Chapter 020: Miracle

We almost got to the nearest tavern when Simea pulled me to the nearby alley - darker than the main street and without people.

The second she did I saw how red she was. Uh, don‘t tell me…

“I’m s...sorry, I can’t hold it anymore. That restaurant... it reeked so bad…”

Right. Many people ‘enjoyed’ waitresses in that building. Probably in the back-offices (if one could use such a word), but I wouldn’t bet anything that it happened only there. Oversexualized culture of Dragonspine Mountains made potential sexual stimuli ever-present. And night elves were gene-engineered to not miss a single one.

It was a perfect environment for a depraved night elf (meaning - average), but for Simea it was hell. For me as well, to a point.

Sigh. I’m not in a mood for this. It wasn‘t that far ago that we’ve done it, and I wasn‘t into doing it outside a locked bedroom. The idea of somebody walking into me during sex made me tremble internally.

“Turn around.” Let’s do it differently. She obeyed. “Hands on the wall, legs wide.” She did it as well.

I sigh internally and use my fingers. Firstly on her breasts, then also on her lower parts. I didn‘t even bother to take off her clothing.

She came almost immediately. She must have been really aroused. She came three more times (I took a while), despite my complete lack of skills, experience and enthusiasm.

Her legs gave up, which was the sign for me to stop.

“I hate it.” She said after she caught her breath. She still sat on the ground, with her arms and head on the wall, looking at the ground before her. “I hate it so much.” She sounded bitter. “All the time my thoughts drift to sex, everything I see or smell makes me horny, and if it goes too far I can think only about being fucked by something. I hate it. I ha…” She started crying.

Ugh. I guess from her point of view it‘s like being addicted to getting raped. Well, until now more like molested, but still.

I kneeled behind her and hugged her. She bends herself enough to hug me back, still crying. We remained in that position for several minutes. Then she calmed down, and the hug ended.

“I’m sorry.” She said while wiping her eyes. “I shouldn‘t…”

“It’s fine.” I interrupted her. “And if you feel the need to cry again and you need someone to hug you, call me.”

"…Thank you.” She looked down again. But this time with a faint smile. I helped her rise. “Damn. I guess I have to change my underwear.”

***

“I’m very sorry, but we have only one free room left.” The inn owner looked saddened by this. Probably because it could mean losing a client. “There is a market day tomorrow and people from local villages flooded the city. It’s unlikely that there will be free rooms in other inns, the only reason we have a place left is because a client suddenly left the city.”

Sigh.

“What do we do?” I asked Simea. She had a rather… displeased look on her face. Can‘t blame her. She knew what this meant.

“I’m tired. This was a long day. Let’s take it.” Eh. I’ll just sleep on the floor or something.

***

We entered the room we rented. Uh. The way the floor looked ruined my plan to sleep on it. It wasn‘t inviting at all. Low class inns, damn it. We’ll choose better accommodation from now on, I will seriously contract some weird disease by sleeping in places like that.

“Let’s sleep on the bed together.” Simea spoke, bringing me back from the world of my thoughts.” It‘s wide, I’m sated... and I’m not heartless enough to have you sleep on the floor."

So she guessed what I was planning. Hmph. She really is smart. Lacks some common sense, but is smart.

“Thank you for your consideration.” I chuckled. I took a quick peak at Nexus to discover that Leria and her team returned to the Hold and planned to depart to the city tomorrow morning. I told them to go the Herald’s plaza, the same place where I kept meeting Vasyr, where we planned to wait for them.

I shared the new information with Simea. She nodded. Then she looked at me like she expected something from me…

“Oh right, changing clothes. Sorry.” She chuckled. Yeah, well, sorry for never being in a situation like that. Uh.

I turned my back to her and took my sleeping clothes from Equipment. It was a rather simple T-shirt and pants that I choose because they were baggy, airy and comfortable to wear. They were also easy to wash - another ‘benefit' of Hyperrealism Addon was that you had to wash your clothes since they didn‘t clean themselves automatically.

Robinson probably laughed maniacally when he was preparing this Addon. Every single thing he added - aside from Nexus - made the player‘s life harder but more realistic.

Simea told me that I could turn. I did it... and laughed.

“What?!” Simea looked at me like I was mentally impaired.

“Sorry, I... that’s the most conservative clothes I‘ve seen since coming to Ambryxis.” It was a nightgown... if you could call it that. It began around her ankles and covered every single part of her body asides from her hands and head. You just had to cover her head and it would look like a hijab. Actually what Vaera looked in town was even more conservative, but I couldn’t help but tease her a bit. “I didn‘t even know they were selling something like that.” Besides it looked ridiculous on a night elf, but I decided against adding it. I might have some problems with etiquette, but I knew that reminding her of her problem was the last thing I should do.

“Lust Magic is further strengthened by how, uh, sexy you are. Clothing being an important part.” She rolled her eyes. “Which is why I dress like I do everyday. But the chances of something attacking me at night are slim, so I can wear whatever I want. And this is my preferred clothing.” She finished her answered and walk towards bed. “Alright, I’m going to sleep. Perhaps I’ll fall asleep before the fact we share a bed drives me crazy. Join me whenever you want.” I had nothing else to do, so I did it right away.

***

I was about to fall asleep when Simea suddenly rise.

“Something is wrong.”

“Wha…” Waking up from the half-sleep state was a pain. I had a tendency of falling into zombie mode whenever I didn‘t sleep enough or when I was violently awoken like that.

“I don‘t feel like having sex. I... don‘t have the urge to have sex with you.”

... It was so unexpected that I took a second to process it. When it happened, the revelation woke up me immediately and made me rise up as well.

“Say what?!” It was like... a vampire discovering that he didn’t want to drink blood, or... DFI discovering it doesn‘t want to screw players. It was absolutely unnatural.

Despite the room being pitch black I could see Simea fondling her breasts. The view that would give an average person a nosebleed (despite her modest clothing) filled me with... conflicted feelings.

“It works.” Simea ceased her fondling. “I can... uhm... make myself aroused like that, but there is no overwhelming urge and even this arousal is much weaker than normal. I... what happened?!”

“Check your status. Every submenu, one after one. Wait, Active Effects are most possible suspect. Look there. If there is nothing, search through everything.”

I could see her status. It glowed to make itself visible in dark. Too far to read details though.

“There is something new in Modifications.” Wh.. that’s weird. “It’s... a miracle?”

“What?”

“It says a miracle caused it.” So a direct divine intervention?! Gods could do that to Players?! “But it doesn‘t specify which god did it. It... suppresses the effects of night elf mental conditioning?!” Her voice was filled with disbelief... and growing happiness and relief. I couldn‘t blame her, it was a literal miracle for her.

For me as well, now that I think about this.

Suddenly she went silent. Even her finger stopped moving around status.

"... with you.” She mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Could you repeat? Louder, preferably.”

"…It says that for this... miracle to work we have to sleep together.” Now she was dumbfounded... and so was I. SAY WHAT?!

“Could you repeat again, because I think I‘ve lost you somewhere.”

“The mental conditioning will still increase my arousal and mess my life, but it says that it will be gradually suppressed to lowest achievable level for as long as I remain in one bed with you." She paused for a while. “The same bed or neighbouring sleeping bags. With you. That‘s what it says.”

“It… mentions me by name?" She nodded. "…This can‘t be Overtyrant‘s work. He is a literal free will fetishist, besides he attaches no strings to his actions. If it was his miracle, you would simply wake up as a human or beastman. Or he’d suppress it completely. Pentagram would never help you in any way unless they could screw you up that way, and this isn‘t the case. This sounds like one of Deviation’s stunts. She loves pulling stuff like that on unsuspecting people.”

…Though it was almost tame by her standards. Her average stunts were much more abusive. Like suddenly ‘infecting’ a farmgirl/boy with a zoophilic tendencies or making someone crave for their family members. Sure, she fired it against people already dysfunctional - White Pantheon and other gods protected their worshippers against such ‘miracles’, you had to commit major sins willingly and without remorse to switch the protection off. So such farmgirl/boy probably abused animals in a particularly cruel way, the family members committed many abortions… this sort of thing. And there were ways to undo such miracles. In most cases you had to pray to some good-natured god and show genuine will to repent for your sins/become a better person.

I shook myself out of the thoughts. Sometimes I think too much.

“Well, judging from what I know of the lore, Deviation concluded that our troubles are funny and spiced them up a little by giving you relief… while forcing you to sleep with me, probably with pushing us towards a relationship in mind.” I sighed. There was something else, but let’s not dig into that now. “World‘s Requiem was much less abusive.” And much more boring, to be honest. “Let’s go to sleep. If we look tired tomorrow, Leria and others will keep joking about the things we were doing at night to put ourselves in such a state."

I guess I’m going to get used to sleeping in one bed with Simea… damned AI.

***

I woke up next morning to the sight of a Simea lying beside me, with bliss written on her face. She was hugging her pillow… and, of course, she stole the entire quilt for herself, making me sleep uncovered. Thankfully, it was the middle of the summer.

If we will do this every night... we will need to fix a few behavioural problems.

Rather than waking her up I got out of bed silently and then snuck out of room. You could get something to eat in the mornings in most inns, at worse they made a cauldron of watery (but warm) soup and let clients eat it. This inn wasn‘t different.

I ate a portion of soup - surprisingly tasty for such a low-grade establishment - and then returned to the room, while taking another one with me.

I wasn‘t like one of those stupid anime protagonist that would open the door without knocking and then be surprised by discovering naked girl. Or girls. And get his face caved in by said girl.

I knocked. Loudly.

“Come in." I came in to see her in her still in the bed in her nightgown. She seemed to have just woken up, at least judging from her after-sleep stretch that gave me a nice look at her breasts, despite her clothing. She looked like a cat ready to purr to announce the world that it slept well and was happy.

I put the soup on the table.

“So, I guess you‘ve slept well." She rose up and smiled widely.

“Better than ever. I haven‘t felt so good since the first day in the game.” It was… nice, seeing her happy. Earlier, even if something made her laugh, she eventually reverted to being gloomy.

Her face is pretty when she smiles like that. Hmph.

***

We didn‘t have to wait long. Maybe half an hour after we moved to the plaza we saw Vaera (in his clothing that covered his identity making him look like a Muslim woman in a hijab) and Leria coming. I waved to them.

“So I assume something nice happened?” Leria spoke when they get closer. When I gave her a look filled with a lack of understanding, she gestured towards Simea.

“That’s a long story.” I answered, while Simea giggled.

“So, what are you going to name the child?” Vaera interrupted. I was still searching for an answer while Leria laughed.

…Ok, he got me there. And Simea, judging from her face.

“What happened to Lena? I thought she was with you.” Leria immediately assumed a pokerface.

“She stayed in the Hold. She isn‘t fond of Ambryxis.” Vaera answered in her stead.

“And what‘s the real reason for her absence?” Leria tried to maintain her pokerface so hard that it looked like a parody of itself. “Listen, trying to fool me by making Vaera lie for yourself is not a good idea. Try wearing the hijab instead of him next time. That might make your face less readable than an open book.” Overtyrant wasn‘t fond of lies. None of his faithful believers could lie, at least not to people that weren‘t evil.

“What’s a hijab?” Vaera asked. Well, it’s not something a citizen of Doomplace would know. We ignored him. Instead of answering, Leria sighed and confessed the whole truth.

During the short time spent in Tyrant‘s Hold yesterday evening Leria had an idea. In short - her attempts at rehabilitating Vila were bound to fail because of how little time she could spend in the Hold, trying to connect the shattered fragments of the girl’s mind into something at least resembling personality. She had to do something with it. And what idea did came to her mind?

Get Vila a permanent companion. Not someone of a sapient specie, of course. We were past the buying slaves period. Something much smaller. Namely, a cat. Then she rationalized the whole idea by deciding that the pantry in the Hold direly needs a small, furry predator to keep the rats at bay.

So they took money of common stash in the Hold and en route to the meeting place they visited a shop dealing in pets. And bought a cat. Adorably fluffy, calm and dignified, very accepting towards children... and a good hunter. It cost one hundred ambries because it was a cat enhanced by magic. With all the promised traits, slightly improved intellect and prolonged life. So many cats and dogs get enhanced that last two things overtime become a commonplace throughout their entire species.

They also had Lena carry the cat back to Hold alone. She wasn‘t in real danger since the lands surrounding Ambryxis were patrolled by Ambryxis military. Tyrant‘s Hold lied beyond the patrolled area, obviously otherwise it would be discovered long ago - but the fact that people from the cult were travelling there regularly protected its surroundings. After a few months things might return there, now that the cult was no more. For now, the worse thing Lena could run into was a weak beast or stray elemental. Nothing she couldn’t handle. Even with a cat.

“I’m angry. Very angry. Furious, even.” Leria looked genuinely ashamed. “No. I have no problem with cats. I love them, as much as dogs even. I’m pissed off because you tried to hide it from me until it will be too late to call everything off. In a most stupid way possible, it was bound to fail. I suspect that you started with the ‘let‘s hide it from him' idea for a prank, but you kinda went too far with it, hmmm?" Leria nodded. I sighed. “I only hope you picked a nice-looking cat. I hate those hairless ones.”

I have soft heart for pets, really. The fact that we were going to have a cat made all my anger quickly disappear.

***

“Sounds great!" Leria concluded after I finished describing the deal with Vasyr. “It‘s everything we need to continue our operations in Ambryxis!” For me it was more like starting them, lynching one random paedophile barely deserved the word ‘operations’. I guessed she was more optimistic about the whole thing. “Are you sure he can‘t be…. persuaded to join our efforts officially?” Now I have to shake her up. For her own good.

“Ehm, I hate to burst your bubble of optimism, but... no, it isn‘t everything. We still need money." As Napoleon said, to wage war you need three things. Money, money and money." Lots. Then it’s manpower. We direly need more strong people to fight for us, workers to restore the Hold, specialized craftsmen… you know, blacksmiths and metallurgists, alchemists much better than me, cooks to make us mana enriched meals, magicians to enchant objects, a long list of contacts to historians and so on to help us with analyzing stuff we discover in anomalies, and…”

“Alright, stop. I get it." Leria sighed. “We aren‘t ready to operate in Ambryxis. But yeah, I still believe it benefits us.”

"…professional bureaucrats to keep track of what we own and where it is, leatherworkers, bonecarvers, glassmakers… "

“ALRIGHT, I GOT IT. Why do you even keep telling me that?"

“So you understand what we are facing.” I shook my head. “We are outnumbered, out-gunned and, frankly, in a place that helps our enemy more than us. Also, the only reason Vasyr invested in us is because he believes we can staunch out his future political opponents, after which he can wipe us out easily. All he has to do is announce that we are white worshippers and voila. Locals will lynch us for him. Got it?”

“You… think?" She seemed shocked. Which meant that I’m going the right way.

“I don‘t know. He could as well be honest. But I would have to be the most naïve, stupid or suicidal person to wish to test that. We need to make sure that the Hold’s location is a well hidden secret. We need to hide how much we grow from him while using him as far as we can. For now, my plan is to test the secret way out of the city. We will need it if we wish to keep things safe as gates are observed by most political groups in the city.” The secret way was probably as well, but as it was supposed to be a secret, I hoped we could hide among all the anonymous people trying to use it. There were so many secrets there that our wouldn‘t be so visible.

Even Simea looked like she lost a lot of her optimism. Fighting evil is one thing, triumphing against it something different. Especially here. The sooner they lost their ‘everything will be fine’ approach the longer we can survive.

“Alright, I got it. I’ve learned the lesson.” Leria sighed and shook her head. “We have a hard journey ahead of us, and we should invite only people we are completely sure of and after thoroughly debating it with our entire group. Now, where is this secret passage?"

“In the slums.” I answered briefly. It would be a pain in the ass to use it, really. Let‘s hope that only metaphorically.

***

“It’s worse than I thought it would be.” Leria commented when we went off the main path through this slums district. I silently agreed with her. It looked and smelled bad.

Slums were rotting wounds in the body of the city, but Ambryxis - the deity - didn‘t care. And neither did the Masked Council. Doomplaces attracted extreme poverty like dead things attracted flies. It was easier to fight gravity than that fact. All the local government cared for was curbstomping any riots and ensuring that the rot won’t spread too far.

The only thing that Council was willing to maintain in the slums were main streets. The reason was simple - it allowed them to march soldiers through it in case of emergency. Especially if it bordered the city wall, leaving the district as an impossible to navigate mess of poverty, misery and hatred was a horrible idea, that would leave the city vulnerable to outside assaults. Because of that there were always one or two streets that were maintained. Still far beneath the city standard though.

For obvious reasons the housing standard was higher at main streets. There were houses there. Or at least something similar. The rest? Looked like horizontal version of Kowloon walled district. It smelled and looked horribly beyond comparison. Even the foul smell of Doom Magic, described as worst stench in the world, was worse only a bit.

“I’m warming myself to the whole ‘burn the world’ idea.” Vaera interrupted. “Nobody should live like that.” Yeah. It sounds even stronger when it is a mountain elf that said this.

“I’m sorry, but are you perhaps an adventurers?” Young human adult wearing rags, maybe up to twenty years old, interrupted us after we made few more steps into the forbidden wilderness beyond the main streets.

I doubt he wants to rob us unless there are fifty more like him in the surroundings shanties.

“Yes. What is it?” I think I officially become the one to speak with people for our team. Sigh. Others didn‘t even try to speak.

“Grandma wishes to speak with you.” Sounds like a leader of a gang… or some local community. Not like there was any difference in the slums.

Why not? We can at least hear her out.

“Let it be. Lead the way.”

NEW QUEST!

Type: Secondary Quest

Name: Troubles of Grandma

Difficulty: Iron I

During your brief visit to the slums you met a messenger from mysterious ‘Grandma’. Who is that person and why does she needs an adventurers assistance?

FINALLY A FUCKING IRON GRADE QUEST. I was beginning to think that they were rarer in Dragonspine Mountains than twenty years old virgins. At last, some quest we should be able to finish this month.

***

He led us through particularly smelly part of the slums, through a narrow passage surrounded by shanties. People we saw ignored us, either lying on their parodies of mattresses or keeping the distance to our guide. Some of them seemed to have a bright red rashes on their skin.

Interesting. Both the rash and the fact they seemed to be scared of our guide. Or, more likely, the mysterious Grandma.

“There is a disease running rampant through the slums at the moment.” Guide spoke to me. “The rash. It‘s venereal, so there is no threat to you unless you plan to get laid." The only reason places like Ambryxis the city - with their ever-present sex and drugs - could survive was the aura projected by Ambryxis the deity. It suppressed diseases, making them end faster, be less deadly and spread slower. It didn‘t work for really nasty things or for stuff like the common cold - former were too strong for the aura to fight them, while the latter were too weak for Ambryxis the deity to care about and waste magic power.

Because of that, the cities didn‘t go empty after first venereal disease epidemic. Syphilis and gonorrhea were a thing in this world as well. There was even something similar to AIDS. But all of them lasted for few weeks before protective aura of Ambryxis suppressed them - unless your health was bad and despite the suppression your organisms failed to fight them off. There were also a quarantine laws for newly arriving slaves, and to use local brothels you had to get to a certified doctor and get tested. They gave you a little badge saying that you were clean, and you were free to do whatever the fuck you wanted.

Because of that, the diseases like this were a problem only in slums, where most people had organisms ruined by unclean living, drugs and past illnesses, and few people cared about badges and things like that. And even here they were something occurring regularly rather than a permanent threat. It was similar in Glorastia, only it smelled better.

“No, I’m not interested. Any of you, perhaps?” I looked back at the rest of my group. They gave me looks of utter disdain for my very bad sense of humor. Welp. “I guess it’s a no then. Is it far?” I didn‘t feel comfortable going deep into this disgusting place.

“No, we are almost there.”