“Here you go.” John’s tone wasn’t just good, it was downright ecstatic, as he flicked something at Ahanu. Catching it barely, the Chieftain-Elect looked at the dime. The heads side of it had a long scratch running over it. John beamed with satisfaction, glasses on his eyes, accompanied by an Eliza that would have had dishevelled hair were it not gone for short, currently black, stubbles. The buzzcut was just about the only thing depressing his mood.

He just felt like fate was finally swinging his way again. Granted, only the events over the course of the day would show this, but he had a plan and, potential consequences aside, it was a pretty tight knit one. The beauty was in its simplicity and the fact that, if it failed, John won anyway. There was one particular unknown that still annoyed him, well, potentially two, but neither of them were necessary for this thing to work out.

Once he lowered his arms again, the Gamer continued, “Keep it in a pocket you don’t mind losing. It might stretch out the fabric and all that.”

“Alright,” Ahanu seemingly got infected by John’s good mood. “Slept well?”

“You have no FUCKING idea,” Eliza giggled erratically as she grabbed John’s arm and clung to him like a very needy sack of bricks. “I got absolutely HAMMERED, it was the greatest shit. If I was some disgusting normal bitch, I wouldn’t be able to walk. My womb got completely bloated with cum and I fucking love it.”

“She still isn’t pregnant,” John jokingly added, an insider joke that flew over Ahanu’s head, but he got the gist of it.

“Bit more than I needed to know,” the leader of the Hidden Tradition giggled and then made an inviting gesture towards the car he had come in, another large van of the mobile home variety. More of a bus, as John decided while they entered.

It had two floors, barely high enough that John wasn’t afraid to bump his head every step, with a small kitchen and relatively spacious sitting area, as well as a bathroom containing a single toilet and a sink, on the lower floor. The upper floor had a bedroom and a proper sitting area.

‘So far the two things that seem to dominate the Hidden Tradition are smoking and a love for mobile homes,’ John thought as they got comfortable on the lower floor. ‘Don’t like the former, but the latter I can get behind.’ After looking around some more, John asked, “Did an Abyssal make this?”

“I get the feeling you’re asking something else – tea, water, anything else?” Ahanu extended the question while standing in the kitchen. Aside from John and Eliza, Elu was also there. This mildly stimulated John’s paranoid side. Being together with the two strongest members of the guild while on the way to the place where Ahanu would have his maximum power. The mix of his good mood and the laughable niceness of the Hidden Tradition made him disregard that feeling.

Not completely, John wasn’t even sure if he was able to not have second thoughts about everything at this point, but as much as he could.

“Well, I have a follow-up question, but I would like to know that first,” John retorted. “Also, just some water is fine with me… also, did you get the message I wrote you yesterday?” In a pause of his, very thorough, ‘love-making’ session with Eliza yesterday, he had updated the Native on his plans via a text message.

Elu responded before Ahanu had the opportunity, “Yes, he did, next time alert us about such things in advance, please. I need my beauty sleep,” the elderly woman was only partly joking. “I’m very old and don’t want even more wrinkles… also coffee.”

“Can I just drink semen straight from the cock?” Eliza asked, ready to slide under the table. John grabbed her by the collar of his appropriated shirt. “We got caught before, don’t be such a sensitive, sissy dick!”

“There is a difference between being caught in the office and just doing it in front of people,” the Gamer very clearly stated. “And you have been insatiable lately, Jesus Christ almighty!”

“I am on my fertile period!”

“You’re always on your fertile period!” John retorted. “And you can’t get pregnant through the mouth anyway!”

“I think we just haven’t tried it hard enough,” the blood mage crossed her arms and nodded to herself as if she had just said something sagely. “Just REALLY fuck me up and maybe my womb will smell all that cum in my stomach and slide up my body to suck it out?”

“That sounds absolutely disgusting,” the Gamer pointed out.

“Motherfucker, we had our first face to face conversation while you ripped nails out of my flesh, I think we’re beyond ‘disgusting’,” Eliza giggled. “How about ‘kinky’?”

“I do not consent to that whatsoever and I am the one of us supposed to enjoy pushing that boundary.”

“That’s because you’re a lowkey pussy. Look at you, lifesaver Newman, always doing the good thing like an absolute faggot.”

“I mostly try to make this world a better place!” John got fake-outraged and pinched the moody submissive in the left cheek. Of the upper pair, not the downstairs ones. “What are you doing, huh? Attach yourself to me like a leech, force me to look over you, shower you with love and attention, get my maid to cook for you and all I get in return is a cussing cursed cumbucket that can’t even fight because the apocalypse lives in her head.”

“I mean… yeah… fuck…” Eliza’s mood swung to insecure. “Sorry for being a para- Ah!” She was interrupted when John pinched her again, the lower cheeks this time.

“Stop being sorry, sweet little Eliza, and tell them what you want to drink already,” he told her and kissed her neck. “Make it something reasonable,” he warningly whispered into her ear. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”

“I’ll take a water as well,” Eliza announced as the engine turned on.

Once they all had gotten their beverages, Ahanu going with tomato juice himself, the conversation continued. “I’ve heard of your sexual exploits,” the Chieftain-Elect mused, “but it’s way worse in person.”

‘Once I get back onto CPDI, all doubts about how bad it is are going to disappear,’ John thought, desperately wanting to finally put his dick into that blonde catgirl. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear about me, but that thing is true,” John assured.

“Like the rumour that you have a very small penis?” Elu cackled.

“I am sorry, what now?” John asked and Eliza burst out laughing. Because of how ridiculous that was, the Gamer hoped, not because he had made a sorry face. “No, scratch that, I am not even honouring that with a response. Can we get back to the message?”

“The council came together on short notice and decided to minorly modify the ritual in response,” Ahanu put it ambivalently, due to Eliza’s presence, but it was all John needed to know anyway.

“Good then…” John sipped his water. Whether Sigmund knew where the ritual site was or not, the Gamer had wanted to assure that the Contender’s appearance was a very real possibility. The ritual site itself would already be terrible collateral and the Gamer didn’t want to sour his relationship with the Hidden Tradition by making them an unwitting pawn in his schemes.

Halfway through her coffee, Elu became much more talkative. “For the record, I wouldn’t have said anything if she went with the cum option,” the dirty granny announced and giggled when both men in the room groaned. Ahanu because he didn’t want to see that and John because he hoped they were done with the topic.

“She said it! I am getting under this fucking table!” Eliza’s voice was almost up to screaming volume.

John had to once more grab her by the collar, and the rest of the ride was spent bantering quite friendly about this or that. Because of Eliza and Elu being absolute sleaze-bags and him being, well, him, the topics dipped into the sexual every so often. Sometimes there was an awkward silence, as there was between people that barely knew each other, but it all went quite well.

It was nice to know that he had yet more people he knew he could work with. ‘Seems like for every Alexej, Sigmund or Herman, there are ten decent people out there,’ John reminded himself that humanity, as a whole, wasn’t that bad.

The road eventually transformed into a bumpy ride as they got off the highway onto poorly maintained sideways and finally ended up on dirt. John suddenly realized that, with everything else that had derailed their conversation, he still hadn’t gotten an answer to the first question he asked. “So, was it an Abyssal that build this thing?”

“Oh, right, yeah, but there are no magical components,” Ahanu told him. “I assume that would have been your second question.”

“Yeah…” John looked around and wondered how much bigger he could make this thing. Legally speaking. There was always the option to use enchantments to make the inside bigger than the outside, but John wasn’t exactly well-versed on the limitations on that ‘technology’. The people that could apply it were about as rare as natural Fateweavers, that much he was in the know about.

“Thinking about getting one?” Elu asked.

“I already have a yacht for sea travels, but over land I’m currently reliant on other people’s charity or public transportation,” he explained. “And since I usually have a lot of my girls with me, having a large car with enough space would be good. Also, you know, beds are nice.” He also wanted a private airplane, or several, but that was nothing these people could help him with.

Quickly afterwards, Elu had given him the name, number and address of the person who had built both of their cars and John promised to look into it. Whether he would actually give the job to that person was a question he could only answer after considering what other people offered.

‘I should set Scarlett on that… then again, she might get offended if I keep using her as my personal search engine,’ the Gamer was a bit amused at his own thoughts. The bus came to a soft halt soon after that. “Are we there?” John wondered, looking out of the window to find them on a pretty nondescript area somewhere in the Appalachians.

The mountains surrounded them on all sides and continued as far as he could see in every direction, if they didn’t simply block his vision. In a distant valley there was a town, from where they had come. Aside from that, it was all green trees and light stones.

“Not exactly, but this is the last point the car can turn without problems,” Ahanu explained. “So we are going the rest of the way on foot.”

Wanting to complain that having a hardly accessible centre of power seemed impractical, John bit the inside of his cheek. Not only did that gravesite predate modern roads, he knew that the remote location was part of the point. The mere existence of the gravesite lent people of the Hidden Tradition power when they were nearby, they didn’t even need to be in the barrier itself.

Ahanu stepped off the road and Elu followed him with a grace that no sane person would have expected from such an old, thin lady. Due to their remote location and the lack of mundane people around, none of them felt particularly inclined to hide their supernatural physiology. Neither were they about to start throwing fireballs, they simply jumped past or climbed over obstacles in ways above the normal.

Not that this was needed too often. Although John couldn’t see it, Ahanu was clearly guiding them along a path up the mountain. The summerly warmth was greatly reduced between the height and the canopies of the trees. With disdain, John watched his suit get stuck on a splintered piece of wood and rip. With this normal piece of cloth, he definitely wasn’t dressed for the occasion. Honestly, he was more bothered by the torture his Overwatch shirt went through.

“Mind changing into your robe?” John asked when they stopped for a moment so that Ahanu could orient himself. Didn’t seem like he was lost and Elu also hadn’t said anything, but better safe than sorry. “I really like that shirt.”

“Because of the logo or because I wore it? Say the right thing!” Eliza asked as she was already peeling herself out of it. “This is actually easier without any hair,” she commented, the Gamer hoping that she wouldn’t start thinking about keeping this hairstyle.

“Well, it’s going to smell better than before,” John fully admitted, quickly changing topic, as he inspected the partly torn piece of his gaming wardrobe. Sap stuck to some of the fabric. It exuded sweetly the natural musk of Eliza, her sweat and whatever shampoo she had used in the hotel. He tossed it into his inventory and then pulled out her robe. While she was on it, Eliza also got out of her leather pants. Underneath, she wore the usual black pieces, held together by metal rings.

“Now, if we get caught, people will think I am a massive fucking freak,” Eliza pointed out with an adoringly insane grin on her cute face.

“I can guarantee that nobody is behind us,” John promised, leaning against a stone that overlooked the path they had come from and the phenomenal mountainside. This bit further up, and with a clear look between the trees, the sight only got more beautiful. If he had nowhere to be, he could have sat there for a little while and studied all the details and the patterns that continental drift had caused the mountains to rise in. He got to rest in that position for long enough before they continued making their way.

The barrier was much larger than John had thought. They entered while still enveloped by trees, and it took them a solid ten minutes of walking straightforward, a well-trodden path suddenly appearing under their feet, before they arrived at the actual gravesite.

The ridge of the mountain had been modified. Where the rise should have curved back into a fall, it instead formed a roughly circular cliff that rose out of the forest floor. Atop of the plateau stands a massive construction of trees, clay and stone. The interconnected branches reminded John, in arrangement and form, of an arena, the colosseum in Rome even. Where the arches of that building had been orderly and led into a structure, however, these were archaic in position and size and led only into a hollow center.

Stone covered many of the trees or supported branches too thin to bear their load by forming mighty pillars of grayish white or red. Clay covered large cocoons, for a lack of a better word, that were hung into the arch-like windows between the trunks through an assortment of taut strings that seemed like oversized dreamcatchers.

The size and shape of those pieces of impressive, if simple, pottery gave John the hunch that he was looking at the caskets holding the mortal remains of the past leaders. The floor was simple, even stone. Numerous members of the Hidden Tradition stepped out from behind the trees and took a clearly pre-coordinated position.

“We should not disturb the ancestors for longer than necessary,” Ahanu said. Although John sort of wanted to see the ritual happen unobstructed, he had been told before that he was to clear the direct premise, so he nodded and left the circle of trees after kissing Eliza one more time.

“If the ritual stops, stay right here until I come and get you, okay?” he whispered to her.

“Alright,” the pretty little psycho pulled him back into another meeting of their lips, only then was he allowed to go.

John looked over his shoulder once he was outside of the grave-circle again, to see incorporeal forms of humans, surprisingly clearly defined, settled on the floor. A ritualistic song in the native tongue began and the Gamer felt a tightening in his chest, hoping that none of the choices he had made on the way here were wrong.

He sat down under a tree and watched as best he could from his position. The spirits soon transformed into a vortex of energy that spun around the girl, his girl, in the center of it all. Minutes passed, then an entire hour. 'If what they were doing wasn't working, they would have stopped the ritual by now,' John thought, more and more realizing that the horror of Thana may soon be removed from his life.

He turned inwards, to watch things elsewhere and noticed a certain pair.