It had been a month since Jack and I had returned to civilization. We’d spent most of that time just hanging around. We frittered away our excess wealth on old-world pastimes such as video games, television, and movies. We watched plays, went to bars, and the occasional nightclub, and ate good food in high-end restaurants. We pretty much just did what you’d expect a pair of rich youngsters to do.

Then as we were coming back home, after a night on the town, the guy at the front desk said,

“Sir, Ma’am...A message was left for you, by the good people of Rose-Boar Pavilion.”

“Oh, what was it?” I said. Already figuring that I knew what it was about. Doing my best to keep a merrily sloshed Jack on her feet.

“They wanted to let you know that the goods you left with them have been successfully auctioned off,” said the desk clerk.

“Nice...Thank you,” I said. Inwardly wondering how our goods had done.

“Good night,” said the clerk.

“G’night,” I said. Waving as Jack and I stepped into the elevator that would carry us to our suite within the hotel’s topmost floors.

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The elevators for the hotel were made of magically-enriched glass. The stuff was almost as durable as tempered-steel. This allowed the hotel to technically place its elevators on the outside of the actual building. Each elevator was thus installed in these neat glass towers that were built into the sides of the hotel. Riding up an elevator in this hotel gave one a stellar view of the entire city.

As you climbed higher and higher, heading towards the top floors of the hotel, you’d get to see the glitz and industry that made up Five-Fire City. A haphazardly designed city made of concrete, steel, and an almost decadent amount of ironwood, thanks to the nearness of the Bellgrave. A city that was home to hundreds of millions, with its stars dimmed by the countless spirit-crystal powered lights, and arrays. A city with a tangled mishmash of wide and narrow streets that were occupied by a mixture of foot traffic, beast-led carriages, and modern reproductions of old-world vehicles. A city where there were always airships, and flying swords, cluttering the sky.

The last thing one would see during the elevator ride would be one of the great infernos, the fires, that sat atop the city’s thick defensive walls. The fires were pretty things and each time I saw them, I found myself thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to live here for a while, just to be able to look out and see those fires in my wind. Each of the “five” fires was a dazzling, albeit thankfully muted, never-ending fire-work. The five fires that the city was named after were actually the exhaust let out by massive spiritual -energy siphons, and processing facilities, that were used to power the entire city.

Jack sobered up a fair bit during the elevator ride. At our level, our constitutions were such that we only got drunk if we really wanted to be drunk, and it required the expensive, magically-enriched liquors to even begin to get us there. Staying drunk was always a matter of being in the mood to stay drunk, and suppressing our metabolism and immune response.

“Woo, that last place we visited was pretty nice,” said Jack. Relaxedly leaning against the back wall of the elevator.

“You mean the strip club?” I said. One brow raised.

“Wait, that was a strip club?!” said Jack. Sounding shocked, and maybe still just a little bit drunk.

“You mean the place with the nice ladies and gents who gave us lapdances? Yes, darling. I do believe that was a strip club,” I said. Rolling my eyes and chuckling.

“Huh...Neat. I guess we can cross visiting a strip club off the old bucket list then...Their wings and beer were pretty excellent,” said Jack.

I tilted my hand one side and then the other.

“I still say the wings at the other place we went to last week were better,” I said.

“Hm, maybe...But the sauce at this place was to die for,” said Jack.

“Eh, I could take it or leave it,” I said.

Our floor arrived. We got out of the elevator. Then we made our way over to our suite. As soon as we were inside, Jack stumbled into me, which was definitely on purpose because even if she “had” still been drunk,(which she wasn’t), and even with the fact that as a mage, her physical stats were much lower than mine, Jack had been running through the jungle overgrowth for the last couple of years. Thanks to her training and her grimoire's ability to consume the stats of the prey she fed to the grimoire, her agility and dexterity had reached a level where she could do a jig on a fishing line, no sweat.

That being said, I still played along. Catching her as she fell.

“Careful there,” I said.

“Whoops...Well, thanks, tiger. So, here were are...Back in our room, and those couple lap dances got my motors revving with nowhere to go,” said Jack.

I smirked.

“I’m sure I can think of a few ‘hotspots’ we could visit,” I said.

“Oh? Tell me more, my sweet Jilbert’,” said Jack. Resting her arms behind my neck and gently pulling me in for a kiss. The first kiss was light and gentle. The kisses that followed were deeper, hungrier, affairs.

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We had to cast a reinforcement spell on the bed. The hotel already purchased high-end furniture made out of high-end materials, out of the expectation that some of their clientele would be cultivators who’d put the furniture under superhuman levels of stress. But, Jack and I went at it, like continents trying to occupy the same space. Sex for us often started off, highly energetic, but would inevitably wind itself down to a very grindy, plate tectonic, affair. Slow but with an immense amount of force, pressure, and heat involved.

We called it quits as the first of the morning’s light started streaming through our bedroom’s wide windows. With our physiques, we could have gone longer, much longer. Our current record was roughly a month. A record set two, or three years ago, during our honeymoon phase. It could have been two months, but then some stupid deranged spirit managed to force its way into our camp’s defenses. So we had to stop and teach the monster why roses are red. As for now, well, we had stuff to do today. So, Jack and I got one last “Oh” in, and then Jack rolled off of me. Covered in sweat and other things.

Jack immediately fell asleep as she hit the bed. I got out of bed to shower and do some other stuff that I’d been planning to do today, before I learned that we needed to stop by the Rose-Boar Pavilion. I’d gotten to a point where I didn’t always sleep. Some nights I just spent “clicking”. Using up my potential to either increase my stats, or increase my attainments with a particular story.