Two Days Later

Dean surveyed the pool of lava obstructing Illudis' gate from Ash Glass' crystalline observatory. Two days past, when they'd first developed the bore-shuttle technology, Dean had been one of the first to step foot on Gray Land; the others had all been engineers from the consortium that built the bore-shuttles. Dean planted a city-seed, then watched as it tried...and failed...to set root on the noxious planet.

In fact, in the beginning, nobody could leave the shuttles: the air was toxic. For a time, Dean had been genuinely worried that colonizing Gray Land was an almost insurmountable obstacle.

Luckily, their Dragon had left a present: a prefabricated city of crystalline glass and obsidian rock. In addition, he'd placed boon pools at the entrance to the city that bestowed the biological mutations required to breathe in Gray Land's harsh air. The city was visible even from the low-vision terminals of the bore-shuttles, being only fifteen or so miles away from the entrance gate.

Even as Dean contemplated his imminent departure to Illudis, he marveled at the sight of Ash Glass: beautiful, organic, glassy spires and buildings pervaded. Everything appeared to be made out of spindles, almost like the city were a crystallized, impossibly-dense spider web. The city's remodeled Anima was exquisite, its domed, intricately-patterned ceiling refracting light like a kaleidoscope. The storm-gray sky prevented the glass from shining too bright, instead shrouding the city in gloom.

"You'd think this city would be a nightmare," he murmured to himself. "Dark, sunless skies, little vegetation, unbreathable air..." He sighed, then drew his eyes up to the clouds above. "If anything...it's calm." At this point, calm was the last thing he sought: he didn't have time for calm, nor did he desire it: after founding city-seeds on Earth, Lime World, and now Gray Land, Dean had received an astronomical 900 path points per month.

He'd been incredibly shocked at this when he visited Ash Glass' boon pools a day after the city's creation. Upon entering one of hundreds of processing terminals, a recently-arrived squirrel had given him the news. She had first placed her bushy tail on his arm, as was customary, and he had reciprocated the action by creating a standard dragonleaf tether. Once connected, the squirrel...did whatever squirrels did to check path points. Then, it told him his current balance.

"3,203 path points," she announced, voice effervescent and eager. "That's the most I've ever seen!"

Dean, somewhat overwhelmed at the sum, could only gulp and look awkwardly to the side at the quasi's outburst. 'She doesn't recognize me?' On second thought, he realized that this wasn't surprising: relatively few people and quasies had seen him directly, and his "photogenic self" (as in, horrendously un-photogenic self) prevented people from recognizing him from photos. 'I guess spearheading the advance outward still isn't enough to be a full-on celebrity here,' he thought mockingly.

"Wait..." the squirrel's spherical, black eyes blinked rapidly. "You...you're the Knight!?"

Dean flushed, then coughed lightly in embarrassment. "Yeah, that's me."

"Oh wow! No wonder you have so many!"

Dean had just looked at her confusedly. "What do you mean? Why would I have a lot of PP?" Dean actually knew very little about the path point system, seeing that understanding the mechanics of COTD's economy was relatively low on his list of pressing priorities. That was exactly the kind of issue he delegated out.

Sure, Dean had used path points, but he had never visited an appraiser squirrel to find out just how many he possessed. Dean would simply just...use path points until he ran out.

Except he never did. Which was, consequently, the reason why he was getting his PP appraised now.

Over three thousand truly was an unprecedented number; even Dean knew that. He wanted to know exactly why they'd grown so quickly.

"Why would you..." the squirrel looked at him with a complex expression. Due to putting many of his infinite PP into paths dealing with perception, Dean could tell that the squirrel thought he was a complete moron but didn't want to say anything given his status. "Have so many PP?"

"Yes." Dean gave her a tired, dry look: he couldn't be in the know about everything, damn it.

"Well, you have the city founder bonus," she noted. "Holders of city-seeds accumulate 300 PP per month. Moreover, conquering existing cities steals these PP and provides a conqueror's initial bonus. Finally, a founder bonus goes to anyone who grows a city-seed for the first time on a planet."

Dean gaped. "So I'm getting hundreds of PP passively every month?" Dean paused, then began to consider the world-shaking implications of the squirrel's second statement.

"But wait, there's more!" the squirrel cheered, sounding awfully similar to an infomercial. "The more points you invest, the harder it becomes to improve through path points alone. However," the squirrel held up a paw, "If you control a city-seed, your individual progress will improve at a much-more-rapid rate, allowing you to reap more improvements from fewer path points!"

Dean had felt a cold pallor come over his face. "Excellent," he replied crisply, relying on his speech and social behavior enhancements to mask his mounting astonishment. "Who has access to this information?"

"Oh, just us squirrels...but I couldn't just refuse the Knight, so I made an exception this one time and let you in on the details!"

He left in a panic; as he reached the Spire, he felt awful, like his stomach was a nest of agitated bees. He had looked down at his hands, at the various messages waiting for him on his computer. He then plopped down onto one of the Spire's ash-colored couches, sinking into its fabric.

'If anyone finds out that they'll get path point bonuses from conquering cities, aside from the normal city-holding bonuses probably everyone is already aware of...' His eyes darkened with anger, his pupils contracting. He slammed a hand on the arm of the couch in fury. "Just what the hell are you planning?" he hissed, as though Bath could hear him. His anger subsided as quickly as it came, replaced instead by a resigned sadness. "Why would you do this?"

That had been a day ago: now, Dean was prepared to enter Illudis and find out in person just what Bath was thinking. After finalizing a few details, appointing a leader to rule in his absence, and readying a fleet of needle-thin bore-holes, he'd be off.

--- Warning: the rest of this chapter rated X

Susan was sitting between David's legs, which were bent at the knee so that his feet rested a foot or so beyond her hips. One pair of arms pulled her rump into his groin, while the other pair were stroking her left arm and right leg, respectively.

"You're right," David murmured into her ear. "We really fucked up by leaving Kray City."

“Imagine what 300 extra points would mean," she sighed back, arching her back into his chest like a stretching cat. "Why are you bringing this up now?"

"Just thinking," he replied back. "Why don't we start over, form our own city-seed?"

Susan snorted gently. "We're only growing further behind, you know, now that we've missed two months' worth of bonus points," she pointed out.

"I didn't say steal," David laughed gently as he moved his right hand to her thigh. "I said we should make a new city-seed."

"How?"

"Though, come to think of it...maybe stealing a seed is easier."

Susan gave him a look. "How so?"

David grinned as his fingers drew circles on Susan's arm. "I mean, I haven't been totally idle," he murmured softly, his breath tingling in Susan's ear. "I've been reinvesting our points, hon."

"I know," Susan replied. "So?"

"We've had some excellent returns," he grinned, voice full of desire.

"Oh really?" Susan said, voice incredulous. "I thought you quit investment banking." She'd assumed it had been because he wasn't very good at it. 'I really don't know much about his past,' she realized.

David squeezed her ass with his first and second hands. "I quit," he began, voice soft and deadly, "because I believed in the COTD."

Susan turned her head sideways, so that her nose made contact with his. "David," she said softly, her voice breathy, "where did you work?"

David sighed, then moved in to kiss Susan's cheek. "Susan, I'm a middle-aged, unmarried, and at Goldman-Sachs. Use your imagination."

Susan blanched, though her cheeks quickly became rosy as David's third hand gravitated towards her left breast. She guided it along as she said, "So, you invested our PP."

"Of course."

"And you said we had excellent returns."

"Yes."

"Care to elaborate?"

David chuckled, this time drawing Susan into a passionate kiss. After their lips parted, he whispered, "300% returns."

Susan inhaled deeply. "And we invested how many points?"

"800 total," he answered, squeezing Susan's breast in precise, measured movements that would've torn the sensitive flesh to pieces before COTD enhancements.

"2,400 points," Susan gasped. "Fuck."

"If you really want to get a city-seed, I can sell off our shares and we can spend the points."

Susan looked him in the eye, then said, "Let's think about it some more."

Sensing an end to the conversation, David nodded his head once. Then, Susan began directing his fourth hand underneath his borrowed over-sized button-down and toward her exposed crotch. He began to finger her in slow, gentle caresses. Susan moaned, her eyes closing in rapture. The fingering, combined with his masterful squeezing of her breast, caused her midsection to rapidly ignite with passion.

"How are you not hard?" she asked accusingly. Right after, an involuntary yip forced its way from her mouth. At this, she finally felt David's member harden against her ass through her shirt and his pants. She laughed gently at that.

"What first?" he asked, his voice starting to shake.

Before answering, Susan manipulated dragonleaf with her currently unoccupied hands to awkwardly pull away his pants, exposing his lower body. Unsurprisingly, given that they were in their house, he wasn't wearing anything underneath.

Just the way she liked it.

"Ass first," she huffed.

Without replying--he didn't know if he could at this point--David lifted up Susan with his first and second hands, forcing her onto her knees and palms.

"I don't know how people did this without pain-reducing boons and healing," Susan panted in anticipation.

David just grunted in response as he began to merge into her, his engorged cock pressing against her tight hole.

"Start, damn you," Susan whined desperately.

"I love you," David managed to force out as he forced his member down her anus, stretching it as he went. Susan's back arched dangerously as her aroused body faced a new source of stimulation. Once he was far enough along, David rammed her repeatedly, riding her ass. With each thrust, the two of them grunted sharply. Without Susan's constitution boons and substantial PP investment, David would have ripped through her anus into...whatever lay beyond.

He continued to finger and knead her as he thrust, sending her on a quick ride to orgasm. After she did so for the first time, she moaned, "Out!"

David, familiar with his partner, happily obeyed.

"My turn," she growled. She then turned around and forcefully thumped David to the ground, her hands on his shoulders and her legs on either side of his hips. David's four arms were now free to pinch and prod her entire upper body, while Susan wasted no time in slipping onto his cock. She then began to rock into him, hard.

'If this was pre-COTD,' David thought breathlessly, his mind almost completely gone, 'my dick would've been torn off at the balls.' In fact, Susan's rough sex was starting to tear even his reinforced dick slightly, though David was able to heal the damage the instant it appeared.

After the two of them orgasmed several more times, Susan fell flat onto his chest and the two began to passionately kiss. Breathless and panting, the two stayed there for a while, content to lay with one another and be in the moment.

Investing, path points, and city-seeds were a topic for another time...perhaps tomorrow.