John, sitting inside the luxurious living room of his new residence, pulled a certain coin out of his inventory and began flicking it. It turned in the air with the satisfying song of metal. He caught it on the back of his hand, threw it back into the air with a quick motion, had it land on the tucked thumb of the left and flicked it back up. The coin took a temporary resting place on John’s extended index finger.

Someone walked up the stairs. He was listening very intently to the rhythm of the footsteps, to the sound of shoes. A steady staccato, high heels, in quick step, but not hurried enough to run. Someone barged into his room, and John just smiled in the direction of the door. “Melthy, did you come to get me?”

“Kind of? Look at this!” the redhead said and shoved something in John’s face that sounded like paper.

John just let his eyelids sink halfway closed, expressing a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “I know it’s easy to forget,” the Gamer’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, “but I am blind.” He pointed in the direction of his milky eyes. “So showing that to me won’t do any good.”

“Oh, sorry, didn’t notice you weren’t wearing your contacts,” Melthy cleared her throat. “So, do you want me to read it to you or something?”

John turned the coin in his hand one more time. He felt the little trench where Eliza’s thumb had scratched over it with her unreasonably stable blood-fingernails. This was the coin she had tossed before the Sigmund confrontation. One of the currently very small collection of sentimental items the Gamer had collected on his journey.

“No, just give me a second,” he told her and threw the coin back into his inventory. In the same gesture, he pulled out the replacement sphere. While he held the thing in his hand and attempted to do the manual Possession thing again, he suddenly found it to be tremendously easy. He had gotten better at it, but the real reason lay with something else.

“As always, impeccable timing,” John grumbled as he flew over the words. It was rather odd to read what popped up in the blind darkness. It wasn’t like he had eyes to focus on a single word with. Yet, he could. Magic was pretty odd. “Give me another few seconds, I need to analyse something.”

“Okay?” Melthy was understandably confused, but John didn’t feel like she needed to be in the know about the details of his abilities. She was a subject that currently appeared loyal, but John didn’t really trust her further than he could throw her. Almost literally, given that their relationship was entirely based on their power dynamic.

‘So, what do we have here…’ John went down the list. ‘Alright, so the Possession upgrade is good, now that works intuitively again, surely makes my job easier. Potential upgrades for BOTH Shardbound and Mana Blade?’ John let out a quiet whistle. ‘That’s going to be potent when I get there, I hope. Elementals in Item Form not costing mana anymore is interesting… sounds like setup for future mechanics.’ He read a slight bit ahead and basically found that confirmed. ‘Jesus, DOUBLING the mana cost? I mean, with Elementalist 8 that’s right back down to… 2,5 times 0,6… exactly 1,5% of my mana regeneration for each incorporeal and 3% for each corporeal elemental, for a maximum of 18% if all are active physically. Well, my pre-committed mana regeneration just rose from 19% to 28%. Possession not even taken into account.’

He had somewhat hoped that, with Sigmund’s obvious ease at keeping five elementals summoned, maybe it wasn’t THAT unlikely to keep all of them active without Gaia’s help. However, Sigmund had barely anything else going on and John had a number of different things going on. It was probably still possible, just a bit harder than he had originally anticipated.

‘A new Class, ey?’ John thought and opened the window to have a look at that.

‘Oh, so the blind monk archetype stuff,’ John thought, pretty happy with this. He would dump at least a few Class Levels into this, likely soon. Well, he would stop at one if it turned out that the Sticking Bonus was the Agility increase. Raw Stats were useful, but he would have much rather have something that made him less reliant on Possession.

Undine currently served as his crutch in situations in which his replacement sight wasn’t quite what he needed. While he could be sure that the water spirit would be by his side most of the time, there could always be a situation where she, as the healer, needed to be somewhere else. That was the most harmless scenario of them being separated. Best to be a mediocre fighter on his own, rather than a useless one.

‘Halfway to being Gaia independent, I suppose that’s a good thing,’ John thought and rolled his neck. Then he reached into his inventory again and pulled out his shades, putting them on his nose. “Alright, give me that paper,” he made a quick hand gesture and was handed the thing he was supposed to read.

It was a long series of insults: about him, which left him amused for the most part; Fusion, which annoyed him at several points; and his girls, which had him grumble in mild rage. Overall, however, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He had gotten numerous responses like this over the day.

Responses to a nicely worded invitation to visit his island that he had sent out once they had gotten done with the houses yesterday. They had gone to everyone in the Small Lake Pact, telling them with very nice words that John would hold a festival from Saturday to Tuesday. The problem was evidently in the niceness, as he got a bunch of messages like this today.

“Any reason you show this to me and not my personal complaint manager?” John asked, referring to Aclysia. Most of the insulting responses he had ignored, since many of them simply mocked him but then agreed to come with sentences along the lines of ‘You write like a pussy, but I will eat your free food!’

The Gamer really didn’t care enough to honour that with a response. At the festival, he could prove all of them wrong. However, those who denied his invitation, even if they were somewhat courteous about it, he sent Aclysia to in order to punch an agreement out of them. Not the nicest method, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

‘Or… dangit, I can’t think of a fitting downgrade,’ John thought, interrupting Melthy’s attempt to answer. “Do you know of any barbaric tribes around the Roman age? I would say the Germans, but they weren’t united, and I feel like that would be unnecessarily offensive…” the redhead obviously wasn’t versed enough in history to give him an answer, so John just sighed. “Well, let’s just say, when in Gallia, do as the Galls do, those aren’t around to be offended anymore.”

“Uhm… sure, whatever, master-guy,” Melthy wasn’t as used to his antics yet, so her confusion was excusable. “Well, Aclysia is currently out and this isn’t any guy, this is the former number two.”

“Well, with me around he is knocked down to number eight or something,” John crumpled the paper together and held his left hand up. With the flick of a mental switch, he equipped all of his combat equipment. Purgatory activated a moment later, the armguard transforming into the dragon-claw. Obsidian scales covered John’s arm from elbow to fingertips, most of it hidden underneath his suit.

As always, a flash of fire accompanied the shift. While harmless to John, it slightly damaged the only minorly enchanted suit. More importantly, it jumped over to the piece of paper and caused it to catch fire. John watched it burn with minor fascination, fire always looked interesting in so many ways. The paper quickly crumbled, turned yellow, then black.

“I didn’t expect the former number two to still be around, honestly… someone of that high-profile sounds like he would join the resistance against me… ah, well,” John squashed the remains of the letter in his hand, causing a small explosion of ash and figments from the gaps in his fist. As he rose up, he let the cooling remains fall to the ground.

Aclysia wouldn’t be happy about this treatment of the floorboards, but John felt like the effect justified the minor anger from his weaponized maid. At least Melthy looked somewhat impressed by this nonchalant display of elemental power.

“Tell me about the guy, anything interesting?” John asked as they stepped out of the living room and wandered through the mansion. It was a bit barren, with all the empty walls, barely any decorations and only the high-quality furniture standing around rooms that still had a bit of the smell of drying paint clinging to them. Luxurious, sure, but aside from the few mistakes they had made during building, it lacked any character.

“Sand mage, big dick, somewhat cunning, that’s about it,” Melthy responded.

“Not some sort of hidden puppet master that controlled the Small Lake Pact from the second place because he was tired of attracting so many challengers?” John asked and earned himself a raised eyebrow. “It’s probably what I would do after a while at the top. Get some other strong guy on my boat, prop him up, lose to him in a convincing fashion, lay back and watch everyone else squabble while I stay and play video games in peace.”

“Well, if he was, why the fuck would I know?”

“I assume that you’re in the know of some stuff if you know he has a ‘big dick’,” John pointed out.

“Why do you say that like you don’t believe it?” Melthy wondered.

“Because I don’t believe that you would call it big after seeing mine,” John’s tone was openly flirting, which evidently surprised the redhead. That the Gamer was a womanizer was public knowledge, but he hadn’t made any advances on anyone in the past four days.

The Gamer saw Melthy’s opportunistic mind spring into action. A place in his bed was surely a place from which she could do a lot of things. As a power-digger, she had no qualms about responding, “We can check that out right now, Master,” in a very seductive fashion. Evidently, she had not watched the porn stream, otherwise she would already know.

John, although he would gladly throw her on the nearest couch and take her with the maid uniform still on, shook his head. “No, I won’t do that,” he answered. ‘Not yet anyway,’ he silently added. He had every intention to eventually fuck her and a whole lot of the other maid-looking hotties wandering around his newest property. Before that, he wanted to get a few things done that would make it less like he was continuing the entirely power based harem culture around here, however. “So, no puppet master?”

“No,” Melthy answered, slinking back into her usual, way too casual speaking pattern. “Just a fucker who knew his place – most of the time. Wasn’t like he didn’t try to advance now and again. He just wasn’t an idiot enough to get thrown into the mana factory.”

John hummed as they left the building. The sweet smell of flowers hung in the air as the sun shone down on them. It was a moderately hot day. Not enough to make John break into a sweat immediately, but of the variety where he didn’t want to be outside for too long. “Not smart enough to get where the wind is blowing from… which reminds me that we should get some sort of artificial wind engine built… BEES!”

The shout of that last word caused Rave to turn her head. John’s girlfriend was lying in a deckchair, wearing nothing as she sunbathed. Her recent acceptance of sexual tendencies had the nice effect that she could do this without the slightest bit of shame or self-enforced bad consciousness. Although she didn’t get turned on by doing this little exposing.

John didn’t even try hiding that he, on the contrary, had a very pronounced erection upon seeing her naked form. It helped that she was still glistening from when he had oiled her up earlier in the day. “We need bees, Jane, otherwise this entire garden is going to need replanting with fresh seeds all the time.”

“I would rather have that than be annoyed by those things while I try to tan,” his girlfriend responded. “If ya get any, better be smart bees. There has to be some biomancer out there who sells that kinda stuff.”

“Maybe we can commission something?” John suggested. “Anyway, I thought you can’t tan?”

“Nah, I can decide not to tan,” Rave reminded him, turning on her chest, just to show her ass off to her butt-lover of a boyfriend. With waving legs and a huge smile, she grinned, “I don’t like having tan lines, but that ain’t no problem no more, so we’ll see if ya prefer me caramel coloured soon.”

“Will undoubtedly look sexy if I have you and Metra at the same time.” John followed a path of flat stones that had been artistically arranged to cut semi-naturally through the circular arrangement of flowers. The many different colours of the petals encapsulated the green area in the middle like sprinkles on a donut.

He carefully dodged around Copernicus, who had rolled together in the grass, and then sat down on the edge of the deckchair. Hands wandering to her shoulders, Purgatory wandering back into the inventory with the rest of his combat equipment, he immediately began to massage her. She didn’t need the extra relaxation, but he provided it anyway. His non-combat set was a plain shirt and sport pants.

“Thought ya wanted to play some Wii Fit,” Rave joked, even as she sighed thankfully, letting John’s hands do their magic.

“Don’t mock it, it’s actually great for my rehab!” John proclaimed while running down from her shoulders to working along her spine. “Anyway, was taking a break when Melthy gave me some news.”

“Yes, hello,” the redhead was still around, just because she hadn’t gotten different orders and was thus as confused as any worker when their boss was just walking around not explaining anything. The jealousy in Melthy’s eyes, both at Rave’s objectively hotter body and the attention she was getting in the form of a clearly divine massage, was something John noted with satisfaction. After all, she was currently marvelling at his girl and his skills.

“Guess the news is why ya come here?” Rave asked and, when John was about to touch her butt, turned on her back again, cheekily stretching out her tongue. “Ya don’t get what ya want yet, tiger.”

“I always get something that I want,” John returned and moved on to fondle her breasts. Rave’s nipples were already erect, so his caressing touch goaded a lustful sigh from her lips. Albeit her chest was on the smaller side, John still had enough to work with in terms of wonderful softness. He could feel her heartbeat accelerate as her gaze became more and more depraved. “Anyway, it was a pretty rude denial to come to my party. Aclysia is currently gone, so could you do me the favour and convince them otherwise?”

“By punching them very hard?”

“By punching him as hard as necessary, yeah.”

“Ja, I could do that,” Rave answered, “but first ya gonna give me three things.”

“Whatever you want, Jane,” he answered in a loving tone, bowing down to give her a long kiss on her lips. It was spontaneous, but in this heat, in the middle of this patch of the flower garden, with her so close, with his hands on her body, he couldn’t resist to feel even more of her.

It went from one long kiss, to a series, with their lips momentarily parting with longing sighs every now and again. What started as a simple contact of their mouths soon became a wild wrestling of their tongues. Rave still remained lying, as John fondled her breasts and travelled over her curves, but more than a few of her muscles were tense now.

“Ya gonna give me two more things,” Rave whispered when she finally ended their kiss by gently pushing him back, the playful smile still broad on her now wet lips. “One: ya gonna explain to me why you are even holding this giant festival. B: ya gonna make me cum, ‘cause I won’t be able to concentrate on anything now that ya made me this horny.”

“Fine with you if I do both at the same time?” John asked, straightening back up, reaching between her legs with one hand. His girlfriend just nodded, then moaned loudly when middle and ring finger of John’s right hand curved into her cunt. Trimmed pink hair tingled John’s palm as he masturbated her wet pussy with steady movements, brushing past her clit every time.

“Alright, ya can go ahead, I’m -mhhhm- listening,” Rave said as she writhed enticingly.

“Well, it’s a pretty easy explanation,” John stated while ignoring the demanding pulsation in his pants to take this further. “I plan to show everyone around the kind of wealth I can bring to this area. It’s less for the leaders of the islands than all the people they stomp on. Pretty sure everyone would like sleeping somewhere that isn’t a badly run drug-den. That aside, you know the saying ‘the people need bread and circus’?”

“Yeee-aaa-ah?” Rave answered, her chest rising and falling in heavy, unsteady intervals.

“I will provide both and, if everything goes correctly, they’ll be quite happy with me as their new leader. Happy enough for the integration into Fusion to go smoothly even without me staying here, anyway,” John explained, sinking a bit deeper into his girlfriend, finding a known weak spot, and then upping his tempo.

The reaction was immediate: Rave’s lower body shot off the chair, a single squirt of pussy juice drenched John’s hand, part of the chair and a bit of the lawn, and his girlfriend let out a long, lustful squeal. A pretty tame orgasm, at least as far as encounters with the Gamer were considered, and she slouched back into her position pretty quickly.

“Okay, that scratched the itch enough,” Rave smirked, recovering in just a few controlled breaths, before swinging her legs over. Although she had left her clothes lying in the grass around, the only article she grabbed were her sneakers. She put them on by just slipping inside and then stood up.

Naked for just a few more seconds, her shoes turned into some quickly expanding, neoprene-like material, that crawled over her body, only stopping at her throat. It clad all of her in a protective, pink layer, a few black lines separating the entire thing into segments. “How do I look, tiger?” Rave asked as she did a few stretches of her arms. The bodysuit went along without any sounds, designed for fighting and for Rave herself specifically. Sturdy black gloves protected her hands and, although sleek and of the general pink, her feet and soles were also reinforced areas.

“Sexy and dangerous,” John said with a grin, slapping her ass. Skin-tight as the body-suit was, it looked wonderfully enticing. Sadly, it didn’t jiggle as well under the material and the lustre from the oil was lost. John would have to reapply that later.

“Ding, ding,” Rave did a poor, if enthusiastic, impression of a bell. “Correct answer, John Newman wins one blowjob once I get back.” Winking teasingly, she added, “Under the condition ya wait right here, naked.”

“You know I could ask any of the elementals to help me out in the meantime, right?” John told her as he laid down, licking her pussyjuice from his fingers. It tasted sweet and had a note of peppermint.

“Sure, but just imagine how good it’s gonna feel if ya just edge the entire time,” his girlfriend’s sadistic side showed with a slightly sinister smile. “So, if ya have fun with them, how about ya put on a challenge for yourself, mhm, tiger?”

Now she was just playing on his proud side to get what she wanted. However, just like she had her submissive days, John was willing to play along with her wants every now and again. “Okay, I won’t cum until you give me that blowjob,” he therefore promised. She gave him one last, pleased wink, before turning. As always, he hated to see her leave but loved to watch her go.

As John got comfortable in what was now his sunbathing location, Melthy felt it adequate to ask. “Why aren’t you going yourself?”

That John had never gotten that window before maybe should have told him that he needed to spend more time outside. He took the Full Body Tan option and then watched as a bar on the bottom slowly filled up. A tiny bit faster when he took off the sunglasses.

“Me? Fight properly? Dear Melthy, I am a cripple, I can’t do these things,” John responded a bit too cheekily, grinning as he thought about the schemes he had in store for the next four days. A bunch of them were made without reason, for cases so unlikely that he had made the contingencies more for fun than for likelihood. Even the most likely chain of events would leave him somewhat entertained though. For now, in keeping with the promise he had just made, he had to strip.

“I’m pretty fucking sure your acting ass can… wow…” Melthy’s response was cut short when she was exposed to the Gamer’s rippling abs. “Oh – my – goddess,” was the logical follow-up the moment John lost his pants and his whole might was on display.

He considered for a few moments who was going to lend him a hand until Rave returned. It probably would have been easier to just lay there than to edge until she got back. Especially since he normally hated edging. However, since it wasn’t a thing done to him, but instead something he decided to prove he could do, his mindset about this particular instance was a bit different.

He quickly eliminated all choices but Sylph and Salamander, then decided. By picking both. Sylph darted over from some other corner of the island, where she had played around, and Salamander was quickly on her tail. When both of them, with the usual semi-hostile bickering between them, began sucking their summoner off, Melthy had no way to actually voice her concerns anymore.

“Would you be so nice and bring me a pitcher of cold water?” John asked as he leaned back, letting the sun caress his body as the elementals took turns deepthroating him. “Don’t want to risk getting dehydrated.”

“Hamena hamena… I mean, yes, sir, Master… whatever!” Melthy responded and walked away with presumably wet panties.