Chapter Thirty-One - Eight Days A Week

I stayed with Chloe so she wouldn’t lie there alone. We chatted a bit, but it soon died down, and she closed her eyes. I think she took a nap—healing wasn’t free; it took a lot of energy out of you, as I had experienced before. To pass the time, I pulled my earphones out of the depths of my pockets and plugged them into my phone. Time to relax a bit.

“Hey Jane, what’ya listening to?”

“Some audiobook,” I answered casually.

“Oh, nice, what’s it about?” Geri sounded giddy and bursting with energy. I’d say sugar high, but in her case, it was more of a blood high. Doesn’t have the same ring to it.

“I have no idea. I only listen to be soothed by Tess’ voice…” I admitted. “Something about felling trees or the like.” That had just come up, but I had lost track of the story when I fell asleep on the train to Liverpool. Or maybe I shouldn’t have picked part nine of a series as a sign-up goody for my latest 30-day money-back burner account. But hey, now I could afford a full subscription easily, great. But where to find the time to use it?

“Soothing? Let me listen,” Geri said, ripping one of the earplugs out of my ear while dropping down beside me and snuggling up. “Mmmh, nice,” she said as she laid her head on my chest.

I half expected her to purr like a cat; she really reminded me of one when she was in her snuggling mood. Although, the way her hand wandered down past my waistband, on the inside, of course, she might just be after a dessert. Balanced food groups, and so on. Her eyes were closed, so I could not tell. Oh, yes, that was the spot.

“What’s a hawser,” she asked, her voice having a dreamy touch.

“I have no, oh, yeah, there, no idea,” I answered, hindered by my breath having its own mind. Geri’s fingers had gotten to my entrance, then spread and slowly wandered up to the fun spot, sliding along my lips.

Something was missing…lips, yeah, lips! I grabbed Geri’s head with my left hand and tilted it up so I could lower mine and kiss her. Her mouth tasted metallic, the taste of Chloe’s blood lingering. Last week, that would have been disgusting, but now it added a nice undertone to her taste. Maybe I should take that blood digestion skill, too?

But not now; now I needed to, ugh, feel her finger pushing into me. Oh my god, why was I so sensitive right now? We’ve had sex not so long ago, hadn’t we? I couldn’t remember, but I knew I wanted, no needed it, right now this instant.

I lifted Geri onto me so she was no longer lying on my arm. Now that I had both hands available, I went on to explore her body. I felt her top ripping as I shoved my hands in to cup her breasts, but I didn’t care. Her nipples stood at full attention, and I took them between my fingertips, feeling Geri jerk in reaction. Yes, love, enjoy this.

Her free hand grabbed my wrist, and she pulled my hand down into her crotch, into the warm puddle forming there. The movement jostled our mouths, and one of her fangs sank into my tongue, the stinging only fuelling my desire. I felt my blood trickling into Geri’s mouth, still connected to me by threads of lifeforce, fine as spider silk.

They ran down her throat, pushed along by our mixed saliva, and got absorbed by her core, vanishing into nothing. The core grabbed onto the silken threads, and I formed a connection, um, I felt a connection forming. I felt it; I felt her, her lust and desire, her self pulsing with fire, fuelled by the magic we had pooled inside her to give her a new life.

She had let me into her deepest inner self, trusting me unconditionally. I had her lifeforce in my hands, at my teeth. I felt it; I could just take a bite, and the skill would awaken in me, would allow me to eat her up until nothing remained. And I felt she felt it too, and she trusted me.

Her magic crept up those threads, reaching the wound in my tongue. I let it in, welcoming her inside me like she had welcomed me. She could eat me, my lifeforce, my blood, even my soul. I had given her the power to do so, and now I let her in, trusting her with my everything. Yeah, and fucking coming from it, the sensation of life flowing back and forth between us, intermingling and mixing, pushing me over the edge.

I moaned, Geri moaned, and Sam moaned. Sam?

I pushed an eye open with great effort, still riding the wave of glorious exalting orgasmic energy, and saw Sam sitting there, watching us. She had her legs spread wide, her panties around her ankles, and her hand on—and in—her pussy. I wanted to kiss her, too, to taste her, but I didn’t have the strength to move against the waves running through me.

So I threw out my power after her, my telekinesis grabbing her and pulling her towards me, fuelled by not just my own magic but the bond with Geri, too, giving it a massive boost in power. Her arse lifted up from the floor, dropping her shoulder and head into it in a way that would have given a normal person a concussion. She didn’t even seem to notice, and neither did Geri and I, when her pussy slammed into our faces at running speed, her knees knocking holes into the wall behind us.

“That’s how Buffy and Spike must have felt,” I thought as I went to attack it with my mouth.

🙚⚜🙘

The one thing about having a system-boosted body I will never get used to is how quickly it gets back to working at nominal levels after stuff like sleep…or passing out from orgasmic overload. One moment, we were lying in a heap of exhausted, sweaty bodies, our minds foggy and our sight a haze; the other moment, I felt perfectly fine, albeit very happy.

“We should do this more often,” Geri commented. “But maybe without adding new windows to the guild hall…”

“I agree on both fronts. Jane, you own yourself new panties,” Sam added as she shoved her hand into the hole next to my head and pulled out a few scraps of cloth that I recognised as the remains of one of mine.

“Damn, I liked them,” I said. “And they had almost no permanent stains.”

“You three are impossible, you know that?” Chloe commented from where she lay, now rolled over on her side and supporting her head with a hand. “But that was hot, so no complaints.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed myself up, trying to get my clothes back in order. The waistband of my training trousers had been ripped, so I had to hold them up with one hand. “Usually, I charge for this kind of show,” I said.

“I might take you on on this. When’s your next shift?” Chloe said, and it sounded at least somewhat serious.

“We haven’t yet scheduled any, with the guild trashing any kind of plans we had,” I said. “Could be worth adding a satellite location at the guild…” I was somewhat serious, too. While it felt weird asking people I liked enough to consider inviting for some fun, I had chosen to take this job and should take it seriously. Expanding business to the guild would be just that.

“Let’s get back down, Livia’s probably worried by now,” Sam said.

“More like furious that we didn’t include her,” Geri said with some concern. But she didn’t know her as well as I did.

“She won’t. But she will want a move-by-move report later while she masturbates to it,” I said. “We did this all the time in the past. Once per phone, and then she asked to hear the same stuff again when I visited.”

“Kinky,” Chloe said. “But are you sure you even can make a report? You seemed pretty out of it.”

“You’re offering to help?” I asked as a joke. I shouldn’t have. Why was I still operating under the notion that the people around me couldn’t even say “sex” without blushing and/or giggling?

“Sure.”

“Fine,” I said dismissively. “But first, we need to get presentable. My trousers are shot, my panties that Sam had been wearing are trash, Geri’s shirt is in tatters, Chloe’s clothes have gone the way of the dodo, we have,” I checked my phone, “three hours until we have an appointment with a moving van, and I’m starving. Did I forget anything?”

“Double-sweat-drenched fabric, but who’s counting,” Sam added. “Chloe, do you have any backup wear to get home and dressed?”

“Sadly, no. And even if, I am a bit bloody, she replied.

“Wonders, oh wonders, I do have a solution,” I said. “I asked our driver yesterday to put some bathrobes into the trunk.

“I’ll get them,” Sam said quickly. “I wanted to talk to my dad anyway.”

“Then we’ll go into the common room to fill in Livia,” I said. “Chloe, you up for the thrill of being naked in a room with an unlocked outside door?”

“I’ve done worse for the thrill of it, sure,” she replied.

“What, for example,” Geri asked.

“Let’s see… Like, daring a hobgoblin to fuck me before I had any player powers,” Chloe said, confirming a suspicion I had harboured.

“And? Did he?” Geri inquired without any shame.

“Yes,” Chloe said without further comment.

“Come on, we want details,” Geri said.

“Oh, I can provide some,” I said, not really interested in a detailed report of that interaction. “The hobgoblin ceremony of marriage consists of mating, and the wife takes the husband’s name.”

“What?” Geri asked, confused.

“Just a deduction—“

“But true,” Chloe added.

“So you’re married to a hobgoblin now?” Geri sounded excited.

“At least as far as the system is concerned. The boss of the first floor of the dungeon. And no, I have no qualms with you killing him.”

🙚⚜🙘

“Killing who?” Livia asked. We had reached the common room—I think I’ll stick with that name.

“Her husband, the hobgoblin in the dungeon,” Geri explained.

“I need that story later,” Livia said and gave me a deep kiss.

“What was that for?”

“For keeping to rule three and not pulling Chloe into it.”

“Oh.”

“CCTV…” she sang with a wide smile. “But I still want a report tonight.”

“Let’s make that tomorrow and handle the dungeon tonight,” I suggested. “We need it to be open for players. Open-world quests are slowing down.”

“It’s not open?” Chloe asked.

“Not officially. We have the ‘first clearance’ quest. Until then, people can go in if they know where it is, but it isn’t on the quest board or wherever it gets put,” I explained.

“Quest board," Kinasteria confirmed. “New section on the right side. Gets a reservation system, leaderboard, fallen memorial plate and everything. Dungeons are the backbone of player progression in areas that aren’t next to some wilderness with natural monster population.”

“Wilderness? In this part of the world? Yeah, no chance,” Geri remarked.

That was when the door opened, and Rune strode in. “Hi guys, we wondered if—“ She broke off when Chloe turned to her, providing her with a good view of…everything.

“Yes?” Chloe asked.

“—there was someone in here who wants to join us for lunch,” Marco, who stood right behind Rune, completed the sentence.

“We can get takeout,” Paul offered, taking in the state of our clothing.

“Sounds good to me. What do you think?” Chloe said.

“Why not? We wanted to get changed first, but I am hungry, and I know how long it takes us to finish in the shower.”

“Lining up with four girls? I can imagine,” Rune said, having found her voice again when nobody else reacted to Chloe’s nakedness.

“No, we have a big shower in the basement we all fit in. But that just makes it take longer,” Livia explained, getting Rune’s face colour to visibly shift. Not an easy feat on such a dark base.

“Rune, if this makes you uncomfortable, just say the word,” I said. Someone had to play being the adult here.

Rune shook her head. “It’s not that,” she said. I’m just not used to…everything?” She waved her hands, pointing to all of us.

“It’s ok,” Marco said. “You can tell them.”

“Or show them,” Paul added. “They know about me, and you know how I feel about that.”

“Let’s sit down for this,” I suggested, seeing how Megan still was stuck in the doorway, her head tilted to see around Paul’s arse. We all found a space on the couches while Paul went to pick up lunch.

🙚⚜🙘

Rune took a couple of deep breaths and grabbed Marco’s hand to hold onto. “See,” she started, “this isn’t my real form.” Her flesh slowly started to flow, churning on itself. It took just ten seconds, yet it seemed to take ages while looking at it, and then a different person sat before us. The real Rune was a head shorter and had wider shoulders and hips. Her dark brown hair was shaved to maybe two finger-widths length, and she had coffee-brown skin instead of the near-black she usually sported. What stood out the most were the scars and discolourations on her face and the deep, empty depression where her left eye should have been.

She dug in her purse and pulled out a pair of glasses, one side blackened, the other thick as a phone, followed by two hearing aids she put into her ears before putting on the glasses. “This is,” she concluded the sentence.

“Rune is,” Marco spoke up, noticeably louder than he spoke normally, even though he sat directly next to her, “easily distracted by sights and sounds she’s not used to. She only has about twenty percent vision on the remaining eye, even with that glass brick.”

“I’m also a doppelganger. That’s not a battleform; it’s a shape I copied from someone. It comes with, um, bodily responses I’m not used to. That’s why I snapped at you, Jane, the day before yesterday.”

“Wicked,” Geri remarked. When Rune looked around in search of the speaker, Geri repeated it louder.

“You don’t have to stay in your natural form if you don’t want to,” I said loud enough that she could get it the first time. I couldn’t imagine how isolated one must feel with both sight and hearing being that marginal.

“Yeah,” she said, and her form shifted again. Ten seconds later, Paul sat there. “That’s better, she said. Paul’s much more emotionally stable.”

“How many forms can you, um, remember?” I asked, intrigued. Knowing it wasn’t the real Paul, I noticed some differences. The skin on her face was clearer, the teeth were perfect, where one of Paul’s lower front teeth was crooked, and she had a different haircut.

“One for each skill level, so five at the moment,” she said. “I’ve been transforming near constantly while alone to push the skill. Not so much for the slots but for the transformation time. At level one, it was minutes.”

“Are you copying how people actually look, or is it more a concept?” Livia asked.

“I think it’s how they would look if everything had gone perfectly during their development, although it also seems to draw from my perception. When I do Megan, I get legs, but the hands are the same.”

“And if you do Paul, you pee standing up?” I asked. There still was one piece of the puzzle missing.

“Yes.”

I kept looking at her. Go on, girl.

“It’s a skill, not an ability!” Geri exclaimed. “Isn’t it.”

Rune nodded. “You’re right. I can use it on others.”

“Do I need to ask why you two swapped Wednesday evening or is that personal business?” I asked. Was she our ‘redeemable’ of group two?

“I’m sorry,” she said, then took another deep breath. “I was horny and tried to get Paul to nail me. He seemed like the right arsehole to agree to that, but I didn’t know how to ask, so I started my skill on him to make him follow me to the bathroom. I get some limited control while my skill is active on someone. That’s to be able to replace people, I think. I overestimated how long I could control him, and he woke up before I could undo the change.“

“And then?” She had trailed off, so I pushed a bit.

“At that point, I didn’t have a third form, so I had to do a swap—I can’t use the same form on multiple people. And guess what, transforming another is damn expensive, mana-wise, doing that while transforming myself, prohibitively so. I was out of mana, getting an hour-long regeneration debuff from overdoing it, and couldn’t change us back. We decided to swap clothes and wait for my mana to come back elsewhere. Obviously, Paul did not agree to have sex to kill time, but that was because he didn’t know we could have. We undressed without looking at each other. I got into his clothes and stepped out to give him more room to get into the robe. Then you came by, and I had to think up a reason to stand there. I needed to pee anyway, so it was the next best thing I could come up with.”

“I’m not sure Paul would have agreed if he knew,” Sam said. “He was pretty clear on him being straight.”

“I would have,” Paul who just had opened the door, loaded with takeout bags, stated. “The change comes with the body’s desire, and I was as horny as that moment as Rune had been before. That stuck with me for a while; otherwise, I wouldn’t have Marco talk me into visiting you.”

“Why? You had your fun with Sam…” I asked.

“Because I would have died before admitting to my condition otherwise,” Paul explained. “I’ve never told anyone who wasn’t a medical professional, and even with them, I mostly told them to read my file.”

“You seemed to have gotten over it,” Geri remarked. “Can you say it aloud now?”

“Ha, yeah. Having sex with Sam changed my mind a bit. Megan grabbing me by the balls and squeezing with no effect for me running my mouth helped a bit, too.”

“Happy to help”, Megan said.

“So, no shenanigans in my office,” I said. “Maybe I was just too paranoid…”

“Um, Jane,” Paul, no, Rune said. “Did you relatch the window? I had considered coming back and swiping some stuff later…” Was she serious? I couldn’t tell while she was wearing Paul’s poker face.