“Just so we're clear: I am not getting drunk tonight,” John announced as he looked at the city map. It was a bit annoying that it wasn’t quite the same as actual Amsterdam, thus creating the need to buy one from the Abyss Auction.

Also, why did these things have to appear at times like these?

“But that’s so boring,” Rave complained as he guided them towards a café, “BUT THAT’S SO BORING!” she repeated, under the impression that that was where John wanted to party. He quickly relayed the situation to her and everyone else, and thus they sat down, ordered some random stuff, and then John clicked the ‘run Tutorial’ button.

Hello, this is Gaia’s Patch 1.3 ‘Guild Update’. We are going to do the minor things first, since there aren’t that many updated old mechanics this time around.

Changes to Observe:

1. Observe and Reveal are now one skill. Felt kind of redundant to have both flying around, since Reveal is just a tagged-on effect where you can choose to spend mana. Also the skill level now has a use in that Reveal will now passively act as if you had spent (Skill Level/2)%*your maximum mana to cast it.

2. Observe now also displays Mana under Mental Stats on targets. This change is due to numerous reasons, most of all that the numbers were skewed to begin with, especially the mental stats which were high on some people just to represent how much mana they have. In the same vein, Intellect and Wisdom have been removed on Observe and replaced with Spellpower and Intelligence. I know having different Stats for non-you targets is slightly confusing, but Wisdom and Intellect are really hard to portray accurately with everything else that is attached to them. Your elementals are not affected by the second change. Artificial Spirits are affected by neither.

3. Elementals no longer have a Rank. That was a mechanic I thought I could do something with but never did, and Tier does anything else it would have done anyway, so it is useless.

4. Artificial Spirits not owned by you will now use the Elemental Observe. I know you never got to use it on another person’s AS anyway, but I realized it showed a bit more than you ought to know, and the HP/MP numbers don’t work for people not affected by your ability in the first place.

5. The Emotions area will now display up to four emotions instead of three.

Basically, just a bunch of streamlining of stuff that seriously didn’t make all that much sense. The Stats were only estimate numbers in the first place, not like people level in the same way you do. I was tempted to replace all Stats with F to S-Tiers, but that wouldn’t have worked all that well in detail. I may be screwing with this again if I can figure out another representation system I like, but, given the amount of thought I already gave it, it is rather unlikely.

Oh, right, I also removed the level cap (not that you will see that happen a lot), so Romulus would be displayed as ~1103. It was supposed to be an area where numbers start becoming irrelevant, and they are pretty much just high, but unlike you, nobody else has a hard cap on their powers (not that you necessarily have one, going to keep that piece of design under wraps). The usual person just has a maximum level of potential they tend to reach, and then it’s a struggle.

Now let’s go over to the actual reworks and additions to your powers.

The in-game store:

I thought the Score mechanic from the war quest worked rather well, and since I have to think about how I can sass you but also can’t just give you things every time I do, I decided to create this little system for you. From now on you will get some more Quests and Achievements that give you GP. There will also be some other ways to gain them the World Soul will come up with, I am sure. Thanks to Romulus opening the whole story up to you, I don’t really need to beat around the bush. I just write the descriptions, this magical supercomputer thing does the rest, unless I meddle with it. Which I can. So, don’t piss me off, okay? I am bound by my own rules, but I can still squish you once you violate them. Just be thankful I hooked you up with a power source big enough to get your powers going. Weird light soul you are.

Here is the rundown though (yes, I know that the 4 is above the 3, do not ask):

1. The Stats need extra explanation, because I obviously cannot let you purchase these things cheaply for infinity. Therefore, the cost for these will rise with each point purchased, much more drastically for the percentage bonuses.

2. Nothing really to see here, you know these things from the war quest already. What are those Guild things right of it about? You may be asking yourself that. Well, my dear, impatient Gamer, give me a second and I will explain… in the next mechanic after this.

3. Red numbers are discounted. Too bad for you that you don’t have any points right now, isn’t it? Going to keep my #1 booty to myself… and Zone-tan. Girls are going to have fun once this message is through.

4. This is where special offers will appear sometimes, but it’s generally just the area for rolling on random loot if you ever would want to do that. It's going to cycle each week, sometimes it's going to suck, sometimes it's going to be awesome, you tell me, I have no idea what the World Soul will grind through the randomizer.

That’s just more of a quality of life improvement, really, now to get to the real crux of the patch, the name giving guild mechanics.

1. Core Members tells you how many people are in Collide itself and are limited in number. Total Members lists those as well as members from vassal or otherwise subservient guilds. Guild Funds and Guild Bank are about exactly what you think they are: your organization is affected by some of your less bullshit powers. Guild Hall simply displays what Tier your Guild Hall is. Speaking of which, you should create your Guild Hall sometime soon.

2. These show several things that might be of interest to you. Maybe there will be additions to these in the future, but they are as surely going to change as you are to have sex again.

Unlike other Perk mechanics you know already, your Guild Perks are not meant to provide near endless growth. Instead, they are here to gate your bullshit a bit. You will be able to unlock everything here, given time. Every time you finish one of the categories, your Guild Hall will upgrade in size.

Speaking of the Guild Hall,

The basic idea boils down to this: Every Tier you get a certain amount of Room Slots that you can then invest to create rooms out of the current or former Tiers. Your Guild Hall will start off as a minor ensemble of some facilities and end up as a giant, customized fortress of some description, if that is your style. All depends on the kind of Guild Hall you want to build.

Although knowing you I bet it is going to be a castle to protect your waifus in your giant kinky sex dungeon.

Anyway, you can get more Room Slots through other means, and every Tier upgrade also comes along with a traditional 3-choices perk. Just use Create I.D. while inside your Guild Hall or think about creating your Guild Hall the first time to make it.

And have fun.

_________________________________________________________

“Mhm, some very good stuff,” John said; “Going to pay more attention to it when we are back in America and I can actually set-up the Guild Hall.”

“Sounds less awesome than the classes,” Rave shared her opinion,

“Well, the classes are a vehicle to ship overpowered or broken mechanics to me through a controlled gateway, not like she can just stack more on top of that eternally. I will become a completely over-designed piece of broken software eventually,” he retorted.

“Pretty sure broken already applies to ya,” his girlfriend poked fun at him as he stood up to pay for the coffees. “But I get that ya don’t want to stack too many different mechanics. Usually turns into convoluted video games.”

Eliza quickly finished some sweet pastry she ordered. “There better be a fucking sex dungeon, with chains and shit,” she mumbled with a full-mouth. “And crops and just kinky bondage equipment. John, when the fuck are you going to treat me like a piece of meat, you nice lardass?!” She kicked his shin and then stomped on ahead.

‘Note to self: next time you have sex with Eliza, hang her from the wall,’ John thought.

“We should get some stuff to bind her to the wall right above a vibrator or something,” Rave pretty much repeated out loud.

“Oh my god, I love you,” he blurted out.

“I still have all your bondage equipment with me, Master,” Aclysia added; she was carrying the less immediately needed things inside her inventory. “I would be more than happy to go back to the hotel right now and help you with knotting practice.”

“Nope,” Rave intervened, “we are going into a club, still! I haven’t been partying since getting over here, and I miss the flickering lights and loud beats. We gonna do what I want today!”

“I just want to see what in the name of Tiamat those clubs look like,” Metra wondered as they wandered over a bridge. One more street corner and they entered the red-light district. This was where everyone thought the best clubs would be, so this is where they went.

John had already heard about the infamous street in Amsterdam where they had window-shopping for prostitutes. Abyssal Amsterdam took this a step further, it seemed. Aside from the buildings honouring the real-life equivalent, having story over story of attractive girls in all shapes and races, they also had what John only could describe as fetish houses. Each of them subscribed to some sort of theme.

There were restaurants where you ate from someone’s body (bringing your own partner reduced the cost), which seemed to be the most popular thing around. John really wanted to go in there. Metra licked her lips and purred like a cat in heat when she spied a love hotel where the entire front was glass, allowing everyone to see exactly what the people inside were doing. There was a horror house with two entrances where people could roleplay non-consensual intercourse, to put it carefully. Of course one line was much longer than than other.

Swinger clubs, massage parlours, domination booths, and degradation rows, there was a lot of sexual liberation around here, so much, in fact, that John was pretty sure he didn’t want to explore this whole district too deeply because there was bound to be some catering to some fetishes he wasn’t all that comfortable with.

“Why are we looking for a club around here?” Nia wondered. A fair question, this cesspool of debauchery looked more like it would provide STDs, questionable drugs and orgies to flashing lights than a dance floor. Luckily, this was the Abyss, so STDs weren’t a big problem if you had a good healer (Undine), neither were questionable drugs as magical engineering provided all the high with minimal low, but the orgies were a legitimate concern.

“Because they have one where ya can step off the dance floor, rent a room for the night, go have sex in a private room, and then get right back on the dance floor,” Rave explained to the pariah. “They have less extreme stuff around here, ya know? We gonna stay the night there and then check what we wanna do in the morning and stuffs.”

“Okay,” Nia just nodded.

“What is it called again?” John asked, putting his phone into his inventory. They had found the street, so there was no reason to keep staring at his phone instead of checking out what was sexual paradise.