“Wouldn’t it be smarter to try and replicate that?” Scarlett asked while John and a few others moved the furniture around a bit so they could all stand and sit around the couch while facing the same way. The question was obviously pertaining to the Vision of the Ashen Lands. “If you want to see her that badly.”

“Smarter in what way?” the Gamer returned, as he had thought about that down to the bottom already. “It would be what I want, yes. However, Nathalia left with the express purpose that I don’t have constant access to her, so I would be going against her wish. That aside, I am not even sure I can replicate that and I am not going to risk breaking it during research. Neither am I going to risk that somebody who could do it learns of this whole thing and potentially learns where she is.”

Rave raised an eyebrow and chimed in, “Don’t trust Nathalia to defend herself?”

“Quite the opposite, I think she might break whoever comes in by fucking them to death,” he replied with a straight face. “She has 130 Libido and hasn’t had sex in several months. None of us, including all buffs, exceed 65. And we’re a horny bunch.”

That was, of course, quite the understatement. The ‘average’ person had a Libido around 10, maybe 15 if they had a sex drive quite above the norm. John had been a supremely horny guy at a Libido of 19, at the start of this, but still in realistic limits. Nowadays, the lowest of his girls had Libidos around 30, with Siena topping things out at 56 and Aclysia a close second at 53. Libido wasn’t strictly limited to sex, Siena had gotten a bunch of her kicks out of less savoury activities in the past (and still did the few times John let her torture as she pleased), but it was still mostly about fucking. The higher the Libido, the higher sensitivity and neediness, with the latter being countered by Wisdom (or Intellect in non-Gamer cases). Endurance was somewhat of a counterweight to the sensitivity, but that seemed to weigh a bit differently between men and women. A higher Endurance made a guy last longer, while it allowed a girl to experience multiple orgasms without a need for them to gather their breath.

If John hadn’t had the perk of bottomless balls, he would have invested way more into Endurance. As it was, he could satisfy everyone around him without the need for such things. Much better, as far as he was concerned, since cumming once inside every girl in an orgy was way more satisfying than moving from one to the next while still lasting himself.

“Don’t ya have a Libido of 100 baseline yourself though?” Rave asked, then answered her own question. “Ah, right, out-of-sex debuff. How much does it take off again?”

“80,” John responded, “one for every level in Source of Satisfaction. Calculating the other bonuses in, I usually have a Libido of 52. Given that I have 10 times the Wisdom, that’s pretty easy to manage.”

Easy to manage didn’t account for his indulgent personality and the 160 points swing he experienced when things did get saucy though. During sex the debuff turned into a buff, so his Libido spiked to a ridiculous 212. That was still a better ratio though than Nathalia had, given her considerably lower Wisdom of 257 (that was the number he had gotten before the Observe system was patched) to a Libido of 130. Plus he was in that heightened state while already about to get his dick wet.

“What I was getting at is that I am not even sure we can TALK to her,” John said and put the last chair out of the way. “She might just be so horny, she jumps at the mirror, and I am NOT having anyone try to exploit her in that state that isn’t me. For security reasons…” He felt a dark shadow take hold of his expression for a moment, as he imagined the scene. The remainders of the sentence, he growled, “… and because nobody but me touches my Nathalia.”

There were a number of reactions to him displaying his possessiveness that openly, none of them surprised and most of them openly positive. Aclysia and Eliza, in particular, looked at him with absolute adoration. Those two liked it the most when he behaved like he owned them, to a degree. For the other girls it was either the confidence he displayed or the apparent strength of his love for them that made them like what he had just said.

There was a sensible limit to these things. Namely, it was sexy that he wanted to keep them to himself and his harem (to them anyway, not like any of them had gotten into this unknowingly). If he got so overbearing that he would get jealous over other guys doing as little as harmless flirting, then that would be another topic. To almost everything, there was a limit to where something good became something creepy or harmful. That much was common sense.

“Alright, let’s see if this works like I think it does,” John said, steering his thoughts into more pleasing landscapes in his mind. His girls took their places along the wall as he took position about three metres in front of the couch. Holding the mirror out in front of himself, the reflecting surface pointing at him, he mentally formed the wish to activate it.

It vibrated in his hands. Weakly at first, it slowly responded to his desire, until the safety precaution was overcome. The mirror cracked without a sound, and John carefully let go of the handle and stepped back from the now hovering object. Like a growing web, the cracks multiplied in waves, spreading all over the mirror. Soon, the mirror began to drift apart, scattered into hundreds of shards, spreading into a circle.

He pulled the collar of his shirt into position one last time and checked that he wore the Rings of Ash and Fire, as well as the Necklace of the World Ender. They all had the same aesthetic and were made from the same materials, an ashen black metal, Oblivium, making up the majority of them and a glowing orange gem, shards of the crystal of destruction growing in Nathalia’s chest, decorating them. He had been given the rings as gifts from her, while the necklace was from Gaia. It was all associated with her, regardless of origin. He also wore Purgatory under the shirt. He wanted to show that he was still wearing what she gave him in a subtle, normal fashion. Having a dragon claw didn’t spell normal.

The circle formed just as John dropped into the little gap in the middle of the couch that his girls had left open for him. Rave immediately leaned against his right side, while Aclysia, taking the left now, seemed more rigid and remained sitting straight. Her relationship with the dragoness was a bit complex, having started on paralyzing fear.

An orange glow flicked along the inner rim of the circle. Then, suddenly, arched across the empty space in the middle. As if looking through a looking glass, an inwardly curved sight of a volcanic landscape greeted them. There was the edge of a nostalgic hot spring to the left, a basin in a black rock island among the lava sea dominated view. John barely took note of any of that. Right in the centre of the vision was the woman he wanted to see, sitting on a throne of black stone.

Nathalia was as beautiful and dangerous looking as she ever had. Her red, orange glowing hair was wild, wavy and long, parting around two elven ears. Three black horns graced the top of her head, two that curved backwards, twisting once in their lightly segmented structure, halfway to the pointy tips. The third grew from her forehead and cut into her hairline, comparatively short and sharper.

Scales like splintered rocks decorated the side of her face, underlined her eyes and ran down her body. Symmetrically, the scales continued down her neck, growing towards her collarbone to encase the diamond shaped, orange crystal resting there. They spread and hid the skin of her arms entirely, stretching into spiky growths at the she shoulders. More of them covered part of her large, firm breasts, just a little more than was necessary to keep her nipples from view.

The light brown of her skin, akin to a tanned Latina, was visible perfectly on the rest of her body and her midriff, as only the sides of her narrow waist, the continuous flow of her hourglass figure, was covered by the scales. Underneath her belly button, they grew together, creating a V shape that hid her cunt from view as well. There was a gap between those scales and the ones that covered her crossed legs from the thighs downwards, creating the illusion of her wearing stockings – of the deadliest variety. In the cracks between the scales pulsated the fiery orange of her energy.

‘I had almost forgotten just how sexy she is.’ John couldn’t help but be bitter about that amazed thought. ‘My memories, as vivid as they are, don’t do her justice. I doubt this vision is either…’

He looked back up and was taken by the parts of her that were sexy beyond mere physical appearance, the parts that showed more personality. The red, full and parted lips, revealing the pearly white teeth of a carnivore, with larger fangs and sharper incisors. Her slightly turned up nose, displaying a level of arrogance, but also aristocracy. Her eyes. Those seas of energy. Three layers that blended together. A dark orange outside, a clear middle layer and the golden centre. Surrounded by lashes and thin, natural mascara of black obsidian and crowned with unusual, dark eyebrows, so long they disconnected from her face as they spread to the side.

She sat there in a posture that screamed forceful relaxation. Her legs were crossed, but he could see the tensed state of her thighs. Her arms were lying on the rests, but her clawed fingers were digging trenches into the volcanic stone as if she was working soap with a knife. She was leaning back, but her breasts were rising and falling as quickly as someone struck with heavy fever. The lower half of her lips quivered and her sharp eyes stared straight at him.

“John,” she said that single word, and he shivered. Her voice awakened in him the lust of their shared moments. It was deep, certainly deep for a woman, sensual and raspy in the most pleasant way possible. It was like the whisper of a fire, but underlying was not the cosy safety of a hearth, but the terrible fascination with a towering inferno.

“Nathalia,” he answered in kind, and she reacted the same way, closing her eyes and saying his name silently a second time, moaning alongside. That his voice had the same effect on her that hers had on him was wonderful, but right now they were bound to looking at each other. “I needed to see you again.”

“I long for you,” Nathalia answered, every little shift of her body betraying both her power and her unrelenting urge for satisfaction that she could not receive by herself. “Every waking, I am still stuck in this prison of my own making. Nothing would be easier than breaking out and ravage the world like I did before I met you. I devour what is brought to me and I please myself how I need to… but it’s not enough…” There was an odd pause, then she continued in a slightly, hacked off way, “I en...dure… be…because I… I love you.”

It sounded off and the hesitation didn’t come from any sort of embarrassment. It took John a moment to realize what it was. She had been saying that last bit in genuine English. Ever since he had met her, she had talked in Draconian, the language of her supernatural kind, automatically translated by a world-spanning spell Romulus had weaved over two thousand years ago.

That she took the time to learn his language while away from him took him completely by surprise. He was already touched by the confession, but that she was trying to do that of all things in the meantime… he had falsely assumed her to spend all time either masturbating or sleeping. There was the part of him that wanted to scream all the questions he had now. Why she was enduring something neither of them wanted. What made her take this decision in the first place. If she couldn’t at least make an exception.

Deep down, however, he knew the answers and the reasons. She was clearly doing her best to control her urges to create something between them that wasn’t based on mindless indulgence. All he should do was to respect what she had done. Between the two of them, she was suffering a whole lot more from this arrangement and she did it all so he could prove himself to her. Whether that test made sense on a logical level mattered fairly little, only that Nathalia was satisfied with him.

It clearly took her a tremendous amount of effort to remain even this coherent. “I love you too, Nathalia,” he assured her with conviction and was thankful that the rest of his harem, albeit present, was silent. “I promise that… No, sorry… I am not getting strong as quickly as I can,” he looked down, somewhat ashamed of his behaviour all of a sudden. “I am being cautious where I probably don’t need to be. Sometimes I am the opposite and don’t know where I step. I waste time for vain things. I…”

“Quiet,” Nathalia growled so deeply that fire rose from deep within her and flickered out between her teeth. Her eyebrows came closer together, giving her late twenty, early thirty face a scolding look. “I don’t need your excuses. I know exactly what kind of man you are. Don’t forget who I am, John, I am not one of those moral arbiters that care about your perfection. It’s precisely that you are sinful and competent in the same breath that I want you to be my… my…” she struggled, panting ever more heavily as she pushed out the last word in English again, “…Mate…”

Having gotten the word out only made things worse. The dragoness’ eyes glazed over; her breathing slowed but got so heavy that her shoulders moved along her heaving breasts. The scales on her torso involuntarily retracted, revealing her hard nipples and a pussy that was leaking so much so quickly that John could almost immediately see the stone under her glisten along the inside of her thighs.

He hadn’t even noticed that he was leaning forwards, as if he could jump through the portal and press his face between those chocolate slices of hell, until there was a cracking sound. Nathalia had clenched the armrests of her chair so tightly that shards were sticking out between her fingers. More fire escaped from her clenched jaw as she reigned herself in with visible strain.

Eventually, she stabilized again. “I long for you,” she repeated her initial statement. “This celibacy does not mix well with my urges. I desire nothing more than the end of it – nothing more than you to end it by proving yourself worthy to me. You have come so far. I have heard most of it, and… John, you made me cry, do you know that?”

She looked up, and for a moment, none of her horniness seemed to matter and she seemed just as vulnerable as any other person that was in love with someone that had gotten hurt. He didn’t have to ask what she cried about, there was only the one incident that had left him scarred enough to cry over. Since she didn’t want to hear his apologies, he let her hear his darkest satisfaction, “I made him pay.”

She nodded slowly, gracefully, and gave a sinister smirk. “Yes, I heard that too. It would have never happened if I was there and, as much as it plagues me that it happened, you couldn’t become a complete man, a complete…” she stopped in her fluid Draconian, searching for an English word that compared, only to pick a very odd one, “…emperor, if it never happened.”

John wondered whether that was her mistranslating something, but the more obvious idea settled into a knot in his stomach. That she thought of that word specifically to describe what she wanted put a very easy read on her intentions: ‘Only a man whose story and power rivals that of Romulus can be my mate.’

‘I am honestly getting a bit sick of getting compared to the guy,’ the Gamer thought, but then realized something. ‘They knew each other for hundreds of years. Yet she chose me in a comparative heartbeat.’ He could only make guesses for the why, but on the face of it, that was something that neutralized the annoyance he felt.

The orange edge of the vision flickered. “Our time is running short,” the dragoness declared, her lips contorting into a scowl. “I am certain you have more things to say and I would like more of your company, even if you can’t fuck me in this current state we find ourselves in… how annoying.” She clicked her tongue. “You make me do things I would have never done when I was by myself, it’s quite bothersome. Still, I find myself feeling rewarded whenever I do… you better make it all worth my while.”

“Whenever I get you back, you will never think of any man but me with sexual interest again,” John declared, only half joking. It managed to stabilize the situation around a less serious tone.

“…You look so much better…” Nathalia was back to moaning between sentences and another flicker of the vision caused her to let out an exasperated sigh. “Ah, I cannot deny it… John, let me say it once more, I love you. I long for you. Do not doubt these things.” She shifted in her seat, unable to find a position that was truly comfortable. “Now, do me the favour and leave whatever room you are in. I wish to address your lesser partners in private while I have the chance to still bestow a gift for your birthday.”

John wasn’t entirely fine with that. As long as the connection stood, he wanted their contact to last. He wanted to speak about unimportant things, banter back and forth and do as lovers do and be silly, joking and serious with each other, all in the same breath. However, Rave tugged him on the sleeve and silently formed a ‘Please?’ and he could hardly refuse Nathalia AND his girlfriend.

“I guess you do deserve some time to discuss amongst each other,” he conceded. The reason all of them were there in the first place was so they could speak with Nathalia as well. He rose and walked up to the vision. His hand came as close as it could to a magical phenomenon that projected light onto basic air. “I will see you again,” he promised and walked away.

Behind him, she said her own final words. “Do not die on me, John, the Abyss of your continent would not survive it.” It wasn’t an idle threat. “Tell my brother that he is allowed to help you now.” Her tone was as measured as it could be in her state and doubtless in its statements. “That is the first gift I can give to you. What do you humans say on your days of spawning? Happy birthday, John.”