to follow? It''s just a lesson on sacrificing personal gains and enduring hardships for the good of your family. As long as you stay kind and compassionate, then I think the world could do with having you as a role model." "What about all the horny shit?" "Incest between divine beings has always been common. There''s nothing new there." I was always a bit disconcerted to be reminded that Maki genuinely didn''t believe I was human. It wasn''t mere conjecture to the woman, she fully and completely thought of me as more of an Archon or Kami than a man. "Ew, gross. Come on, Maki." She laughed and planted a kiss on my forehead. "You really are such a momma''s boy. Is it so hard to believe that she''s a woman with needs too? You were fine with using them against her to win your fight." "She can go on dates like everyone else! And do you hear yourself? I feel like me using Erotic Sorcery against Ma has already warped your opinions." "Using lust magic to stave off the death of your mother is perhaps the most innocent use of it in the history of mankind. But, very well, I''ll keep an eye on how my opinions on filial piety develop as you continue to interact with your family. Happy?" "Not exactly the word I''d use, but I''ll take it." Maki was less than amused by the entirety of the Kingfisher adventure, including the shenanigans leading up to it. Her groping hands felt more frenetic and anxious, as if they were afraid I''d vanish if they stopped checking I was there. "Li Tieguai is selling your story for favors? You''re certainly moving up in the world. What''s your plan when the consequences of that come due? The Gods are slow to move, but some are sure to follow up on their curiosity." "Uhhh." She sighed. "Oh, James. Nothing at all?" "Don''t die?" "Inspired, truly. May I suggest keeping some gifts worthy of a God on hand, perhaps wine or meat? They take hospitality as seriously as you do. A good meal can go a long way towards earning their friendship." "I wouldn''t know where to begin with that." She patted my head. "I''ll try to put something together, then. Our Clan excels at bargaining with Gods. Go on." I expected anger from her on hearing about how the meeting with the Cranes went, but to my surprise, very little was directed at me. She spent much of the story with both arms wrapped around my head, clutching me to her chest possessively. When I mentioned that I thought she''d be more upset with me, she said, "It sounds like you''ve acknowledged your mistakes, and I wouldn''t have known how to play the situation any better. Obviously, I don''t think you should have ever entertained their invitation, but it''s done now. I can tell it''s haunting you; I''m not going to make it worse." "Yeah¡­" I trailed off for a moment, remembering the way the Flesh Puppet shredded its way out of its corpse vessel. "At least I know about Uncle Hou now, the fuck. Never shopping at UltraFresh again, that''s for sure." How many times had that bastard sold rice to the widows of men he''d had killed? "True, and we know they control HuaGen Chemical. I''ll investigate this mysterious Founder of theirs as well and see if we can turn your disastrous meeting into something fruitful; if they''ve been around for as long as the Cranes claim, then there should be plenty of evidence of who they are, and what they''re capable of. BHU''s East Asian Anthropology department has a number of rare texts in the library. I think there''s a clue in the Founder''s connection to this Falling Leaf Lin woman and her student. It''s odd that they would request her to train an heir to their Sect without being a member herself. I''ll ask that you refrain from further contact with the Cranes until I''ve had a chance to try and turn something up. What''s this plan you alluded to for the Founder?" Maki already understood that I could gain power and rewards through acting like a hero and/or sex pest, though I hadn''t defined the system much beyond that. "I have a way of mind control I gained through my unique method of cultivation," I said, referencing the Relationship Tokens. "It hasn''t been tested, and I can''t exactly crank it out, but in theory, I could make them trust me as though I was their own son. I just need a name and a face. I figure if I can get in front of the Founder, I might be able to neutralize or seize control of the Black Harbor branch of the Cranes without spilling any blood." "If you''re considering that at all, then you must test it now in controlled conditions." I winced. "I don''t know, not super comfortable with mind control." "Find a deserving target then or put it out of your thoughts entirely. Either way, there is no world in which you try mind control for the first time on a legendary Immortal with their own Sect of killers and spies. Do you understand, James?" "Yeah, guess so, not as much fun your way, though." I drummed my fingers on my abs. "The Cranes didn''t give me much in their dossier on the Tigers, but there were the names of a few Captains inside. I suppose mind control reduces the chance that I''ll have to burn them to death." Her voice grew cold, and she hugged me tighter. "They''ve more than earned my enmity. You''ll hear no objections from me." Maki was quiet for several long minutes after I concluded the recap. I could almost hear her brain working to make connections behind me. "It would, by any reasonable estimation," she said at last, "take fewer resources to actually reduce crime in Harbor Hill than it would to fake doing so, especially if they''re already paying out the police overtime." Maki spoke slowly, clearly still working through her theories. "It''s safe to assume then that the responsible parties benefit from the chaos in the neighborhood, enough that they''re willing to spend exorbitantly and risk exposure through any of the hundreds of people that would have to be involved in the conspiracy. Your ex, Maria, believes the man responsible to be Garret Evans, whom you also saw at the Kingfisher. She believes this because she''s seen signs of high-level coverups occur in Harbor Hill and because an accountant who worked for him succumbed to demonic possession, which was subsequently covered up in the same manner. Is that correct so far?" "Yeah, but it should be noted that Maria is not exactly in prime form mentally." "She sounds to be in a similar headspace to the one I was in not too long ago. Even so, what she''s essentially alleging without the vocabulary to do so, is that there''s a powerful warlock acting in the shadows to pull the strings in Black Harbor''s Underworld, and for that we have some evidence independent of Maria. For example, there is the unusual manifestation of negative energy you''ve termed The Misery. There is no explanation for why a minor spirit you chased away would return with a morass of its peers for revenge that doesn''t include a greater intelligence controlling or guiding them in some way; it''s simply impossible otherwise. A skilled binder and Petitioner of dark spirits would serve as a plausible explanation, especially if we assume The Misery is an attempt to keep the neighborhood in a state of despair. A warlock of sufficient power and ambition is going to need a ready source of human sacrifices; that alone would be reason enough to keep the Hill the way it is. He would need some way to disguise both the number of people going missing and the frequency; after all, if his enemies discovered when he was renewing his Pacts, then they could disrupt them. But this is tangential to your most pressing concerns." "The Tigers." "No, the Cranes." I paused, trying to figure out where she was coming from. Sure, they were definitely also an issue, but they weren''t the ones with the million-dollar bounty on me. "Elaborate." "Thus far, your conflict with the Tigers has been due to circumstance. This new leader of theirs, Junior, sent a disposable, low-level member to antagonize your mother, likely to test what her response might be in preparation for the upcoming hot war. That led to your fight with Kuze, and it would have ended there if the video of your duel hadn''t leaked. Everything after can be attributed to a mix of saving face and the cycle of violence. We know why you were on Bell Street, but to the Tigers, it appears as if you did some property damage in response to their aggression." "Okay. They''re still trying to kill me." "You remain trapped by the cycle of violence, yes, but your problems with the Cranes are far worse. It won''t be circumstance that brings you into conflict with them; it will be your continued actions and goals. For one, we know that the Cranes are friendly with Evans, who has likely invested tremendous resources in Harbor Hill''s Underworld and will be opposed to your crime-fighting efforts there. Secondly, ignoring that you''re bound to make an enemy of their ally, the Cranes admitted to you that they are preparing for war, regardless of how Junior behaves. They view the gang war as inevitable and have for some time. Even I knew that Boss Gao was in poor health; the man was the living image of a gluttonous, aging gangster. The Cranes had years to prepare for his death ¨C how many of their plans rely on war in Chinatown? How do you think they''ll respond to a young youxia with broad popular support from the neighborhood butting his head in? You got lucky and managed to defend Crane leadership from an assassination attempt, but that won''t keep them at bay for long. These people are snakes." I groaned and rubbed my temples. These were problems that called for a whole Party of Player Characters. "I just need to weather the storm," I muttered. "Wrong, your passive attempts to weather the storm continue to worsen your problems. James, you need allies. I understand why you''re reticent; all existing organizations within the Underworld will ask things of you that you will object to. However, through your boneheaded impulsiveness, you''ve created the perfect opportunity, an organization entirely committed to you, James Li." There was a certain vindictive glee in her voice, a bit of anticipatory schadenfreude. "You need to find these new sex cults and establish control over them. There are very few people on the planet willing to make an enemy of even a small coven of witches; you may have access to multiple." "What." I twisted around to meet her gaze. "Are you insane? I''m not doing that! I want nothing to do with a sex cult, let alone have one based around me." "Oh yes, because it will be much better if you allow them to develop on their own, I''m sure. Don''t be absurd, James. Your image infects dreams, your words become recurring thoughts, and your actions are preternaturally inspiring ¨C do you think this is going to go away if you leave it alone? Maybe, maybe, if you did literally nothing and disappeared from public life, the cults would fall into in-fighting and collapse, but you and Annie put out content almost daily. You will only be reinforcing their adoration while leaving your intentions, what, up to interpretation from online superfans? That''s your plan? Hope that your obsessives and zealots happen to act in a way that agrees with you? You have to start being proactive, or your problems will only keep mounting." She wasn''t wrong, but I had my own ideas. I pushed myself onto my elbows and scooched up so that I was hovering over Maki, our faces only inches apart. My soft cock hung low, brushing against her upper thigh. "Maki, let me train you. I don''t need a sex cult; I just need a small core of strong adventurers." "Like the men you killed in Mugisha''s? James, be realistic." "Just a few days. I promise it''ll make a world of difference. I''ll even train Zelda if you want me to." Her eyes went wide. "Absolutely not. The stronger Zelda gets, the more likely it becomes that she seeks out a problem that she''s not equipped to handle. Zelda''s sharply defined limits have kept her alive." "Fine, whatever. Let me train you, at least." "James, you can''t run away from this forever. These are the consequences of your actions; at some point, you will have to deal with them." "Yeah, but what if I super don''t want to though?" I sucked in a breath. Maki had scooped my hefty cock into her palm, her smile growing smug. I recognized this tactic. "Then delegate the task. Susy is charismatic, proficient enough in magic to recognize what not to do, and enamored with you. Lend her your authority, make a few minor appeasements to your followers, and she can do the rest." "You''re trying to condition me with positive reinforcement again. It''s adorable that you think this works. I''m not a dog, Maki." Her eyes lit up at the challenge; it was on now. She lifted her head slowly and took my lower lip between her teeth, gently grazing it before kissing me. Hot breaths warmed my face as she walked her lips across my chin up to my ear. "Roll over, James," she whispered. "Adorable," I repeated. I allowed her to maneuver me onto my back again anyway, though. Even if we were at odds currently, this was a side of Maki I loved to see. That obscene confidence of hers, when turned towards seduction, cut like a knife through my defenses. "You want me to make Susy my head priestess, isn''t she a little¡­" Maki guided me further up so that my head was resting on her shoulder, making it easier for her to reach my dick. Her handjob began slow and teasing, her palm dragging its way from base to tip before lifting off and beginning the journey again. Every time she did, my cock hardened, and her heartbeat quickened, as excited as I was despite her cool demeanor. "Nothing so dramatic. I''m suggesting making her your liaison, one step between you and your fanatics. While I''m aware her mind is not as bright as her soul, I do believe she would excel at people management. Besides, I''d be shocked if Susy doesn''t already have a connection to one of your cults. You''ve become her ADHD hyperfixation, if you haven''t noticed." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Alan stirred restlessly within my mind; we very much had noticed, and that part of my psyche wasn''t thrilled to be a teen heartthrob. "Why not you? I saw you today with your family; even if you find it tiring, you aren''t bad at social interaction." She sipped her teeth. "My skills and time are better applied elsewhere." I could hear the disdain in her voice. "Ha! You don''t like the idea of sex cultists any more than I do!" "Of course I don''t." She turned my head to hers and leaned down for a kiss, lips and tongue possessive and demanding, only pulling away when her lungs were burning. Maki buried her face in my hair and took a shaky breath. "Do you think I''d share you if I didn''t have to? I''m putting aside my distaste because I recognize the necessity." "What about Zelda?" "Zelda," her grip on my cock tightened, "has proven that she doesn''t have the stomach for what is necessary." I''d actually been asking about the sharing comment, but her tone had answered that as well. "Getting some mixed messages here. You don''t want her involved, but you recruited her anyway? You don''t want her to get hurt, but you don''t want me to train her to be stronger? You don''t want to share, but you were okay with flirting with us both at the same time?" Maki sighed and extracted herself from under me, hopping off the bed. She moved to better stand in the glow coming through the window and began to slowly unbutton her blouse. "I wasn''t flirting with her; we were just falling back into old habits. Zelda and I, I''m afraid, might be in the process of getting back together." I thought back to Maria teasing me in the storage room in Mugisha''s. "I can empathize." Maki let her blouse fall off her shoulders, giving me a sultry look as she started to wriggle out of her tight jeans. She enjoyed my hungry gaze, nipples hardening as she tossed her long hair behind her to better reveal her pale flesh, dyed orange by the streetlamps outside. "At least Maria has changed significantly. Your relationship, were it to develop again, would be new. You couldn''t fall into the same dynamics if you wanted to. Zelda, though, is the same as she was, while I am so different." "She was open to helping us. I don''t think Zelda''s so na?ve as to not know what that would entail." "She is trying hard to make amends. Her guilt is getting the better of her. But let me ask you, her tarot deck was away by the time I rejoined you ¨C she reacted poorly to drawing the Death cards, didn''t she?" "Was pretty spooked, yeah. Though, I would say that''s the healthy and appropriate reaction to feeling Funikugami''s interference directly." "I don''t disagree, but our lifestyle is hardly healthy or appropriate. We are hunters of the night, those stupid and crazy enough to run into the darkness." Maki pushed her panties down her legs, letting them dangle from one ankle, and tried kicking them toward me. She missed, and they knocked a pen off her end table instead. "Damn." I laughed. "You were so close to being cool right there." "Shut up, James." She crawled onto the bed dressed in only her bra now, moving up to straddle my legs and grabbing my cock with both hands. "No more talking about me and my problems. You''re the one going from catastrophe to catastrophe. All I''ve been doing is rehashing the same arguments with myself for days. Here, distract yourself with my breasts." Maki pushed her chest forward and leaned down, offering her cleavage for me. I raised a brow at the flagrant attempt to change topics, but couldn''t help myself. I undid her bra with a flick of my wrist and pulled her down to enjoy the feel of her soft and full tits against my face. "You''re treating me like a dog again," I said, voice muffled by her cleavage. She cupped the top of my now leaking and fully erect cock and rubbed her palm in a circle around it, dragging the precum to the base. "You are a dog. Flirting with my ex like that," she teased. "I left you two alone for a few minutes, and she was practically staining my couch when I came back." I allowed a bit of lust magic to infect my lips and started kissing around her breasts, coming tantalizing close to her nipples but never taking them into my mouth. She started twisting her wrists in response, making sure every inch of my cock felt her tight grip. "You knew exactly what you were doing. Were you trying to make her jealous, or have you been thinking about it? Me and her? You and me? Me, you, and her?" "My fan¡ª" she hissed as I brushed my lips against her areola. "My fantasies of threesomes are irrelevant to this discussion. You''re my samurai. Zelda doesn''t deserve you. Frankly, I oscillate by the minute on whether or not she deserves to watch. Annie¡ªhng!" Maki forced the moan and tried quickening the pace of her hands. Yearning Song started pinging excitedly. It wasn''t Zelda who''d been playing the starring role in most of her fantasies, it seemed. You can''t fool me with fake moans, young lady. "What was that about Annie?" "Nothing. I misspoke." I lay back onto the pillows, leaving my hands my hands glued to her chest, and extended my force pythons to bind and arrest her wrists. She glared down at me, but I could tell she was mostly annoyed with herself for the slip-up. "I was wondering why you wouldn''t commit to letting me train you. Really, Maki? This is unlike you." She groaned loudly. "Ugh! I know! Okay? I am aware. There''s nothing you can tell me that I haven''t been yelling at myself for days. Can we please get back to your more pressing concerns?" Her thumb started rubbing circles on my frenulum for the double entendre. "There''s a war coming. If your ''will they, won''t they'' with Zelda is stopping you from training with me and Annie, then I''d say that''s a very pressing concern. Do you think we''re going to get more weeks like this? You know that Annie and I can train with someone without fucking them, right?" "Can you?" She grimaced and looked away. "Sorry, that was uncalled for. Obviously, you can; the question is, can I? Zelda has been surprisingly supportive of our relationship, and though I didn''t reveal any of our research into Erotic Sorcery, she understands that an element of it will always be physical. But Annie is¡­" "A highly charismatic, beautiful, incredibly fit former cheerleader and micro-celebrity with an engineering degree and hundreds of thousands of fans?" "Yes, precisely. Zelda is a wonderful and understanding woman, but she''d have to be a saint to not grow jealous. And once Annie and I happens once, well, we''re going to be working together in the future. It''s just ¨C it would close the door on dating Zelda." She added quickly, "Before you say anything, yes, I know I''m being childish and stupid." "No, you''re not. You''re being normal for, like, maybe the first time since I met you." "Thank you," she said dryly. "Such a way with words you have, very reassuring." I laughed. "Want my advice?" "I didn''t think I did ¨C asking you for help with human relationships feels counterintuitive, but¡­yes, an outside perspective would help. I can''t keep going back and forth on this." "First off, I''m pretty sure you are going to want Zelda more involved in the youxia stuff in the future, at least to keep her close. She''s a witch with Keletsnyan heritage; The Heavens aren''t so kind to let her be." "Agree to disagree." "Great, that makes this simpler." I cranked my body heat up a few degrees and began radiating out pleasure. Nothing too disruptive, but now whatever part of her was touching me would be an erogenous zone as sensitive as her nipples. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw in response, going perfectly still though not making any effort to separate. "You''re on a three-person team with a man who practices Erotic Sorcery and has magic cum, and a woman you are extremely attracted to. Maki, it''s over. Let''s be real. Unless you change your mind and want to incorporate Zelda into the team¡ª" "Which I won''t." I nodded. "Then it''s over. The chance of us, me, you, and Annie, not fucking is basically nil. You aren''t getting back together with Zelda. It''s not going to happen." To be clear, while I wasn''t lying, I was ''abridging'' the truth. There were plenty of scenarios in which Maki and Zelda could happily date. For a start, with enough good Social rolls, I could simply convince her to be okay with limited consensual non-monogamy, and if we ever started fucking regularly, my various Harem Protagonist Feats would probably take care of it for me. But those were complicated solutions that would come with their own considerations and compromises, and what Maki wanted more than anything was to be given permission to stop thinking about this. I was positive the genius had come to the conclusion I''d voiced, probably multiple times, but she was still human. Love had her acting the fool. Maki opened her mouth but hesitated. "I¡­" Something came upon me, rose up from my chest, and seized hold of my throat. Seeing her like this, so atypically unsure of herself, and hearing the weakness in her voice, hurt. Ken was avenged but she remained, forever changed from the experience. She was stuck, lost between two lives. I could more than empathize. But where I was able to compartmentalize, delay, forget, ignore, etc., my feelings, Maki could not. She was too direct, too beholden to reason, and too methodical to simply commit to improvising her way out of the problem. Man, I felt stupid. Maki was right, and I was wrong. I''d been clinging to the belief that I could string it all along until I got to the finish line; if I clung any harder, my fingers would bleed, and my nails would fall off. If I could just reunite with my friends, I told myself, it would all work out, all the shit I was dealing with would be over. I wouldn''t let those I cared about hurt to get there, but me? Fuck me. I just had to make it to the end, and then it would be fine. Once it was done, I could deal with all the personal baggage I''d accumulated on the way. That was dumb. It was never going to work that way. Stories didn''t even work like that, which meant that there was no combination of Feats I could pick up to make it true. I couldn''t put my head down, charge straight ahead, and barrel my way to victory. I couldn''t keep thinking of my time in this world as an obstacle to get through. "Hey." I moved my hands away from her breasts and to her sides. She pouted at first at the loss of sensation but then blinked and sat up in concern, recognizing the shift in me. "I can make this way easier for you if you''d like." "By all means, please." "Forget Zelda. Go out with me. Let''s start dating. It''s been easier for me to act like this life is¡­transitory, and maybe it is." I rubbed my hands along her ribs. "But no matter how long I got, I''d like to spend the time with you." Her lips began to tremble as she fought to contain her emotions. In a perfectly neutral tone, she asked, "What about Annie?" I shrugged. "Fuck it. You can date her, too. I''m not a jealous type of guy." That got a sharp bark of laughter from her. She smiled, and the room lit up ¨C literally. Blue motes began twinkling in and out of existence like a halo of fireflies hovering around her head. Maki fell forward, her hands and breasts trapped between us, my cock jumping from the added pressure. She rubbed her nose into my neck. "You''re a fool, James Li." "Weird way to say yes." "I''m not going to be any less of a taskmaster." "Nice." I paused. "Er, wait, don''t read into that. Pretend I threatened you with pushups or something." Maki laughed and started rolling her hips back and forth, rocking her sex against the base of my dick while pressing the rest of it against her abdomen. I retracted my telekinetic hold over her wrists, and she immediately got to work, pumping her hands in time with her hips. Kissing her way to my ear, she began circling my ear lobe with the tip of her tongue. I arched my back at the sensation, making her hard nipples drag across my pecs. "My God, woman. What are you doing to me?"
[Ally Quest Complete! (Ishida Maki)] Establish a long-term romantic relationship with Maki. Reward: 50 XP, +1 Sensuality, Maki gains +2 Willpower Bonus, Used no Skill or Attribute checks: Gain Special Feat Patron Saint [Special Feat] Patron Saint Your soul has begun to take on aspects of Divinity. You become a valid target for Petitioning and may grant temporary blessings in your specialties to your followers and supplicants. The roll required to gain your blessings is made by the Petitioner, though you may make it easier with an Affinity check. You may choose to deny their requests freely, but recalling blessings already granted can require effort. As you gain more supplicants and followers, the scale and complexity of your blessings will grow.
"I''m going to make an honest Kami out of you, James." She sat back up onto my thighs, the sheen I''d left on her flat tummy glistening in the ethereal blue light of her magic. Lifting her palms to her face, she laid her tongue flat and licked up the froth, never breaking eye contact for a second. Between passes, she said, "My family is going to be insufferable, but that''s a sacrifice I''m willing to make. You''re welcome." "Hey, I''m the one missing out on all those tsukumogami from Susy''s dowry." "Don''t be so sure. If you get famous enough, I wouldn''t be surprised if they change the polygamy laws." I reached forward and grabbed Maki by her ass, pulling her closer and down, pinning my cock to my body with her sex. The girth of my shaft parted her wet, hot pussy lips, her clit a scintillating bead driving the underside of my dick crazy as I pushed and pulled her along its considerable length. "What happened to ¨C agh, shit ¨C to not wanting to share?" Maki smirked and started pushing down onto my shaft, the muscles in her core flexing under her pale skin. This was the smuggest I''d ever seen her, which was saying something. She grabbed my hands and guided them to her tits while continuing the motion of her hips, using me like a masturbatory aid, even going so far as to pinch her nipples using my fingers. The motes of light flitting around her reflected in her pupils, appearing like stars in her almost-black, dark brown eyes. "That was before we were dating. Why would I care what slut you''re spending a night with when you''re spending your years with me? Who you let into your bed is of no concern, unless, of course, I happen to be sharing it at the moment." She put her hand atop my breast. Her smirk gained an edge to it, and the burning motes began to dance faster. "Who you let into your heart, however, that I will have a say in. Is that clear?" "Yes, ma''am." My cock twitched, making her gasp. "Don''t read into that either. Anyone would have found it hot." Maki only laughed in reply, not even entertaining my entirely reasonable argument. Her hand disappeared behind her back, where it briefly took the time to cup each of my balls before taking hold of my base. She rolled her hips all the way forward and leaned down to take my mouth, her tongue wrestling mine like it had a point to prove. "Yessss," she hissed as she pushed back on me, letting the first few inches of cock enter her. She managed to take half of me in one clean motion before she had to pause to regain composure and adjust to the fullness, her sex-starved cunt fluttering and pulsing as her inner muscles tried to pull me deeper. I moved one hand to her back, running my palm along her spine, and the other lower to squeeze her ass. After a very long thirty seconds of hard breathing, she lifted off my chest and sat herself back down onto my thighs and the last four inches of my cock, throwing her head back with a whimper. Her knees squeezed into my sides as she fought for balance against the pleasure now radiating into her through her inner walls. I would have dialed the lust magic down, but she growled with frustration when I tried, so I kept it where it was and stayed motionless, waiting for her to adjust. Maki gulped and wet her lips. Half-lidded eyes shining with an almost manic gleam, she put her hand atop the small bump my dick was making in her abdomen. "This is its home. Wherever it wanders, whatever vapid whore it ruins for a night, this is where it comes back to." Keeping eye contact, she raised herself about halfway before slamming back down. "Agh! Understood?" I slapped the mattress as she did it again, lifting up halfway and almost angrily slamming back down with all her strength. "Fuck, yes, Christ, Maki." She did it again, adding a circular, rolling motion with her hips. "What the hell. Gah! You been training or something?" "Yes. Mm. Practice," she ground out through clenched jaws, continuing her pace. "Dildo. In shower. Stuck it ¨C Kami-sama ¨C to the wall. Practiced for you. I won''t, agh, lose, mmf, to sluts!" The image of Maki naked, water pouring over her, breasts swinging in the shower as she fucked herself while thinking of me was too much. I managed, somehow, to not instantly bust, but my hands clutching the bed curled into fists, knuckles going white. Maki''s poor mattress and sheets were completely annihilated as hands capable of carving steel gouged out canyons on either side of me. "Ah, shit. Whoops." "No!" For a second, I thought she was super upset about her ruined bed, but her eyes were closed. She was fighting against cumming herself, legs starting to shake, her neck fully tensed, face scrunched together. "Do it. Cum for me, Maki." "No!" she shouted. "You first! I want more. Can''t. Lose." Spiritual energy, a component of Qi, started pulsing inside my dantian, responding to Maki''s fighting spirit. This was a first for me. Not only had I never been with a woman trying to cum second, but this was also the first time I''d been Petitioned. I could stop what was happening, but I couldn''t yet shape the power, so I didn''t try to. Her soul was calling out, begging for just a bit more control, a bit more stamina. She wanted desperately to impress me, to hammer her name onto my cock, to ruin other women for me. I could feel her intentions and perceive her desires with supreme clarity, far beyond what any of my other senses could give me. I let my soul answer her call. There was a flash of golden light and an orgasmic cry of pleasure from Maki. She trembled and shook, her pussy trying to milk me for my cum. Incredibly, the strength of her inner muscles seemed to grow with every flutter, until I was forced to roll a Willpower to not nut. I chose to fail and began emptying my first load of the night, my vision going white as shot after shot after shot of jizz filled Maki to the brim until it was spilling out onto my balls and thighs. Maki recovered first and started rocking her hips up and down again. Her movements were smoother and far more controlled this time, and I could tell she was taking it easy on me, being gentle while I rode out my unnaturally extended orgasm. "I need to," I panted, "get a hold of my climaxes. Jesus." "Mmm, I don''t know," purred Maki. "I might prefer you like this, trembling like a wet puppy underneath me." She had a wide Cheshire grin on her face and was notably¡­prettier? Yes, and fitter too. And considering the skill with which she was working her interior walls and core muscles, she was better at sex as well. "Holy shit. That was¡­really intimate. Did you feel that too?" "Did I feel that?" She laughed. "I''m feeling it now! Your Qi, it''s, it''s incredible," her voice shook with the last word. Maki licked her lips, a fresh hunger in her eyes. "I knew you were a God! Zelda doubted me, went on about how I needed to respect your ''identity'', but I knew it from the start. You''re an Archetype, a Kami of sex and fighting; I can feel it, a sliver of your core inside me." Great, there was zero chance she''d be normal about this. "I actually think you kind of manifested this ability." She shuddered and turned her attention inward, eyes unfocusing for a second. "Yesss. I can feel that too." Maki smiled and pulled me up into a sitting position, moving my head to her breasts and mashing them against my face. "Aww, don''t worry, my darling, I can feel your reticence too. I''ll take the lead on this research for you, James. All you have to do, hah," her breathing and hips began to quicken with each word. "All you have to do is, agh, be my wonderful, beautiful, adoring, loving, ahm, fucking, hah, fighting, G-God! Ahh!" Maki tossed her hair wildly and came again, not bothering to fight it this time. She kept fucking me through the orgasm, movement becoming jerky but never stopping. Her arms clutched my head to her chest, her face burying itself in my hair. I extended my force pythons, encircling her body but not exerting enough force to hold her still. Maki wanted to control the pace, and I was happy to oblige; the telekinetic limbs were only to show my appreciation for every inch of her perfect body, her narrow waist and wide hips. My mouth opened to take in her jiggling breasts, alternating between her hard nipples, rolling them with my tongue and sucking on them. She really liked that, both the sensations and the feeling of nursing me; it let her feel powerful and in control, and for tonight that was exactly what she wanted. After days of waffling between what she wanted to do with her life, Maki was back in command; she was herself again. With that in mind, I played the part of a passive and willing recipient of her love and affection. She spoiled me, both with her pulsing pussy and her words, whispering a mix of wholesome promises for the future and deranged fantasies into my ears between kisses and climaxes. I got to hear, "Can you feel my heartbeat through your tongue, James? It beats for you." right after, "I can''t wait to spank Annie''s perfect ass while she bounces on this cock." It was an odd and very pleasant form of emotional whiplash. She was sweating and panting, at the limits of her borrowed power as I lost my fight to my second climax. I could have cum ten minutes prior but had been too entranced by her sex and words to give in, knowing that we''d probably have to stop soon so I could get some sleep before the first big day of training. Without needing to be informed, Maki sensed my orgasm coming and hopped off my cock, rushing to kneel on the floor by the edge of the bed. With a hand on my shaft, she led me into her mouth, stretching her lips around my red, battered bellend. I let myself go inside her, the first shot of pearlescent jizz rocking me, forcing me to hold onto the mattress to keep from sliding off, tearing two more holes in it. Maki had her hands cupped beneath her chin, her chest pushed forward, and her thighs squeezed tightly together. She tried to swallow as much of the torrent as she could but was prepared for the inevitability. When she could manage no more, cum occupying every inch of her mouth, she kept my cock inside but angled her chin forward, allowing the liquid to freely splash down and out. It was soon waterfalling out onto her hands and breasts, covering them in a thick, hot blanket as it made its way down to pool between her thighs.
[Recurring Quest Complete!] Have a steamy smut scene. Reward: 5XP, +1 Random Skill (Alchemy)
I collapsed backward when I finished, closing my eyes as I listened to the enticing sounds of her slurping and gulping down my seed. "Good lord, I''ve created a monster," I said when the sounds finally stopped. "Sorry about the bed." "The bed? Oh. James." She tutted, crawling back onto the mattress and resting her head on my chest with a yawn. "Ah, well, there''s always the futon. You aren''t going to," she yawned again, "make me do pushups tomorrow, are you?" Each word had come out more sluggish and slurred than the last. The power of my blessing was rapidly leaving her now that the Petitioned task was complete. "Nah, I''ll be surprised if you can walk tomorrow." "What¡­oh. Ouch." She shifted uncomfortably and whined in pain. Her muscles had deflated, and there was no part of her that was not red and inflamed from exertion. "Maybe some physical conditioning''s not a bad idea after all¡­James?" "Yeah?" "Will you stay with me tonight?" I stroked her hair and tugged a blanket over us, closing the blinds with telekinesis. "Go to sleep, Maki. I''m not going anywhere." Interlude: Star Crossed The castle of Tempesthurst Wood slumped upon its foundations, its great stones like sleeping giants resting their misshapen heads upon the shoulders of their compatriots. There was an odd majesty to its hapless walls that defied all appearances. Constructed with bewitched stones and sacred geometry, the fortress had stood for more than a thousand years, and would for thousands more. But it was not the manmade structure that demanded reverence from visitors or conjured the undeniable awe within them as they first entered the shadow of its valley. Forty millennia ago, this crook formed by the meeting of three hills and two streams had been the grave of mammoths who, it was said, worshiped their own primordial god here. Very many years later, their bones would be worked into crude temples by the druids from whom they had inherited their Order. For longer than mankind had worked fields, Tempesthurst had called to those who were seeking, to the curious, the wise, and above all, the ambitious. As befitted her destination, her bustier dress was a timeless, strapless, black number made bespoke for her elegant figure. Her car was a borrowed Aston Martin, one of four remaining in this model, and her driver was the daughter of its owner. It was only right to arrive at Tempesthurst in gifted transportation. The Thorn Pact was an organization for the freedom of its members to behave how they saw fit, bound only by the few laws and principles they set for themselves. What could represent freedom better than a luxury car she had no responsibility for and a pretty girl in a too-tight tuxedo that did anything she asked? "Wow," said Mary breathlessly as the castle emerged from the ancient woods surrounding it. "It''s stunning, isn''t it? Like a fairy tale." "And I thought you didn''t care for castles, my dear," said Genevieve in a smug and refined Parisian accent. "If you''ve seen one, no?" Mary pouted and stammered an excuse, unaccustomed to even the mildest of teasing. The heiress had been betrayed by her upbringing; her parents'' desire to coddle and control her had produced in the woman of twenty a girl so na?ve that she was as functionally helpless at navigating the world as a newborn calf. Genevieve viewed their relationship in that light as a cruel necessity. The girl needed a firm hand to keep her from walking blindly into the arms of a devil, and it was better that it be her than a man who sought only a slave. Genevieve sighed as Mary drove past the entrance of the castle and parked alongside the other dozen or so luxury vehicles on the grass. "A chauffeur is meant to drop her passenger off, Mary. I''m wearing heels, ma ch¨¦rie. Certainly, you have observed this before? You have had your own driver in the past, have you not?" "Oh, yes, sorry, Genevieve," said Mary, turning as pink as her lipstick. It wasn''t that the girl was stupid; on the contrary, she had excelled in academia. Mary had passed five A-levels in subjects her parents had selected for her, and another in Dance, her sole curricular request. She simply struggled with all forms of independent thought. Genevieve put her hand on the gear level, preventing Mary from shifting out of park. She was certain that if the girl were to attempt reversing out in her low panic, she''d damage the car and multiple others on the way out. "It''s alright, Mary. I will make do," she said in a casual tone, checking her make-up in the sunshade mirror. "It is no great trouble to go barefoot for a dozen meters. We may settle for a light punishment, don''t you think?" Her chauffeur gulped, simultaneously in shambles at the thought of her mistake and salivating for a chance to atone for it. "Whatever you feel is appropriate, Genevieve. I brought your, erm, tools in my purse." "Good," she said, maintaining a bored tone, not bothering to glance at the petite blond as she reapplied her metallic silver lipstick. The color worked wonders beneath her dark blue eyes. "The clamps will not be necessary. Handcuff yourself around the steering column, and set your vibrator to four. Ah, and gag yourself and strip; I don''t want you embarrassing me with drool stains on your jacket, nor will I force your animal moans on your peers. I do hope that even you can figure out the order in which to do those, Marigold. If I come back and you are still dressed and in handcuffs, it will be several weeks until your next climax." Mary''s eyes flicked to where another chauffeur had exited his car and had lit himself a cigarette not three meters from them and in full view of the driver''s side window. Her legs squeezed tightly as a shiver ripped through and her breath quickened as images of her imminent humiliation assaulted her brain. "Yes, mistress." "What do you say?" "Thank you, Genevieve." She shivered again at the words, though this time she had only eyes for her mistress, nothing short of absolute adoration shining through. "Good girl." Genevieve Lyon, born Davis House, exited the car gracefully, looking like a painting in motion, or a goddess blessing this world in her passing. She savored the feeling of grass beneath her feet, knowing that more than a hundred generations of talented mages had walked this very path before her. Her dress was short, and the late summer, early autumnal English air was cold against her exposed flesh. She reveled in the sensations, each chill breeze against her pale, flawless, feminine body a reminder of this gift she''d lucked into, and her every step through the damp earth another one closer to powers beyond belief. Everything she''d ever dreamed of and more had come to her. Everything save one or two things, depending on how she categorized them, but those would come soon, she told herself. The Patch Notes confirmed that everyone had survived the week, and that their years of gaming together had not been wasted. Her friends would live until they could be reunited again; she had to believe that. And more¡ªwell, maybe not more importantly, but as importantly in a different, more desperate way, Alan had won the Popularity Poll, which meant that he would be strong and capable when she arrived at Black Harbor in just two weeks. Of that, she did not need to believe; she knew it with the same certainty that she knew her own name. Alan never let her down. He was a rock upon which you could build your life, her Alan. Tempesthurst Castle had expanded since its origins in prehistory into the hills around it, its simple design and stuccoed stone meeting the dirt of the English countryside on three sides, acting as retaining walls against the great, mossy slopes. Gnarled trees, untouched by the ravages of age and kept alive by the hobbies of various members of their Order, grew tall and hung low over the structure, their branches swallowing some towers whole and becoming one with the climbing vines. It was an apt place for the Order of the Red Rose to meet. The castle was old and poorly maintained, but impressive, nonetheless. Nor did it need their care. More enterprising and long-deceased predecessors had done all the hard work of securing the fortress against time and enemy action for them. Rare scenarios might arise that required collaborative effort to solve, but outside of those, the Order was safe resting upon its laurels. At least, that was the general prevailing attitude among the members. Genevieve had the genre knowledge to know the Producers would not have sent her here were that indeed the case. The enormous wooden gates through the outer walls had been opened in preparation for the arrival of the Order, and sounds of very British merry-making could be heard drifting through. They chortled in England once the booze came out. Before that, they were more likely to chuff, chuckle, or snort than outright belly laugh. She couldn''t rightly say which she preferred. As she entered the courtyard, hors d''oeuvres were being served by castle staff, a perpetually confused and magically befuddled lot drawn from nearby villages. Good food and drink were fundamental to combating the all-consuming indolence that infected the modern Thorn Pact. Already as it was, they could not entice more than a fraction of their total membership to come to these meetings; were it not for the deviled eggs and artisan ciders, she doubted she''d see even a quarter of those that did. Vera Galton, the Marchioness of Dorset, pulled up her skirt and swept across the courtyard towards her and out of the conversation she''d been trapped in. "Genevieve, darling, you''ve arrived at last!" exclaimed the plump grand dame. Leaning up to exchange cheek kisses, she added in a lower voice, "My eternal gratitude, love. You''ve rescued me from that bore, Viscount Rochford. If I had to hear him prattle on about the theoretical applications of Pluto for a second more, I would have slit my own throat. Who uses Pluto for their workings? It''s absurd. The man does one clever bit of blood magic with mosquitoes and thinks he''s a genius in every field for the rest of his life. Oh, I love your hair. You should curl it more often." Genevieve laughed and tossed her black mane proudly; she''d had it made into a witchy tangle for the meeting, knowing how much the older woman would appreciate the gesture. Vera was her sponsor for the Pact, a bold proclamation of friendship by any measure; had the Rose declared Genevieve treacherous in her intentions to join, it would have been the death of them both. "Thank you, Vera, but it will be straightened again for work soon enough." She had skipped New York Fashion Week to continue her plots in London, but there was always a job when you had the face of Genevieve Lyon. "Ah, say no more. The burden of being absurdly beautiful, I know it too well from my youth." "But you know it still, surely!" The old woman preened, gasping with delight. She rested her chin on the back of her hand and batted her eyebrows. "Oh, it''s true, darling! You know me too well; I was simply being humble." Vera hid a girlish giggle behind her hand. Magic had preserved her well, but it had not halted the signs of age. At ninety-nine, the elder mage was full of vigor, and her mind was as sharp as it had been at Genevieve''s relatively tender age of thirty-four, but still, her cheeks sagged with wrinkles, her skin was spotted and thin, and her spine had stooped her many centimeters short of her theoretical max of 150. They were not martial artists, and magic was not Qi. Vera had chosen not to risk madness seeking eternal youth and had instead spent her many years pursuing her hobbies and niche interests, something Genevieve thought the world of her for. Both Genevieve and Vera were contractors for French Intelligence, the origin of their partnership. DGSE put them in touch after Genevieve expressed to her handlers a desire to broaden her mystical pursuits; she had been feeling limited at the time by the demands of her Goddesses. Theirs was a natural partnership ¨C Genevieve, a Petitioner of the Hesperides, nymphs of the evening, and Vera, a wizard whose powers relied on the movements of astrological bodies, had much to offer each other. But in the ensuing years since their first meeting, the relationship had grown into something so much more than professional. It felt to her that anytime she saw the grand dame beam that easy smile up at her, they were destined friends, tied together through the cycles of reincarnation. She knew that Vera viewed her as a proxy granddaughter, and Genevieve had no trouble admitting that she much preferred the English woman to her sole living grandmother, who could not go a full meal without spitting vitriol over perceived slights. It was hard to believe that such a profound friendship had come from a last-minute decision to spend her remaining Starting Experience on a mentor. Had it not been for Nasim''s advice, she may have found herself in England with only her wits for true company. "Mentors are always the most busted option," he''d said. "If I wasn''t going for the solo operator build, I''d have bought five." "Should we go over my information prior to the meeting proper, Vera?" she asked professionally. She could guess at the woman''s response, but for her own sake, Genevieve liked to be thorough. They had Lord Watt''s assistance guaranteed for their mission, but the cover-up would involve a few others, and she wanted everything in place before tomorrow. As expected, her friend immediately waved her off. "I have all faith in your abilities, dear, no need. Now, come, I''ve been dying to show you this." She pulled a gilded monocle from her purse and held it up proudly. "Behold, the Globe Monocle! I made it in order to view an original Shakespeare at its eponymous stage, but the changes to the Gregorian calendar threw everything off. Regardless, the enchantment works all the same, even if the numbers are off by a few decades, and we''re lucky enough tonight that our meeting overlaps with the past. Look!" Genevieve took the proffered monocle gingerly, noting the delicate, golden sigils that encircled the glass. As she lifted it to her eye, however, Vera stopped her. "Wait, first point it at the Roses!" She did so and furrowed her brow in confusion. At the center of the courtyard grew the holy hedge upon which their covenant to one another was made, a single bush of ever-flowering white roses that grew over three meters high and spanned twice that in width. This plant and its Pact-making thorns were what they had truly inherited from the ancient druids, not the castle or its location. A cutting of the sacred white roses had been passed from one mage to another over countless thousands of years, going back into time immemorial, until one had finally found root in this glen. "It looks¡­the same, no? Slightly different position of branches and flowers, but otherwise identical." "Yes," whispered Vera reverently, "it is virtually unchanged. Marvelous, isn''t it, almost beggars belief to see it in person. We are bound through the hedge to a legacy grander than the mortal mind can even conjure." "I don''t understand. What am I looking at, Vera?" "My girl, remember why I created the Globe Monocle! You are viewing precisely five hundred and sixteen years into the past!" Genevieve paused to consider that. "No! Don''t do the calculation on when Shakespeare was alive, focus on the Monocle!" She smiled, unsurprised that her mentor had guessed what she''d been thinking. "I do not think the calendar''s changes account for the discrepancy, ma ch¨¦rie." Vera giggled. "There may have been additional errors in my maths. Pan the monocle to the right, though. Look how many more people used to attend the meetings." Indeed, where there were but a handful of small groups conversing over cider and brandy in the present day, there were long tables full of their Order in the monocle. Turks with turbans thrice the size of their skulls, tall Scotts with glowing blue tattoos, and pale women with skin shining of their own light were all seated side by side with knights and nobles, and all, of course, carousing over cider and brandy. Some things were immortal. "Look how many more Occam''s there were then," said Vera. "I do wish they would get out more these days; I haven''t seen Edna in twelve years. You''d recognize them in the monocle if you''d met more of their living relatives, they look remarkably similar." She leaned up and whispered, "A devout dedication to inbreeding." Genevieve panned the monocle to the left and nearly jumped as an elephant appeared in her view only an arm''s length from where they were standing. Vera began chortling at once, knowing precisely what had happened. The elephant was bedecked in shining, many-colored armor and wreaths of flowers, and for a moment, she would have sworn that one of its wise eyes turned to look at her through time and space. "Brilliant, isn''t he? I have no idea why there was an elephant at the meeting, but I must say, it''s a tradition we should consider bringing back. I adore the beasts. Did you know that they mourn their dead for days? And did you see? It can feel our gaze through time!" Indeed, the elephant''s huge eye flicked back to her own, and Genevieve realized with a start that she hadn''t been imagining it; the creature truly was looking directly at her from across a distance of over five hundred years! "Incredible," she said, awed once more by the magic of this universe. Genevieve could live to ten thousand and never grow tired of pursuing the mystic arts. "A Ganeshi visitor, I assume," rumbled a deep voice from behind them. "From back when our Order could entertain guests without appearing decrepit and dull." Genevieve turned to see the imperious form of Lord Kian Watt towering over her in one of his usual, understated three-piece suits. "My goodness, Lord Watt! You are quiet for a man of your size." He bowed, a gentleman through and through. "Ms. Lyon. Lady Galton. Forgive me; I did not mean to sneak up. May I?" he asked, extending his hand for the monocle. She acquiesced, and he lifted it to his face. The device seemed comical in comparison to the massive man; Lord Watt''s hands were meant to wield weapons, and his eyes were meant to peer through the scopes of rifles, not delicate golden monocles. "Ah, yes, Prince Varakunarama, a Champion of Holy Ganesh. Later felled by the venom of a Naga alongside one of my relatives, if I recall our family records correctly. A property dispute gone wrong ¨C some things never change, I suppose. One of my ancestors was rescued by a Ganeshi Petitioner some thousand six hundred years ago, and we have since honored our debt in whatever way we can." He passed the monocle back to her and bowed his head to her mentor. "A wonderful creation, Vera, though it does pain me to see how far we have fallen since those days. I would know only shame were I to bring a Champion of Ganesh to Tempesthurst as it stands now." Vera shrugged off his critiques. "These things are cyclical, Kian. Glory comes and goes with the tide. Take pride in the peace our families have built together." "Peace, is it? I wonder." He turned his hard grey eyes to her, and she felt her heart quicken. If Lord Watt were not so famously possessive of his women then Genevieve may have been tempted to give him a spin. He was undeniably attractive despite his age and weathered appearance. But both the system and her profession necessitated her taking multiple lovers, something she knew the Petitioner of Cernunnos would not tolerate. "Is that the case, Ms. Lyon? Are we in peacetime? What was the result of your investigation into the Kerr scion?" "It was as you suspected, Lord Watt, and worse. I uncovered direct evidence of the binding of Night Gaunts and found references to Vile Dominion and the creation of Flying Ointment. Daggett Kerr can only mean to secede from his family tradition of taking the Thorn Pact. He has enthusiastically engaged in dark magic since his days in boarding school and has been entertaining cultists at his family manor since the death of his father. Tomorrow, in fact, he intends to meet with worshipers of a Marid, I believe to purchase or trade for their method of enslaving servants." Watt''s eyebrow rose, not at the news but at the quality and quantity of it. It had been only five days since he''d asked her to investigate Daggett Kerr''s reticence to take the Covenant of the Rose as his ancestors had for more than nine centuries. "Then it is as I suspected, a grave finale to a once noble family. Many of the works and relics in the Kerr''s Manor were the result of collaborative effort; were they to be unraveled by outsiders¡­" Vera patted the giant on his elbow reassuringly. "Never you worry, Kian. Genevieve and I have already arranged a solution to the problem. She''s secured an invitation for tomorrow''s celebrations, and I am finally getting a chance to do something I''ve dreamed of for years. We''ll need you to circumvent the Kerr''s hedge maze, and the Holt''s connections to prevent mortal coverage of the clean-up effort, but the core of the plan is in place. Not that I''d turn down further assistance, of course." A dark cloud passed over Watt''s face. "I would be delighted to make an appearance to pass final judgment. Daggett''s father was a friend." Vera purred, a wicked gleam in her eye. "That may be, dear, but I assure you, you will want to be very, very far away from Kerr Manor. Unlike you, I have despised the Kerrs since I first had the displeasure of meeting Lydia Kerr at a Christmas Party during the war, the busy-body bitch. As I said, I''ve dreamed of this. But this is business best discussed inside. Shall we?" Vera led the trio to the white rose bush at the center of the courtyard and took a small pruning knife from her purse, cutting each of them a flower in early bloom, just as it had begun to open. As tradition demanded, she was first to demonstrate her loyalty to the Order, grabbing the thorny stem of her rose hard enough to break skin. Akin to Gugnir and the Rings of the Fairy Queens, the rose hedge could work on promises made in blood, such as the covenant every member entered into upon their joining. They would work no spells upon each other without permission; they would not take the life of a fellow member; they would not steal from a fellow member; and they would forbid themselves from any magic that risked the destruction of their souls. It was this very basic ritual and agreement that Daggett Kerr had been avoiding since coming to his maturity. That last promise and the minuscule amount of restrictions it put on his potential sorcery had been deemed unacceptable by his spoiled, boyish mind. Droplets of blood traveled up through Vera''s tight grasp as the magic of the bush began to pass its judgment. There was no fooling the plant; you could no more lie or disguise your intentions to break your oath as you could stop the sun from rising and setting. As the blood touched the white petals, the flower bloomed fully and changed to crimson. Had it turned black, it would have meant that Vera had broken one of the four promises, ashen grey would have meant that she intended to, and had it turned red but retracted to a bud, it would have meant that she was possessed or otherwise ensorcelled by mind-affecting enchantments. The magic was simple, but when employed correctly, it could serve as the unshakeable foundation for empire. Watt and Genevieve followed along, all three carrying their now bright red rose into the castle proper, adjourning from the party to plot and scheme as only mages could. Seeing them enter the dim, vaulted halls of Castle Tempesthurst sparked curiosity in their peers, and soon enough, their motley Order was assembled within. The sight of Mary handcuffed, gagged, and in only panties and bra caught her by surprise when she returned to the car an hour and a half later. She had, in her scheming, forgotten that she commanded the girl to punish herself. Mary looked a mix of embarrassed and thrilled to see her mistress, as well as proud of herself. Genevieve undid the ball gag and cuffs, and turned her wireless vibrator to its lowest setting, freely unlocking the girl''s phone to do so. It was in moments like these that, despite the fact that Marigold Travers was twenty and consented to everything they did, Genevieve became acutely aware that some might call their relationship inappropriate. Out of universe, Mary was the result of their group not realizing you could, and were expected to, invest more than the minimum Starting Experience in your Sidekick. The process of character creation was so arcane that by the time Genevieve had realized she''d bought a completely untrained assistant, it had been too late to fix. She had taken the Sidekick option early on in making Genevieve, imagining her as a sort of Gal Friday for the super spy, and couldn''t be bothered to go back and retally her spent Experience to improve her. It turned out that while a base Sidekick had a lot of potential, that was all they had. In universe, Mary, by virtue of an overly sheltered childhood, was the emotional and intellectual equivalent of a clay carving block. However, ignoring meta-history and uncomfortable questions about free will, she would argue that what she was doing to Mary was the best-case scenario for the heiress. Genevieve had the Master Feat Groomed to Excellence, and thus the girl was quite literally being sexually tormented into superhuman abilities. She gained Experience for edging, engaging in kinks for the first time, gaining new kinks, and crossing taboos, much like Genevieve herself did. They were in it together. She might have felt guilty all the same, but the Feat had been earned and upgraded via Quest Rewards ¨C what was she going to do, not use it? What good would that do for anyone? "I didn''t come once!" said Mary excitedly. She stroked the girl''s blond locks and returned her smile. "Good girl. I am very proud of you." She grinned approvingly at the sound of the girl''s happy moan. "Now, you may get dressed. Or, if you''d like, you may drive us back as you are, in which case I will allow you as many orgasms as you''d like tonight." "Like this?" squeaked the girl, looking down at her nearly naked form, drool-slick breasts glistening by the light of the moon peeking through the clouds. She could not bring herself to verbally answer, but nodded and shifted to reverse. Mary drove them back to her home, or rather her parents'', dry-mouthed and red-faced all the way. Her father, Roderick Travers, had hired his baby girl''s favorite ballerina out of semi-retirement to act as a mentor and coach for her. He knew better than most that success was not accomplished via talent and effort, but by who you knew and how you knew them. Mary had done well enough in dance and design but was by no means a prodigy or serious talent. She would have languished in poverty had she tried to make it in either of her dream professions by herself, but by the connections that Genevieve could offer his daughter, Mary might find a position in the Royal Ballet or a Paris Fashion House regardless. He''d even gone so far as to put up Genevieve in a guest house on their family estate, and regularly paid for shopping trips and other luxury expenses, showering her in everything and anything he could to keep his bumbling child in the model''s good graces. The Travers estate had been a place of quiet, reserved sin prior to her arrival. Roderick was cheating on his wife, who was in turn cheating on her husband, and their daughter, while a blushing virgin, was addicted to hardcore pornography. Genevieve was by now sleeping with all three members of the family, though only Mary was aware of her dalliances with the others. It had been for the Experience at first, and then simply because she enjoyed sex, but once she gained an appreciation for the full scope of her abilities as a Player Character, it developed a grander purpose. Genevieve would rescue this family from the hentai Bad Ends that Fate had set out for them. She wasn''t entirely sure how yet, but she was certain that she could manage it. All she had to do was play the game as it was meant to be played. By using sex and perversion, she would shape this world to her desires without trouble from Fate, the Producers, and whatever other ephemeral powers that be. She wasn''t a fool; she knew she couldn''t find them an innocent fairy tale ending, but she had no doubt that a hentai Bad End could be replaced with a hentai Good End. At the very least, she could get Mr. and Mrs. Travers to agree that a consensually non-monogamous relationship was better than one in which they betrayed each other and their vows daily. Dice willing, Cici and Ted would come to a similar agreement. Though, she was rather on Cici''s side in that relationship than Ted''s, no matter how it played out. Genevieve could remember well the look of heartbreak on the woman''s face when she confided that she''d lost all hope of Ted moving them to Thailand as he''d promised. Their marriage had been over that day, even if neither admitted it to themselves. Only social momentum and the fear of being alone held it together for years after ¨C something she''d thought was tragic once. No longer, though, now she had hope. Cici and Ted''s decision to forgo a divorce and settle into lives of quiet misery had delivered them into this game, and this strange world of contradictions, both grim and beautiful at the same time. They had been living a Bad End, but now they had a second chance at life. Cici, as Erina, had the confidence she so desperately needed in her past life, and Ted, as¡­Antonio D''Antonio? She wasn''t quite sure; he''d been dark since day one ¨C regardless, Ted had been forced to rip the band-aid off his crippling fear of change. Genevieve could now see a path forward for the couple where there had been none before. Maybe she was being as na?ve as Mary in her hopes for her friends, but Alan had once said something that had stuck with her: "I''d rather live life hopeful only to be momentarily disappointed, than to be constantly assuming the worst. Cynicism is exhausting." He had said that during D&D while arguing with Nasim, and it wasn''t meant to be profound, but it had stayed with her all the same. She made Mary tend to her like a handmaiden and masseuse in the bath before finally rewarding her with a climax at the ends of her talented fingers. The girl passed out, as she often did after hours of edging, but with Genevieve''s 7 Dice in Strength, she was easy enough to carry to bed. Once alone, Genevieve allowed herself her favorite narcissistic treat; she sat cross-legged and naked in front of a mirror and daydreamed while admiring the view. This week had been a hellish whirlwind of stress and intrigue. London was a city-sized tangle of conspiracies, and it had been her job to pull on a single thread and follow it to its conclusion without getting wrapped up in something beyond her control. Her goal was to be out of England and into Black Harbor as soon as possible, something she had to remind herself of often when stalking in and out of the city''s dismal, cult-infested Underworld. The best way to arrive in New Jersey was to come with the full force of the Thorn Pact behind her, and the best way to do that was to elevate Lord Watt''s position within the Order so that the glory-hound could finally get his long-desired expansion into America. It had been exhausting to walk the narrow path of investigating Daggett Kerr''s dealings with inhuman monsters and dark wizards without making any new and exciting enemies. But the Dice had been benevolent, and with equal parts sluttery and cunning, Genevieve had done it. Last week, the Order of the Red Rose had been barely more than a Lion''s Club, and the idea of it actively expanding anywhere was absurd, let alone to the notoriously fast-paced American Northeast. They had not, as a group, done anything of note for over two hundred years. But the threat of Kerr selling off knowledge and great works that had been created in part by the same predecessors responsible for many of their ancient defenses was too serious to ignore. Upon seeing evidence of Daggett''s betrayal, everyone present insisted on participating in his total destruction. He had, by being a short-sighted, impulsive boy, united the once mighty secret society after centuries of apathy and disinterest. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. After tomorrow, except for a brief photoshoot on Sunday, she''d be taking some serious time to herself to recuperate. Genevieve had lost track of how many times it had come down to the wire, one bad roll away from total catastrophe; she''d fucked, sucked, and fought for her life until she''d earned enough Experience that she could barely be described as human anymore. So, just what the hell had Alan been up to that he had taken first in the Popularity Poll? She had to admit, no disrespect to the man, but when she saw that he had both failed to find her after following hundreds of ballerinas and that he''d left his DMs closed, Genevieve had not expected that he''d be beating her for both Experience and Popularity a week later. Forgetting to open his DMs was a very Alan mistake to make, as was forgetting the names of characters and their backstories. He had never been one for social media, and he argued vociferously that it was more ''efficient'' for him to wait a few sessions to get their character details down. Her socials were mostly in French, and she hadn''t been a full-time ballerina for almost a decade; he''d completely missed her in his net. Not that his plan failed entirely - she ended up hearing about the beautiful and talented James Li through some of her younger colleagues while they were gushing over his thirst traps. She giggled at the thought of her dearest and silliest friend doing his best Inspector Clouseau meets Jackie Chan in a strange, hentai horror world. It was extremely Alan to accidentally end up with a cult following of some of the most psychologically fragile and obsessive women on the planet. She couldn''t wait to see his face when he realized what he''d done. Oh Goddesses, there she went again, smiling, giggling, at the thought of Alan. It was unbecoming of a thirty-four-year-old woman to have a crush on her friend of fifteen years. She was, yes, going to finally ask him out, as she''d wanted to do for as long as she''d known she was bisexual. Genevieve had both the courage and emotional maturity to risk failure now and the social skills required to ensure that it wouldn''t endanger their friendship. But this teenage giddiness he inspired in her since she''d seen his new body had to stop. A dangerous and deadly femme fatale could not be seen twirling her hair in bed while thinking about a boy. She laughed. While thinking about her man, she amended. Alan had never been a boy; he''d been far too serious, even about the pettiest and silliest things since he was young. Before his superpowers and new, bombastic second half in James Li, the man had long been quietly ridiculous in his own, charming way. She remembered the day they met as fondly as she did her first moments in this life. It had been the first week of sophomore year on the quad. Genevieve was deep into rethinking her life and whether or not she wanted to do another year of college; she''d managed, against all odds, to not make a single friend, go to a single party, or even get invited to a club in her first two semesters. Freshman year had vanished in a grey haze of social anxiety and depression, and she''d been seriously wondering if the life of a cashier at a grocery store in her small New England hometown could possibly be sadder than sticking it out in her current pathetic condition. "Hey, is there any chance you play Magic?" he''d said in an even but enthusiastic voice, his face a mask of utter Zen as he snapped her from her reverie. The idea that someone might freely approach to socialize stunned her, and two feelings struck at once, paralyzing her where she sat. First, she thought, ''Is he asking me to hang out? I wish I could approach random strangers and do that.'' And second, she thought, ''Do I tell him the very traumatic story about my mom''s psycho boyfriend tearing up all my cards because he thought they were demonic? Would that scare him away?'' The result was that she stared silently at him, mouth open, a vague look of fear on her face. Alan had been unphased; he nodded and smiled as if she''d responded with something sensible. "Or would you be interested in learning to play?" he continued. "There''s a pre-release at Mystra''s Web, and I have enough store credit to pay for five people other than me. It''s a good time for a few hours, and it''s my favorite Magic format. Mystra''s also kicks people out if they smell bad or harass others, so no downsides, really." She managed to force herself to speak. "Okay." Alan paused and then shook his head as if she''d slapped him. The veneer of monk-like acceptance faded. "What, really?" "Yes?" He let out a long breath, semi-collapsing in on himself, resting his hands on his knees. "Oh, god, finally. You''re the twenty-second person I''ve approached, no lie. Twenty-two people, can you believe that? I mean, it''s a popular game, you''d have thought¡ªanyway. Don''t get me wrong, it stopped being embarrassing and started being just funny after the tenth person, but still, holy shit. Okay," he clapped his hands and rubbed them together, "this plan is very much still a go. Don''t worry; we''ll have a lot more success in a group than I had solo; we''re way more approachable. I''m Alan, by the way." Somehow, her confusion took priority over her typical social anxiety, and she had no difficulty responding. "Davis. Sorry, what''s the plan?" "Oh, yes, sorry. You see," he leaned forward and gained this sly, ridiculous smile as though he''d just thought of a great joke, "I''ve had this fucking genius idea. Like I said, sealed Magic, what we''ll be playing at the pre-release, is my favorite format, but since I''ve been here, I''ve lost to this one guy in town at every sealed event. Then, on the flight over for the new year, I thought," he tapped his temple, "Alan, you fool, there are more ways to win a match of Magic than there are stars in the sky. If I use all of my store credit and bring enough people to the pre-release that there are multiple pools, and then I get seated on a different table, I will have beaten Nasim without him ever having the chance to draw." She wrinkled her brow and pointed out the obvious flaw. "What if you get put into the same pool anyway?" "Aha! I''m so glad you asked! In that case, I will guilt Nasim into building a sloppier deck by pointing out that there are new players present." He smiled proudly and crossed his arms, absolutely thrilled with himself. In a turn of events that had been unthinkable just minutes prior, she found herself smiling and excited. She couldn''t help but root for this strange man and his terrible idea. "Meanwhile, you''ll build a¡ª" "An absolute motherfucker of a deck, yes, of course. You might call it an ugly strategy, but it is a strategy, nonetheless. Anyway, we should get a move on if we''re going to find another four people before the pre-release." Reading her look of terror at approaching strangers, he added, "Don''t worry, I''ll do all the talking, just look normal. But, honestly, man, once you flop three times, it really does start getting funny, so long as you''re okay with laughing at yourself. Think about it this way, this is how I approach social fuck ups: you aren''t humiliating yourself eating shit, you''re just the Mr. Bean of the day. You''re the face that Jackie Chan makes when he gets hurt in a movie ¨C everyone loves that face. Every culture on Earth thinks that face he makes is funny." Incredibly, Alan''s absurd advice, coupled with the experience of, as he said, eating shit repeatedly while asking nearly everyone on the quad if they wanted to play Magic, had cracked through a mental block in her mind. It had been the realization of learning that she was okay with ten failed, somewhat awkward, conversations just for that one time where the person was genuinely receptive and happy to talk to them. Even if Alan hadn''t continued texting and inviting her to hang out, and they hadn''t become dear friends, she still would have pointed back to that day as, in a small way, life-changing. Ten years later, at an EDH night at Nasim''s apartment, Alan had the audacity to claim that he was an introvert. She''d looked at him as if he was mad. "The first day we met, you made us talk to thirty random people." "Sure," he''d responded, waving her off. Alan, in his mind, as always, was the most reasonable man in existence, and everything he did could eventually be attributed to logic. "But I hated it the whole time. I just had a really, really great plan that required me to suck it up for a few hours." Nasim''s jaw dropped, and he launched back into the argument as though it had been a day and not a decade. "I still cannot believe you did that shit. You convinced me to make a simple, classic deck so that we didn''t stomp the newbies, and then you built a white-blue control deck. You psychopath. What''s wrong with you?" "Hey, man, it worked, didn''t it?" "No! It did not work! You didn''t beat me in Magic, you beat me by being a penny-ante villain from a kid''s anime!" "I mean, I literally beat you in Magic that pre-release." "Heinous," said Nasim, shaking his head. "White-blue control with three new players at the table. You''re a monster." She would never mention it to Alan, knowing how it might worsen any guilt he had for getting them involved in this supposed play test, but in retrospect it made perfect sense that he''d caught the attention of SkinDimensional. Alan may have maintained his self-identity as a rational actor, but no one else in her life had so consistently gotten himself into minor antics. Genevieve knew precisely how the Producers and Audience felt; she had adored checking in on Alan''s thoughts and happenings for years; it was practically one of her hobbies. Nothing was more exciting than when Alan began a conversation with, "This is going to sound crazy, but¡ª" That had been exactly how he''d brought up the email for a paid playtesting job. It was so strange to imagine the dominos that had led to that fateful day and her idealized body and superpowers. To think, if Alan''s mother hadn''t shown her five-year-old child the Pink Panther and Mr. Bean movies, and if he hadn''t grown into the kind of man who continued approaching dozens of people in the face of mounting social humiliation, she never would have met him, and none of this would have happened. Genevieve sent herself a wicked, self-assured smile in the mirror ¨C now that was a look a femme fatale could be proud to wear while thinking about her man. Alan, as James Li, had made himself a great number of enemies, and she couldn''t wait to set the record straight with them. He was hers ¨C how dare they? Who did they think they were? She and Alan were Player Characters; there was an order to the universe that had to be respected. The same went for his harem; she was glad they were there taking care of him in her absence, and he was welcome to have them after she returned to him. She couldn''t ask for monogamy while not being prepared to give it in return, but those girls would understand that he was hers first and foremost, just as her own flings would have to understand that she was his and would be forever. Some small part of her still protested that it was wrong to make plans like this for Alan''s heart, wrong for her to be planning on using her formidable Seduction and Charisma Feats on her oldest friend. But was it so wrong to love? She had become a demi-god, and as a demi-god she was supernaturally seductive and beautiful - those were as much a part of her as her arms and legs. Was she forbidden, then, to love with all of herself? It would only be wrong, she reasoned, if she meant to betray or hurt Alan, but on the contrary, she would be a wonderful girlfriend and a better wife to the man than any mortal or immortal on this Earth could hope to be. None of them could ever know him as she could, could love him as she could. No, said a quiet voice in the back of her mind, you know this is wrong. You''re as afraid as ever. You fear that he will reject you and are justifying the indefensible. She pursed her lips and glared at her reflection. Genevieve was beginning to grow annoyed with that voice. The shy, terrified little American would have her cling to the morality of another reality in the face of all reason and context. How could she claim to love this man who had made her smile and laugh for fifteen years and not pursue him with all her power and cunning? Could the clever voice answer her that? Genevieve was a proud French patriot, and she would love her man as her French heritage demanded, with every ounce of her body and soul, and that was that. She would brook no arguments, not even from herself. She shook her head and moved to her drafting desk. Tomorrow was an important mission; she should go over the plan and Vera''s circle again to be safe. The Kerr family manor house had never known any creature as ravishing as Genevieve Lyon. Even as it had fallen into sin in the hands of Daggett Kerr, and begun to host supernaturally appealing monsters and wicked warlocks with flesh-warped sex slaves, she stood above the rest in a category of her own. Her hair had taken the radiant golden hue of the evening sun, the result of the Hesperides granting her a powerful blessing of protection against a single attack until the sun next sat. The only thing that covered her breasts was a long cashmere stole she wore around her shoulders, and all that she had for a skirt was two small rectangular pieces of silk strung together with silver chains. The young Daggett had been putty in her hands since she''d first arrived. There were cultists here; the Marid worshipers had arrived in force, bringing with them a small circus of trained, scantily clad slaves. They were planning an elaborate demonstration of their zeal and talent for Kerr, but she had begged a moment alone with the man prior to the start of the celebrations, and they had seemingly believed her intentions to return him shortly. The manor house was in ruin. Daggett, eighteen-years-old, and not naturally a charismatic or attractive boy, had been throwing raucous, drug-fueled hedonistic orgies in it for weeks. The smell of stale beer and sex was rank in the air, though at least for tonight, the visiting djinn worshipers'' love of hashish and hookah somewhat obfuscated the scents. Family portraits had been desecrated, furniture lay broken in every room, and most of the staff that remained had harrowed looks. Daggett''s lackeys, all aspiring hedge mages and warlocks, had been reassigned many of the managerial tasks in the running of his estate, and their chaotic incompetence showed. The food, for instance, had clearly been ordered from Nando''s before being replated into the mansion''s silverware. Beth Holiday had volunteered at Tempesthurst a way to separate the still human staff from those that had been permanently ruined through Vile Dominion, the broad description for any spells that irrevocably destroyed a mortal psyche. She had, evidently, devised the method as a way for maintaining security within her own hundreds-strong retinue of servants. Genevieve was happy to note that it was working. As she led Daggett through the ballroom, she watched from the corner of her eyes as a number of mortal servants silently excused themselves for the exit. Several miles away, Holiday was blowing a psychically enhanced horn, sending a message that could only be heard by, as she described it, ''the healthy peasant class''. The order was simple but firm, ''Quietly leave this place without making a scene and travel in an orderly fashion as far as you can from it.'' Once this was all done, the surviving servants would be crucial to the cover-up as witnesses who could attest that the Kerr residence had been completely empty this night. In the cool and misty air of the grand patio outside the ballroom, Genevieve leaned close to the boy, pressing her naked breasts into his arms, and mewled in an exaggerated accent, "Ah, mon amour, I ''ave longed to see ze ritual center of your famous Kerr ''edge maze." "Ho ho! Naturally, my dear. I regrettably have grown so used to the thing that I forget at times that we have it back there," he blustered. "Shall I take you there now, sweet thing?" "Oui. Take," she said, lingering on the word, "me there now." Daggett gulped and, casting an eye back at the festivities ongoing in the ballroom behind him, decided that he could afford to make the Marid cultists wait a little longer. They had already traveled from Cairo, surely thirty minutes more would not kill them. The boy walked them through the maze as fast as he could while maintaining the appearance of class and dignity. Before the Kerr family ring on his finger, the dense, English Yew plants moved themselves out of their way as they cut a path to the center of the great ritual circle. The use of moving hedgerows for the rapid formation of large ritual circles was not uncommon, but most were a fraction of the size of this one. Directly underneath the center of the Kerr family hedge crossed two powerful ley lines; one, originating from the Peak District, was colored with the magic of the ancient stone formations there, and the other, coming from the Scottish moorlands, had a somber undertone of loamy death. Together, they had allowed the Kerr family and its ancient allies to grow and enchant an enormous, living ritual circle over a hundred meters in diameter that could be moved in minutes into designs of incredible complexity. Daggett swung around and walked backward into the open-air theater at the center of the maze, arms spread wide and unearned pride shining through on his face. "Welcome to the great, green depression, my dear, as I termed it as a child. Over sixty Prime Ministers have had their memories read and modified at a distance from this place, wizards have scryed upon the Dreamlands safely here, and ancient nature spirits have been summoned and bound. I, however, have known it primarily as a prime picnic location," he said, with a self-effacing, chagrinned smile. "The ground in the middle is exceptionally soft, if you were wondering." At the center of the clearing in the maze was a grassy circle, perfectly flat and level, that had been sunk low. Around it were equally mathematically perfect slopes on all sides, forming the seating for the outdoor theater, and on the cardinal directions in those hills had been placed natural stones where mages could stand and contribute to the workings done here. Her gaze flicked to the grass stage at the center, where she was grateful to see a small bony object reflecting the starlight above. It was precisely where Lord Watt had promised it would be. Genevieve beamed and took Daggett''s hand in hers as she began to chatter mindlessly in effusive French, just as ditzy and distractable as the young aristocrat believed women ought to be. She led him down the slopes onto the grassy circle, careful to keep herself between his line-of-sight and the charm left by her ally. With an ankle hooked behind his calf, she pushed him laughing onto his back where she wanted him. Falling to her knees beside him, she began to tug and tear at his clothing. Daggett tried to reach for her, to feel her divine skin underneath his soft, genteel hands, but she grabbed the offending limbs and redirected them to his belt and buttons. The boy took the hint and started to strip as fast as he could, lacking grace and finesse, and forgetting the basics, like the fact that he needed to undo his laces and shoes before he could rip his pants free. She stood and backed up, begging him nonverbally with her expression to continue baring himself for her. Her delight was not faked, but it had nothing to do with Daggett''s skinny-fat body or the sight of him driven mad with lust before her. The longest week of her life would be over soon, and her plans and desperate gambits would bear fruit. She''d be slipping into her bed tonight assured that she had done all that she could for her friends and the man she loved. Genevieve allowed her stole to fall to the ground, dressed now only in her flat sandals, her fancy loincloth, and the twin earrings hidden within her golden mane. She took a deliberate half-step back and stretched her arms above her head, muttering an invocation in the exact cadence she had practiced with Lord Watt this morning. Beneath her heel was the bone charm he had left for her, a crude and wicked tool made in the approximate shape of a man bound by ropes. She ground the thing into the damp grass and directed her considerable willpower into the shape of her spell. Daggett assumed her quiet words were French, a language he had coasted through six years of schooling in without learning more than a few words of, and his eyes saw only her breasts. Even as the grass began to roil and churn under him, he assumed no ill intent; in the boy''s mind, he had won this beauty by virtue of his wealth and inherited power. It was the right of men like him to have women like her at their beck and call. When the grass grew into ropes that quickly tied his wrists and ankles together and pulled him painfully into the earth, Daggett thought only of kinky sex. Turnabout was fair play; he had done something similar to a girl from his class, tricking her into magical bondage on his bed before taking her virginity roughly. If anything, having the trick done to him only eased his fears that there was something broken and wrong with him, that he was the monster his late father accused him of being. "A woman after my own heart," he said merrily, grinning with anticipation. "But you forget your place, darling. This is Daggett''s Domain." Daggett clenched his fist and commanded the plants to release him. Then, feeling nothing happen, looked up at his bound wrist in shock. His family ring was missing. At his accusatory look, Genevieve held up the ring from where she had hidden it in her palm and slipped it onto her finger. The boy cleared his throat and muttered a curse against fiery, French women; he was annoyed, but still, he thought that he was in for nothing more than erotic roleplay. "Very nice, girl, but you''ll have to work to stay in my good graces now. I won''t forgive the theft of my ring so easily." She said nothing and pulled her brilliant blond hair back so that both simple, round earrings were visible to him. These had been gifts from Nitesh Singh, spares from a similar set that he had given his twin daughters when they''d gone away to college. Genevieve whispered a word in Sanskrit and then pinched down on both earrings, crushing the thin metal with ease and emitting the stored enchantments there. The man had told her one would be enough to calm an angered mother bear but insisted that she take and use both. Singh''s grandfather had helped the Kerrs layer protective charms into the manor house''s stained-glass transoms, and he was naturally anxious for the success of her mission. The effect of the doubled calming spell was immediate on the Kerr scion. All signs of growing suspicion and hostility vanished as the earrings'' enchantments struck his nervous system. He relaxed into his grass bindings, and his mouth fell open, a word of protest dying there to be replaced with a feeble moan. All the stiffness in the rest of his body traveled to his cock, which grew painfully erect. Nitesh Singh had devised the spell to counter any attempts to rape his daughters while also making sure that he didn''t interfere in the young sorceresses'' harvesting of seed from victims. He was a thoughtful father in that way; semen had too many uses in magic of all kinds for him to be prudish and overbearing. Now that she knew Kerr couldn''t interfere with the delicate craft, Genevieve turned her attention to the family ring on her hand and the vast hedge maze around her. She''d been dreading this part of their plan, but thankfully, the Hearse family had allowed her to practice on their much smaller hedge circle before she''d come to the party. Truly, the night''s events would be the product of the Order of the Red Rose moving as one to smite their enemy. With any luck, it would spark a renewal in interest among the members in further, grand endeavors. Holding the image of Vera''s ritual circle in her mind, she commanded the hedges to reposition themselves. The elder astrologist never had the intention of employing this spell against her rival Lydia Kerr when she devised it and, therefore, had never triggered the Rose''s judgment against her. However, she had hated the woman fiercely and had lived long enough to realize many of her whims on paper, if not in reality. Vera invented and then stored away the spell that would destroy Daggett Kerr decades prior, keeping it on the off chance that she could finally employ it without breaking her Covenant. The hedges moved to their new places almost silently, sounding like nothing more than a breeze through the branches. Genevieve double, triple, and quadruple-checked that everything was how Vera had drawn it. For most spells, the size of the Kerr''s ritual circle allowed for margins of error that would be deadly in a smaller setup, but this was no ordinary magic. Tonight, the Thorn Pact would work a spell that would ring out across the world and remind their peers that the Order was very much alive and worth taking seriously. Good, everything was as it was meant to be. She opened her eyes and strutted back to the helpless Daggett, drooling and twitching on the ground. Grabbing his chin with her hand, she forced him to look at her and spoke, dropping her exaggerated accent, "Repeat: Per aspera¡ª" She waited, commanding him with her eyes. Eventually, the order made it through his fogged mind, and Daggett repeated, "Per aspera." Genevieve continued through the rest of the chant, pausing with every few words so that her victim could follow along. Once Daggett could say the full line without mistakes, she dragged her hand down his naked body and grasped his erect cock, chanting in unison with him as she did. Daggett sucked in a sharp breath, making her remove her hand. He looked at her with animal need, begging for her touch. Genevieve continued her chanting, and eventually, the boy understood her orders, joining her once more. As he did, she began to stroke his member, using all of her superhuman skill to take him quickly to the edge. Anytime the boy made a mistake, Genevieve lifted her palm, training him without a word to do as she wanted. Soon, even his befuddled mind could decipher what it needed to do, and the boy was chanting without error as she methodically worked his cock to climax. Once the boy had successfully chanted the spell twelve times without error, and as he was about to finish his thirteenth, Genevieve pointed the penis to the side away from her and started pumping. She timed it perfectly, just as the last words were leaving Daggett''s lips, he came, shooting his cum onto the grass of the ritual circle''s stage. Every time his seed landed, the hedges around them shook their branches, as if they too were orgasming alongside him. The grass bindings on Daggett''s limbs started to writhe and pulse. He moaned, at first in ecstasy and then in pain and fear, as he continued to cum past the point of pleasure, shooting more and fatter ropes of seed with every second that went on. The roots of the hedge maze had tasted his lifeforce and were starving for more. They would not allow him to stop, not until they had drank their fill and fulfilled their contract with their new master. Genevieve wiped the cum on her hand onto the grass beside her and sat back on her heels with a sigh of relief. She turned her face upwards to watch the stars, ignoring Daggett''s hoarse, terrified shouts and cries with ease. There would be no running away now; not only had the maze closed its outer circle in preparation for the spell, but she could not possibly get far enough in the limited time she had. All she could do now was to place her faith in the Hesperides and the protection they had weaved upon her hair. In the clear night above the rural English manor, a new star appeared. It was dim and otherwise unremarkable at first, notable only in the way that it did not twinkle as its peers did. After a minute of Daggett spilling his seed into the grass, though, it had grown brighter than any other star or planet naturally found in the sky. After two minutes, it could no longer be confused for a distant cosmic body, now a bright and rapidly growing fireball on a collision course with the ground. Briefly, very briefly, the meteor eclipsed all other lights, bringing an unexpected dawn to the countryside, casting all the world in apocalyptic reds and yellows as it entered the Earth''s atmosphere with the force and fury of a god. The explosion flung her hundreds of meters away, and while the Hesperides had protected her from the blast, she was forced to take the Damage of the impact on her back as she fell back to Earth, pushing her past two Injury Thresholds and winding her badly as a section of ribs caved in. Genevieve blew strands of her black hair off her face and frowned at the many pop-up Quest notifications that had appeared. They had killed Kerr and destroyed the manor, but it seemed she''d earned the attention of a great djinn, a lord of smoke and shadow, for the trouble. The Marid was displeased by the slaughter of its cult. Ah, well. C''est la vie. At least she''d won an interesting Feat from the mess. She contemplated moving, but even the thought hurt. Instead, she settled in for a little stargazing; Watt would arrive shortly, she was sure, to carry her away. Alan once told her the Chinese believed that when you looked up at the moon and thought of a loved one, they, too, were gazing up and thinking of you. Exhaustion and pain clouded her vision, but even through the tear-fogged haze, the white of the celestial body was clear. Genevieve smiled. "Soon," she promised. "Soon."