“What is it with ya and jacuzzis anyway?” Rave asked while lying on a sunchair, Copernicus in her lap and the back angled as far down as possible.

“The jacuzzi is the ultimate culmination of relaxation designs,” John explained, arms around Aclysia and Metra with Eliza between his legs giving him a casual underwater blowjob. This was a repeated occurrence recently, and he would not complain about it anytime soon. “Not only does the bubbling of the water gently massage the muscles, but with its seats it allows for a supreme relaxation while the steady influx of fresh water keeps filth to a minimum… although that last part is probably only true for these, don’t know how wasteful non-abyssal jacuzzis are, with water being a non-summonable good.”

“Ya sound like a salesperson,” his girlfriend giggled.

“And you look stupid, what are you even trying to do? Tan?” John asked. “Because I feel obligated to point out that that will be a terribly inefficient thing in the winter.”

“Huh, really?” Rave propped up her upper body and looked at John with one eye closed. “Okay, I wanna hear that trivia, tell me why.”

“Well, easily put, tanning is an increase of pigmentation in your skin that your body deems necessary due to damage from UV rays. UV intensity increases in the summer, is dependant on latitude and on how close you are to the equator. We are off the shores of north-western Europe and, as already mentioned, it’s winter. The only somewhat redeeming thing that could be said is that it is shortly after noon,” John explained.

“Okay, why do ya know that?” a justified question. “I mean, it’s common sense anyway, but to actually know that just shows how much of a nerd you are.”

“Reddit,” came the answer, “you never know what people learned today unless you go to the TIL forum.”

“Fair enough,” Rave laid back down on her sunchair. “Anyway, answer is no, I just like the feeling of lying in the sun. Besides that, I only get tan when I want to.”

“I guess you aren’t really running into the risk of getting damaged from sunlight, given that you are a Lightbearer and all that,” John theorized.

“Ex-act-ly,” the pink haired girl spelled out. Then she put on her headphones, the ones with the cat ears which she had been gifted on Christmas, and a few seconds later was wiggling her toes to some beat and taking a sip of her Pina Colada.

John felt a sudden pain in his left shoulder and found Metra had bitten him. “I am bored, heavily and truly bored,” she announced, got out from under his arm and stepped out of the jacuzzi. “Yo, Aclysia, you found out what the program is by now or what?”

“Why would I tell you?” Aclysia glared at her for unnecessarily hurting John, who she now embraced on her own as nobody else was there to compete with her cuddling.

“Because if I don’t get something to do in the next 10 minutes I won’t be responsible for my actions,” she explained. “I am construct of war, the very first one even; this tranquillity shit makes me-“ Eliza broke from the bubbling jacuzzi with a desperate yapping for air, “-angry. And, did you make it?”

Eliza presented the remainder of a load of cum in her mouth and then swallowed it. “Yeah, you owe me, shitcan,” the two of them had bet whether or not Eliza could hold her breath long enough to get John off. They hadn’t wagered on anything, it was just a pride contest.

“Congratz, you are now officially an underwater troll-sexdoll,” Metra smirked.

“Fuck you,” Eliza said as she also got out of the pool.

“How creative, got anything else in you?”

“How about: your creator had a stupid beard that looked like bread rolls?” Eliza presented, “Or maybe: you have no manners, and if you bite John again, I will rip your fucking eyes out.”

John cleared his throat, “Eliza, in this harem you are definitely the one that hurts me the most, and that is without counting our first meeting.”

“Eat a huge fucking bagel covered in dicks, John,” Eliza complained, “and what are you crying about?! …Wait, are you actually crying?”

Metra was hiding her face inside her armlet and her shoulders were quivering. “Y-yes,” she sniffed and looked up with a sorry look on her face, “I am grieving your sense of proper insults. It’s all just swear words and threats with you.”

“I will end y-…” Eliza stopped herself, and the two exchanged a moment of silent eye contact. “You win this round, bimbo Rave,” the blood mage finally caved and climbed out of the jacuzzi.

“I win all the rounds,” Metra triumphantly laughed and turned back to Aclysia. “Seriously though, we need something to do.”

John hummed in thought, “We should at least check what is going on, program wise; also, I want to meet the crew before any sort of crisis happens… one moment please.” His attention shifted elsewhere and he raised his hand at the sky.

“Hi, you are in the airspace of John Johnny Johnson Junior Newman, the big Jay with a big J at the start of his name,” Sylph flew right next to a standard air drone, which she palavered with words. “If you are here to make photos and generally spy on my summoner, I am told that you can’t. This has been Sylph air patrol.”

The drone did not answer, it just kept a steady speed in relation to the ship in a position from where it could easily film John and his pool. “Is this thing on?” Sylph asked and flew right in front of the camera. Evidently this thing did not have a sound sensor and immediately tried to get away the second whoever controlled it had noticed what was actually going on.

On the deck, John lowered his hand as using Shardbound didn’t seem necessary anymore. ‘Sylph, follow the drone and I will give you something nice when you come back, okay?’

‘Audible gasp!’ she thought out loud, ‘is it your dick?!?’

‘If you want it to be,’ John giggled and left her to it. He didn’t want to destroy some poor hobby filmmaker’s drone, but he also didn’t want to get filmed. Not that he planned to do anything reprehensible, but he really didn’t like feeling as if he was being watched at every turn, especially if he planned to do more than receive blowjobs in this jacuzzi. Having sex tapes of himself circulate was one thing he really didn’t need to happen.

After adjusting his trunks and tapping Aclysia on the shoulder to warn her, he too got up. Siena and Gnome were playing with a ball in the shallow end of the pool. That was an unusual pairing. After a particularly teasing comment from the nightmare elemental, Gnome hit the ball with the force of an embarrassed boulder. It bounced of Siena’s face who fell backwards into the water.

“Hahaha.” John raised an eyebrow at the person laughing. In turn, that person raised her hand and cleared her throat behind the open fist. “Apologies, Master,” Aclysia announced as the shadow moved towards them. “It just looked highly satisfying.”

“Ah, little Aclysia,” Siena sighed as she rose out of the water and walked up the stairs, “you really have it out for me, don’t you?”

“For good reasons, do you want me to list them and if yes by order of magnitude or alphabetically? Will audio be enough or do you need it written?” Nobody doubted that she actually had that list figured out and prepared.

“Mhm, if anything, I want to make you scream it,” Siena stated in her overly sensual voice and creeped right up to Aclysia until their faces were mere centimetres from each other.

‘So many confrontational pairings in this harem,’ John mentally sighed. ‘Ah well, they get along despite their differences.’ That thought was supported by what unfolded next.

“I do appreciate that you worry for John enough that most of us don’t have to, however,” Siena admitted.

Aclysia looked at the shadow spirit as if she smelled a trap. “I approve of your attempts to get along with everyone better.” That was about as much as she would admit to, if there even was more. It was good enough for Siena.

The sound of an empty cocktail echoed through Rave’s straw. “Y’all done with your playfights?” the techno lover asked and got up, which produced one unhappily meowing Copernicus who went indoors with some stern words.

The real answer was no, but further discussions were at least happening while they went through the motions of going somewhere else. The first step was to change back into some casual clothes. For John, his casual look was just his suit without the vest. Rave and Metra went with a look that was similar to each other’s, hot-pants with a skimpy top (although the dirty blonde’s top was even less than the Lightbearer’s). Eliza just got her robes, Aclysia morphed her outer layers back into 2B’s dress, the elementals changed into their natural garbs, and that was that.

“I will stay here,” Nia said, holding a happy looking crocodile against her chest.

“Okay, just make sure you take a keycard with you when you leave,” John reminded her. He purposefully didn’t say ‘if’. Expecting the blank to still be here when they came back would have run against all former experiences.

Sylph had returned as well by now; it had just been a hobby filmmaker, who had been given a stern warning to not film the VIP deck for too long now. A warning delivered by the chatter-mouth that was the tempest elemental carried less of an air of seriousness, but John just trusted that his name carried some weight after he had fought in a war alongside the emperor himself.

They gathered at the weird tube that was their way into the ship’s innards. It had a dark blue paint job, making it stand out quite a bit against the otherwise pretty white ship. It was slanted and placed towards the bow of the ship, positioned between the ending points of the two apartments.

At first glance it seemed to be solid, no door or anything, except for a panel at chest height. ‘Still wonder why it is this tall,’ John thought as he pressed his card against the designated area. The apartments were two stories of 2,5 metres ceiling heights each, so about five metres high. This tube was taller than that, about seven or eight metres.

The walls parted and revealed an artificially lit room with a blue floor and ceiling. It was rather plain, all things considered, but wide enough for them all to fit inside comfortably. Undine still preferred to go incorporeal while Siena placed herself in John’s shadow.

A menu of sorts appeared at the part of the wall where the doors closed behind them again. John looked up first, noting that the room was about as high as the usual apartment, then at that menu. “Okay, this cruise has… way too much crap to list it all, just come here and look at it yourself.” Rave, Metra and Eliza did exactly that.

“They have a disco? Awesome!” Rave noted her own favourite thing first.

“They have two fucking malls, a spa area, and way too much other shit… I want to check out the malls later, just to see what else to eat there is to buy, don’t really care what.”

“We are going here,” Metra decided and hit a button made from light. Immediately, the menu disappeared. Then the room around them started buzzing, floor and ceiling lighting up. After five seconds the brightness reached its peak; afterwards it quickly cooled down, and the doors began to slide open.

“Aren’t teleporters super expensive to use?” John asked out loud as they waited, looking out to check where Metra had just ended them up at. “Mhm, maybe less so when in the same barrier and between two predefined points?” he theorized his own answer as nobody provided a better one. “Guess I will have to read up on it myself.”

“You do that,” Metra grinned after looking outside, “I will have fun.”