Chapter Twenty-Eight - I keep your secrets, cross my heart to die

On the way to the back of Central Station, my system tablet beeped. I took it out and found a message waiting while the others looked at me questioningly. “Kinasteria lets us know,” I paraphrased, “that today’s group got tired of waiting for their fourth member and went after the graverobber. She asks us to tell them if we happen to rescue them. On an unrelated note, a black bra was found in the public bathroom. It can be picked up at lost and found, a.k.a. the staff room.”

“That was none of us, was it?” Geri asked.

“Could only have been Rune, I think,” I said.

“Are you serious? The girl who had a panic attack even thinking about going pantyless in a floor-length robe?” Sam rejected that thought.

“But who else could it have been?” I asked. “Kinasteria doesn’t wear them, and even if, she’d know it was hers. The cleaning lady wore a white one, that loose spaghetti top made that very clear. That’s it.”

“One of the three people from today’s group,” Livia speculated. “But then it wouldn’t be a lost and found case…”

“How about Megan?” Sam asked.

“Unlikely, that wheelchair barely fits through the corridor. I doubt it could get into the bathroom. Not that there would be enough space left to close the door if it did.” Livia explained.

“Then we have a ghost. Another one,” Geri said and shrugged. “Let’s hunt real monsters instead of worrying who has to buy a new bra.”

🙚⚜🙘

The back of Central wasn’t the most savoury area, but it wasn’t as bad as some other more famous train station-adjacent ones. A couple of guys hung out there in a group that looked at us suspiciously.

“Drug dealers,” Livia whispered. “I recognise those two.”

We steered clear of them to avoid unnecessary conflict. We could rip them apart easily, but they didn’t know that, and we didn’t want to do that.

A short while later, we arrived at the point my map sense pointed me to. An old-looking iron door in a stone brick wall.

“Here we are,” I said. “Looks like we get our own private entrance.”

“Good, I kind of imagined having to go down through the station and slip into a live tunnel…” Sam said.

“Is it unlocked?” Geri asked.

“Let’s see.” I pushed at the door, which had only a fixed handlebar and no visible keyhole. It swung open like a charm and revealed an ancient staircase. On the top of the stairs, I saw someone sitting, but before I could do anything, Sam shouted, “Shit, monster,” next to me and stormed in.

She swung her sword in a wild arc at the woman, who started to rise. She didn’t look like a monster to me, but I wouldn’t contradict Sam for no reason. The sword hit her right in the neck and sunk in a good three inches. Just three inches? I had seen how sharp it was; swung with this much force, it should have cleaved that neck right through.

Still, having the front half of your neck severed is usually quite lethal, and the woman-looking monster dropped to the floor dead, blood spurting from severed arteries.

Livia and I still stood at the door like statues. Without whatever tags players saw when looking at people and monsters, our brains needed a couple more seconds to spin up. Livia pushed me forward, out of the swing area of the door she closed behind us. I hadn’t felt a system bubble, so that was probably a good idea.

However, it also brought me close enough to the body that I could sense a soul inside. Shit, monsters didn’t have human souls. But dead bodies didn’t have them either.

“What was that?” Livia hissed.

“She was tagged as a monster,” Geri said from down the stairs. It seemed she could use her stealth ability to get behind the enemy even when there was no path to walk there. Neat. “And I mean was . Shit, guys, she’s now tagged as a player.”

So it wasn’t just me—or Alpha having a mean day putting a human soul into a monster. “Sam, please put your sword away and apologise,” I said.

She did put the sword away but spoke up, “Apologise to a corpse? Jane, the tag said monster; I didn’t just imagine that. Geri, you saw it too?” She sounded shaky and conflicted. If I had to wonder if I just killed a person in a second of confusion, I’d be conflicted, too.

“No worries, Sam. She isn’t dead. But I’d say you owe her a big dry-cleaning bill,” I tried to comfort her.

“Not that big, boss. Only for the top,” Geri said. “Nice pu—“

“Eysh ush hre,” the very dead-looking woman gurgled and shut her legs with a snap. So I had been right—what a relief. If souls hung around after death for a while, I’d be hosed.

The woman brought her hands up to her half-severed neck and tried pressing the wound closed. “Let me help,” Livia said and knelt down beside her. Together, they managed to get the right parts touching each other again, and we waited while the wound was healing closed. It took just five minutes, then she spat out of blob of blood and spoke.

“Damn, you’re quick with your sword. And sorry, this is partially on me; I still had my aura up from down below. Hi, I’m Chloe, Chloe Evans, monster tamer.” She pushed herself up and stood, her missing clothing for the—nicely shaped—lower part becoming even more obvious.

“Jane,” I introduced myself and extended a hand. From the way she moved, her wound had healed completely, even the blood on her skin was being reabsorbed. That was a damn impressive fast healing level, at least two stages higher than my, I guessed. And on top of that, she had ignored the lethal wound like it was nothing. That meant she had a powerful race on top of that class.

“These are Sam, Geri and my fiancée Livia. We are, for lack of a better name, group one of the guild. Nice to meet you.”

“I’ll reserve judgment on the nice,” Chloe said, but with a smile in her voice that didn’t want to fit the gloomy goth look she was sporting. “Unless you could get me something to cover my arse? I lost my skirt down there and would hate to walk home like this.” She had spunk and a sense of humour, it seemed.

“I think we can do that. Livia?”

Livia handed me her backpack. After my “strategic hole” incident, we had filled it with some emergency clothing that now came in handy on its first mission. I rummaged through it until I found a pair of my tracksuit bottoms. Chloe had way more arse to put in than I, but they were stretchy. I handed them over and she put them on, now looking more like leggings.

“This will do unless I bend over,” she stated drily.

“Then, how about we treat you to a shopping trip to make up for the trouble?” Livia suggested. “We need to do that anyway. Those monsters are hell on our wardrobe.”

“I noticed that,” Chloe said and pointed to her crotch. Or at the trousers, get your mind out of the gutter, Jane. Did I grow an old-man dick somewhere I hadn’t noticed? I hadn’t had such a dirty mind before, had I? Remembering back to how I had agreed with Livia that we both weren’t all too keen on women, other than each other, not so long ago, I concluded this had to be something new.

“What has the dungeon to offer down there anyway?” I asked. “I’m a bit surprised you made it out alive. We had our fair share of rescuing of players trying to tackle monsters alone. That usually doesn’t end well.”

“The first level has three rooms. The central one is filled with an extreme overabundance of lethal traps, then there is one with three goblins and one with a single huge hobgoblin. I haven’t been down to level two. And I see what you mean by it ending badly. There’s a dead body in the trap room. One Cecilia something.”

“An innocent bystander wandering in?” I speculated with a frown.

“No, she was a player. Level one, so I guess you didn’t know her?”

I nearly spoke up to contradict her. My maths didn’t allow for another player running around, not even lying around dead. If we had two new groups today, shouldn’t there have been more than three players waiting at the guild?

“No, we haven’t. Shit. That’s the first confirmed final death,” I said instead.

“There have been unfinal ones?” Chloe picked up on that instantly. “Other than my play-dead skill?”

“Undead girl standing right behind you,” Geri piped up. “So, yes.”

Chloe turned around, having forgotten about the one staring at her arse all the time. “Ok, that’s why you register with my monster-taming skill. Girl, for a zombie, you look fabulous,” she said. I liked her spunk. Just the perfect level of teasing for my taste.

“Sex vampire, but thanks,” Geri corrected her.

Chloe looked at us again, her eyes hanging on me and Livia for just the second needed to state the question without speaking aloud.

“Monster races, natural,” I said with a sigh. I wouldn’t be able to hide it anyway. “Chinese demon, western demon,” I added while pointing first at me, then at Livia. “Just keep that all quiet, please? People are not yet used to this shit.”

Chloe nodded, then paused for a moment before speaking. “And as a sign of goodwill, I’m technically a monster, too. The system got its panties in a tizzy when assigning me a race, so it made me a monster of type ‘human’.”

“I’m beginning to see a theme…” Sam mused.

“What?”

“She means the system messing stuff up with people,” I explained. “Livia’s and my interface are pretty messed up because of that race thing. We’re missing half the nice options.”

“Oh. I see. Are we beta testers or guinea pigs?”

“Or both?” Livia countered. “From the extra notifications we get to smooth over the missing screens, it seems it’s winging it badly.”

“At least it seems the system cares about us. It could as well let us hang high and dry…” Chloe said with a really nice smile. “So..off to the shops then? I think I need a new look. Goth and monster tamer doesn’t mesh, I think. What’s your opinion on that?”

“Let’s do that in a second, just let me type a message for the guild hall that we’ve found you. People have been wondering why only three new people showed up today.”

“Sure,” Chloe said and moved up to me as I pulled out the system pad. “What brand is that?” she asked.

“System. It’s not fully real, more like an extension of the interface in our head,” I said, showing it to her. “Here, I can adjust all the guild settings; for example, these are the titles. Here…actually, you’re not yet a member. I wanted to give you a nice title…”

“Can I apply here with you, or do we have to…Never mind, I got the popup. Yes, I do. There, try again.”

Her application popped up on the screen, and I accepted it instantly. Then I went into the titles app, moved her up to the officers’ section and changed her title to ‘mistress wonderful’.

“You flatter me,” she said shyly.

🙚⚜🙘

Livia knew all the best spots to get nice clothes, of course. She took us on a great tour, and she had the fashion sense to make Chloe look spectacular. Instead of gloomy black, giving her a youngish angry angry-with-the-world look, she now shone in rangoon green trousers, an olive green blouse and a decorative beige half-coat. The ensemble was perfected by thigh-high brown leather boots and a double set of belts, one of them hanging lower with a pouch, of the same leather. She looked ready to kick ass and take names.

“Now, now, this is not all about me,” she purred. “Let’s get you gals some fighting clothes, too.”

Half an hour later, we had stacks of cheap clothing for all five of us. Enough that we had to call in our driver to take the bags out of our hands. Not for the weight, that was nothing for us, but even with four of us piling up bags, we couldn’t grab all of them anymore. This, however, freed us up completely, so Chloe decided we should visit the guild hall.

We chatted lively on our way, admiring Chloe’s wit and filling her in to what had happened over the last three days. It hurt, but I still had to hold my non-gamification experiences back from her. I thought about telling her, but a nasty message from Gamma-10 convinced me not to do it yet.

We had reached the main door to the guild hall after browsing the sex shop windows for a bit, upping each other in the guesses of what was hiding in those half and fully covered boxes. We could have walked in and looked, but what would have been the fun in that? Then I opened the guild door and stepped in to hold the door open for Chloe.

The moment I passed the threshold, my mind cleared in an instant. I stopped in the doorway, blocking the others out. My mind was racing, unsure of what…I opened my menu, stopping time. As useful as this ability was, it still wasn’t something I did as naturally as, for example, using my claws.

My body was frozen in time, too, so I couldn’t take deep breaths to get my emotions in check. Yet, I imagined doing it, counting slowly to twenty. Then up to fifty. It helped somewhat. I still was furious, but I could think straight again.

This prompted me to check my notification log. It usually was pretty useless, logging 3 XP with this skill, killing an imp, dodging an attack, that type of clutter. But it also logged resisting influences…and not doing so.

🖹

You have resisted the passive effect of the skill “human taming”.

You have resisted the passive effect of the skill “monster taming”.

You have resisted the passive effect of the skill “human taming”.

You have failed to resist the passive effect of the skill “monster taming”.

You have failed to resist the passive effect of the skill “human taming”.

You have failed to resist the passive effect of the skill “monster taming”.

You have failed to resist the passive effect of the skill “human taming”.

You have failed to resist the passive effect of the skill “monster taming”.

…

It went on for multiple pages and ended with:

🖹

Notice: All mental influences on you have been cancelled because: Guild officer on guild hall ground.

What was this skill, “human taming”? It didn’t really matter much with “monster taming” also in the mix. I wanted to turn into my monster form and rip Chloe apart; I felt so violated. Only one tiny word held me back: “passive.”

Gamma-10, help pages now! Does that “passive” mean what I think it does? Can she suppress it?

🖹

You’ve got a private message from SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-10: “Calm down, Jane. Passive taming cannot make you do anything you wouldn’t do after becoming friends with someone. And no, she cannot turn it off. She can learn how to actively suppress it with time.” Reply? (1) Yes. (2) No.

Friend? Ten, that felt more like worshipping the ground she was walking on. Check your definition of friendship.

🖹

You’ve got a private message from SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-10: “Confirmed. The stacking of two identical skills multiplied the effect. This is not intentional. Please stand by while we look into this.” Reply? (1) Yes. (2) No.

This made me calm down, as I had nobody to blame anymore. Maybe whoever had made the setting in the most sloppy and half-arsed way imaginable. A minute passed, during which I planned what to say later, then Ten contacted me again.

🖹

You’ve got a private message from SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-10: “The issue has been dealt with. Luckily this could be handled fully on the gamification side of things by amending the skills to be exclusive to each other. Chloe will receive a notification once time resumes. Livia and Geraldine will need to use the guild hall protection to get rid of the accumulated effect.” Reply? (1) Yes. (2) No.

That was good news. Still, this needed careful handling. If the others came down from the high of “friendship squared” like me, Chloe might not survive this. But I was still blocking the door, so…

🙚⚜🙘

“Livia, Sam, Geri, could you be good friends and do Chloe a favour? She must be starving. Could you run and get her a selection of snacks?” I asked, making myself even wider in the doorway. I could see on Chloe’s face hat she was reading her notification, keeping her busy.

My girls didn’t even take the time to answer before walking off at speeds that were just a little too fast for humans. I sighed in relief. I hadn’t been sure this would work coming from me. As soon as they were around the corner, I pulled Chloe into the guild hall.

“Upstairs with me, now. Talk later,” I barked and pulled her along. Towards Kinasteria and the guild members hanging out there, I dropped a quick “later”, passing them by.

I didn’t slow down until we had reached my office, where I dropped into my chair and brought up the room management. A single click was enough to reset my room back to only allow me entry.

I turned my chair towards Chloe, who looked somewhat confused. Confused, but also slightly afraid. So she had some guess what had happened? Good.

“For the moment,” I said in a neutral tone, “nobody can enter this room. So you are safe if I manage to calm them down when they come back and enter the guild. Mental influences on guild officers are neutralised here.” I gave her a couple of seconds to understand the implications.

“I…I didn’t know there was a passive effect,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I remained silent. That apology worked for the first 20 minutes, half an hour at best.

“And when I noticed it,” she continued, her voice wavering, “I enjoyed it too much. And I didn’t know, still don’t, how to stop it.”

That was…impressively honest. Still, I remained silent, only looking into her eyes. I didn’t really expect more revelations, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do now. My impressive 3-step plan had run its course.

“I’ll pay back all the money you spent on me. It’ll take me ages, at least two years, with my job selling sandwiches from a cart, but I will do it.” She sounded honest, which I found annoying. It would have been so much easier if she hadn’t. If she had denied everything and started a good catfight.

“You won’t,” I said. “Instead, you’ll concentrate on becoming a strong adventurer, earning enough system coins to quit your job, and perfecting your control over those skills, guild worker Chloe Manstomper.” I grabbed the mouse with my right hand, not taking my eyes fully off Chloe. Then I accessed the titles app and downgraded Chloe’s role to one I had seen as completely superfluous and inconsequential for my guild. I made her what the system called “indentured worker” and renamed it to “ancilla prima”—First maidservant.

Was that a punishment? To some extent, sure. But the main driver behind that decision had been to protect her. She had an incredibly powerful skill there, one that would work on all guild members every time they spoke to her. That meant that they would come under her influence for the foreseeable future, at least until she learnt to keep the skill in check. This presented two issues, one worse than the other.

For one, I doubted she would be able to hold the influence over all those people she didn’t talk to regularly. That mean they would return to normal and remember that they had acted weirdly. It wouldn’t take a genius to realise what behaving like a yapping puppy around a monster tamer meant. It was only a question of time until someone connected the dots and called her a “tamer” without the “monster” part. And then people would become afraid of her, then angry, and next, there would be a mob with torches and pitchforks.

On the other side, there was a real possibility that the power would twist Chloe, make her lean into it and exploit them on purpose. She already had shown signs of not being able to withstand the draw of that today. We could have a queen villain reigning over the city’s player population in no time if that happened. And then we would have to take her down, fighting our way through her thralls.

I couldn’t say what would be worse, but I didn’t want to experience either possibility. And that meant I had to take control over her. An indentured worker, as the system enforced it, was little more than a slave. They had to follow my orders, although only in so far as they related to guild business and guild tasks I assigned them. I also had to offer a way out by means of a quest or quest chain when asked. It still was something I was uncomfortable with, but I saw no better way out of this mess. There also was the small detail that she had to accept becoming indentured in her interface. But that had happened within seconds of me assigning her the role.

“Your tasks in the guild will be to support new groups both with advice and in the field during their first quests once you have reached level 5. You will also monitor guild members for signs of mind control, including from your own skills, and take steps to reduce or eliminate the effects if possible or inform me, or if I’m not available, another guild officer, of it when it reaches a severity that is more than inconsequential. While executing those tasks, you will not command guild members to act purely for your self-interest and will keep suggestions to that effect to a minimum if those guild members are likely affected by your skills. When in doubt, ask a guild officer on guild hall ground to relay those requests. In no matter, shape or form will orders I give you spill over into your personal life outside the guild. But, as a personal request, I do ask you not to enslave non-player humans.”

She nodded, but I knew from reading the role description earlier that those words were burned into her mind. She wouldn’t be able to forget a single one, and the system would force her to obey them. And that reminded me of something I had forgotten.

“Small amendment. You are free to join a group as a member, but you need to inform them about your human-taming skill’s passive effect upfront. When out on group quests, you don’t need to honour support requests unless you want to. Same for the time you spend doing tasks in your civilian life. Within your group a higher level of skill-induced friendship is acceptable, as it is unavoidable. Within reason, that also goes for commands, especially during fights. I still expect you not to use your group members as meat shields, but I also don’t expect you to throw your life away to avoid potentially putting them in harm’s way.”

This could be twisted any way into the next century and back, but that’s why I had insisted on her telling them upfront.

Next I opened the system store and bought a set of visitor chairs for my office. They were quite pricey if you converted the coin cost into pounds, but I didn’t have the patience or time to go out and buy chairs from a human store.

“Have a seat,” I told her, pointing to the new chairs. “I’ll smooth out things with my fam.” My CCTV screen told me they hadn’t left the entrance hall, or however we now referred to the prior shop floor, probably because Kinasteria had told them where I had gone with Chloe, and they knew they wouldn’t be able to follow if I didn’t want it, but they did not look happy.

Was there a smooth-talking skill?

🖹

You’ve got a private message from SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Gamma-10: “You already possess fast-talking and fast-thinking skills. They now have levelled up enough to be System relevant. Should I add them to your skill list? Reply? (1) Yes. (2) No.

Um, yes?”