“Pity,” Eliza answered, when John asked her why she let Thana speak up in the first place. “Normally she tries to tear me down or some shit like that, this time she was crawling up to me like some degenerate… that.” She pointed at a cleaning slime that was going about its work, wrapping itself around a pile of dripping packages. Dripping with the remaining juices of their former content.

A content that was orderly assorted on a stone slab table next to a grill they had brought with them. Salamander was breathing flames onto the coals, trying to make them burn down to white, hot ash quicker. “Come on,” the fire spirit whispered to the red flickering, “be strong and let me taste steak.”

John continued his conversation with Eliza, “And what is she doing now?” Since the talk earlier, Thana had not said a word. The pretty little psycho had taken back control without any struggle. Afterwards, the beachball game had dissolved and they had gone back to sit on the now empty and dark beach.

11 PM, everyone had scrambled. They were all alone.

“Yeah, that’s the super fucking weird thing: she has retreated as far away as she can and is just… I don’t even know, moping?” Eliza responded and John stroked his chin. He was tempted to get as touchy with the blood mage as he usually was, now that Thana seemed to be lying the low. There was a risk in that, but not more than there was in what he had done minutes earlier.

However, he still decided to stay his distance because the punishment clause was still in effect. It had worked so far, so it was best to be disciplined and not touch her squishy thighs. “I prefer ‘contemplating’, let’s not ridicule her when she has been making progress,” he told Eliza and brushed a hand through her hair. That much he allowed himself.

“Yo,” Metra suddenly plopped down on the towel next to him. “Been meaning to ask, what’s up with that?” she tapped against the Lover’s Will mark. Gesturing towards Rave and the heart-shaped mark above her crotch, she added, “Did ya two decide to get a matching tattoo while ya were gone?”

John indeed hadn’t fully explained this thing to everyone yet, simply hadn’t had the proper opportunity. Not that there was a lot to explain about it. He quickly broke it down for everyone, where it came from, what it did, what he hoped it would evolve to in the future, and all that. The only information he left unsaid was why he picked Rave over anyone else. That bit was so obvious, it needed no stating.

Afterwards, everyone had their curiosity satisfied. “I want a slave mark…” Eliza grumbled reaching down to her crotch and framing the space above her womb between her hands. “Right here. That would be so fucking hot… Oh fucking fantastic… now I made myself horny…” She punched the sand next to her to distract herself. “Still can’t fucking orgasm, fucking Thana being a fucking bitch, urrrrghhhh.”

John left her to her frustration, just as he looked to Metra for an outlet of his own lust. The idea of giving Eliza some sort of mark struck his own perversions with quite the force. With a grin and no further words, the First of Wrath moved down towards the tent in John’s swimwear. Which disappeared into his inventory immediately and left the tanned, muscular girl to work with his erection.

“Salty,” she laughed with an erotic smile after taking an initial lick, tasting the sea on her master.

“Mhm, I’m getting in on this,” Rave suddenly decided, approaching John from the front.

“Thought you didn’t want to do anything on the beach,” her boyfriend teased, while already putting a hand on both of their heads.

“I didn’t want to have sex on the beach, this is totes fine,” she responded, and John wasn’t going to further question her reason. One, because blowjob, two, because this was EXACTLY the blowjob he wanted now that he was back.

With Rave’s new tan and Metra’s general middle-eastern complexion, the two of them were as close as platinum blonde and neon pink haired twins as they could get. Blue and green eyes looked up to him as cheeks hollowed around his shaft and kisses showered down on his balls and groin. “Dear god, this is good,” he gasped when he quickly came the first time, into Metra’s mouth.

She backed off, once she had wrung every bit she could from him. Leaning towards Rave, the two of them engaged in a kiss, swapping back and forth his massive load, swallowing a bit of it at every turn. Their hands were working in relatively good unison at masturbating John while they were occupied that way. It wasn’t the perfect synchrony of Aclysia and Beatrice, but it was as close as was reasonable.

“I want something tooooooo,” Eliza whimpered, having gotten on all fours and looking like a scorned bitch in heat. “Haven’t had any cum in weeeeeeks. Oh fuck, I have become such a whore, its not even funny how much I need that.”

“But you won’t get anything, so sit down and watch,” John told her while Metra and Rave started round two of their blowjob.

The rest of the evening was pretty eventless. Fun, for sure, but nothing to really sing home about. They had their barbeque, looked at the stars for a little bit, talked about this or that over the glimmering embers of the fire and eventually packed their things and left. What stone marks Gnome created, they left behind. The cornerstones were necessary and John couldn’t imagine that they wouldn’t need a place to change away from prying eyes or a table next time.

Back at home, they took a group shower and John got to properly relieve himself. As could be expected, a group shower easily evolved into an orgy. Something that was perfect to give John the physical exhaustion he needed to drift into a peaceful slumber.

________________________________________________________________________

The Mandala Sphere slowly rose from the custom-made socket its stand-in had formerly rested in when John slept. The Gamer’s awareness slowly rose and, as had become customary by now, the first thing he did was move around the sphere to take a look at his situation. The giant bed he was lying in was one giant cuddle with him at the centre, Rave and Metra layered on top of him.

“I’m not used to you deciding to sleep with us,” John whispered towards the ancient weapon. Like all Artificial Spirits, she didn’t require sleep, and unlike Aclysia (and Beatrice to a lesser extent), Metra wasn’t somewhat addicted to being around him. Her staying throughout an entire night, rather than patrolling or just moving her body, was therefore quite unusual.

Metra opened her eyes and smirked. All of this, John could only see from above. There was no practical reason to sleep without the contact lenses anymore, since there was no more hygienic risk to keeping them in all the time, but John had kind of gotten used to the darkness. It was a sort of sleeping and awakening ritual now. Not seeing anything was also oddly liberating, especially when he was amidst people he trusted so completely.

“I just felt like it,” the First of Wrath answered, taking his chin and initiating John’s first kiss of the day. It was a nice taste, first thing in the morning, strangely metallic but pleasant overall. Another thing about being properly blind was that he felt his tongue swirling around hers so much more than he did in any other situation.

Their make-out stirred the other people in the bed to awaken one by one. Nobody was in a hurry to wake up. There was nothing planned for the day. There wasn’t even anything they had to be anticipating a change on. Barring a sudden emergency, John was now off all work as was everyone else around him.

‘Two more days before I turn 19…’ John thought, feeling a tad older than that.

A number of morning quickies were followed by another shower, this time less orgy and more actual showering, although it would be a lie to say that nothing lewd was going on. Then, breakfast. To food and chatter, John spoke about his plans for the day.

“Sho,” he slurred a little bit before swallowing his current bite of marmalade covered toast, “I’m going to meet with Magoi today. About time I get back to grinding, and this seems like the best day.” The next day would have worked too, but he didn’t want to go into his birthday exhausted from dungeon running and his birthday itself was obviously off-limits. “Anybody wants to come with?”

The question was directed mostly at Metra and Rave. Scarlett wasn’t the type to waste her time in this fashion; she also immediately shook her head, continuing to read news stories on her phone. Eliza was going to come with him whether she wanted to or not, so John could at least supervise her a little bit. The elementals and Artificial Spirits would obviously come with him.

Both of them denied, which came as a surprise to John at least in his girlfriend’s case. “I gotta plan stuffs.” She mysteriously waved and winked with a giggle. “Want everything to work out as perfectly as it can, if ya catch my drift.”

“I do,” John nodded, once again feeling excitement for his birthday ignite. This was the first time since he was a child that he had felt this way. Being a loner and generally getting older had degraded the value of birthdays tremendously over the years. Now he actually had something to anticipate.

Copernicus could be heard amusedly purring, looking up from his plate on the floor. “She has to drag a bed into the woods,” the sun cat announced, earning himself an annoyed look by Rave and Siena, of all people.

While John was really curious, he didn’t want to ruin the surprise for himself, so he kept his mouth shut. “Alright… so just the usual suspects,” John nodded along. His goal was to use the one to ten ratio inside the barrier to get the eyesight problem done with entirely. After a few moments of thought, he added, “Would it be easier for you to prepare things if I was gone for two days? Pretty sure I can convince Magoi to give me the extra day…”

Their agreement was that Magoi would use his powers to help out John once per month. Since last month had been, well, ‘busy’, he hadn’t used that offer in June. Magoi being an honourable guy would, with some talking to and grumbling from the High Fateweaver’s side, likely agree.

If she said yes, he would just use the last ‘day’ inside the time dilated barrier to relax and come out as fresh as ever. That was a lot easier to justify when he lost one out of twenty days instead of one out of ten. Still a waste, but not one quite as awful, and he would get rewarded with potentially bigger surprises.

“It would…” Rave stated, moving her clenched lips left and right as she thought. It looked quite amusing, at least Sylph and Eliza thought so, carefree giggles and mad cackling intertwining into a lightly obnoxious mixture. Luckily it didn’t last too long. “I’ll drop in at some point though. Two days away from ya are a bit much.”

“No complaints from my side,” John stated and was suddenly assaulted by a couple of windows.

‘Do I get to try and endure a second round of mind-shattering sex or…?’ John wondered. He was more than willing to try, being a vegetable for a few moments had been worth that particular orgasm, even if he only remembered bits of it from before his brain fried. Generally he was intrigued what she was going to change, though. Mostly what Skills she was going to allow SEP to be used on in the future.

She sounded so nice today, and John wasn’t quite sure how he deserved that. Literally everything was going his way right now and it made him immensely suspicious. Whether this ‘Catch-Up Buff’ would turn out to be useful, time would tell, but he was basically guaranteed to get it.

And there was the dampener for his mood. “Urgh, Richard is coming over,” he informed everyone. “Quest I just got says in the morning of my birthday. I’ll get some nice rewards for just greeting him at the harbour, with cameras attending…”

“Didn’t think that rodent could be ever that useful.” Scarlett’s reaction was the opposite of what John wanted to hear, being confirmation that the Horned Rat was an annoying thing. On his inquisitive glare, the Technomancer only shrugged dismissively. “Having the birthday of the ‘glorious leader’ and not using it for PR is a wasted opportunity, so whatever fucking motivates you, works for me.”

“I could just decline the quest,” John declared, hovering his finger above the button. “Last time I had a public event with that dick, he essentially told the world to kill me in under a year, if at all.

“Do you seriously want to forego the rewards?” she asked.

“No…” John sighed and accepted that quest as well. 30’000 experience were almost two levels for him right now. No idea how that would compare after he spent effectively 20 days in Instant Dungeons, but it was free and the GP would be useful for something. “I can leave it to you to organize that?”

“As long as you choke me out good as a reward,” Scarlett demanded. “Also do yourself the favour and increase Charisma to 100 while you’re grinding. It’s going to make future things so much easier if you are as smooth as butter on hot bread.”

“I’ll consider it,” John stated, the mention of his raised Charisma making him suddenly aware again how much deeper and more pleasant his voice had gotten over time. ‘Maybe I should pick up singing at this point,’ he joked to himself. He could even try to sing at the fest he was now holding. The reason why that was now happening aside, the Gamer’s pride did approve of throwing a party to himself.

‘Can I have some subconscious glee around here?’ the Gamer thought, saving his finger from the warning snap of Stirwin, who had come sprinting over the table, running slalom between the dishes. It would have just been some playful gnawing, even if it hit. John played with the crocodile a little bit by lowering his finger until he was almost in range and then pulling back before he got bit. Of course, he also accepted that quest. He would be insane not to. Two more Guild Perks meant he could fill out an entire category in one go.