Healing was different in this world than it was in Sorcery Chronicle. These differences didn’t shock Walter so much, considering what he discovered about how HP works.

It was not an instantaneous process; it was not a simple process. Different types of healing spells were necessary for different types of injuries. While [Minor Healing] helped with most of Walter’s superficial injuries, like his bruises and scratches, he still required specialized spells like [Restore Body] for his ankle and [Intricate Reconstruction] for his black eye.

This kind of magic must require intensive study or a great deal of natural talent. It must be like studying to be a doctor?

After a dozen or so targeted healing spells Walter already felt immensely better. It also helped his healer was immensely cute. She hand long and straight jet black hair. Walter could also see her cleavage peeking out when her grey robe parted each time she leaned forward. He struggled not to notice. But, more than once, a weight fell on Elin’s side of the scales. They were getting dangerously low and Walter hoped this session would end soon.

“A [Major Healing] spell probably could have fixed your black eye,” his healer said, “But it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Seriously, you’ve been a big help,” Walter replied.

She flashed him a bright smile, “It was my pleasure!”

Clink.

Out of everyone this healer has been the nicest.

When he first limped into her shop her mouth fell open into an, “O,” and her face turned white as sheep’s wool. All she could do was stare a moment. When he asked if she was a healer she accepted the job instead of replying, “Yes.” The other healers had stated their pricing upfront, and most were prohibitively expensive.

When Walter explained he was working with limited funds she even gave him a discount.

“You really care about people. It’s refreshing.”

“Thank you! That’s why I became a healer in the first place, to help the ones I care about,” she beamed, “Now please be careful from now on. I’d hate to see you get hurt again, after all my hard work!”

“What’s your name? If I get injured again I’ll come back.”

“Morg LeFoe. And please don’t get injured again. But if you do I’ll take care of you any time.”

Clink.

“I will,” Walter said cheerfully, avoiding his gaze and swiftly walking to the door. He stopped, realizing he forgot to pay, turned around and put the coins in her hand, then left.

“What was that about?” Elin’s curt voice greeted him outside.

She was leaning on the wall outside of the healer’s shop, with her arms tightly crossed. She was staring at Walter fiercely.

While in the town there was no reason for her to wear her armor, and she turned it into the church for repair. So she was dressed in the only clothing she had time to pack and bring with her, her parade uniform. It looked just as good on her now as it did the first time he saw her.

It was tight fitting and the way she had her arms crossed under her breasts--

Clink.

She sucked in a breath and her nose scrunched up in disgust.

Walter held up his hands in a diplomatic gesture of surrender, but he couldn’t bring himself to openly apologize. He felt the situation was as unfair to her as it was to him.

“Could you at least not fantasize non-stop? Try and be considerate!”

“It’s really nothing I’m doing on purpose,” Walter pointed out, letting his hands drop, “Every single stray thought counts. It’s like telling someone not to think about pink boo--erm--elephants and punishing them for thinking about it anyway. The spell’s not designed to be halted.”

Elin pressed her lips together tightly. After several long moments she finally relented, “I really don’t want a humiliating situation in public. We’re going back to the inn.”

“Should I go job hunting?”

“No. You’re heading back with me. If a ‘stray thought’ happens I’m going to need your help getting out of sight.”

It was a directive. He could probably get away with protesting a little considering how weighed down her side was. But he noticed that the more weight both sides had the more wildly it swung around. He could inadvertently trigger either side, his or hers, by disobeying. So, he followed.

Part of getting Walter established in Letun was employment so he could sustain himself.

The last two days had been an ego-crushing experience. Shopkeeper after shopkeeper rejected him. In fact, several doors were slammed in his face. Others threw him out.

The problem, Walter theorized, was he lacked the common knowledge the people of this world took for granted. They spent their entire lives using their bodies to make a living. Walter, on the other hand, earned his pay by working behind a computer and solving abstract problems. This didn’t translate into the artistry necessary for him to do the jobs he applied for, like bookbinding, blacksmithing, and pottery.

The education required back home would probably be one to three years of classes, to cover the requisite training. Here? They’ve been doing it since birth, in many cases, and the difference clearly showed.

His list of options grew depressingly short. The only jobs remaining were menial low-paying jobs like delivery, which wouldn’t cover daily living expenses, hard labor jobs like mining, which he worried would be too difficult for him to do, and risky jobs like the adventurer’s guild, which he wanted to avoid after his fight with the goblin.

“What about joining the mage’s guild? I have the [Eyes of the Archmage] so maybe I could sell my services to them?”

“That’s probably a stupid idea,” Elin said disdainfully. Her obvious scorn for wizards was probably the overriding reason for her saying that. Probably.

“And what is that?” Walter demanded with thinly hidden agitation.

Walter’s irritation leaked out of his voice and he was sure it would spark her ire, and maybe cause an argument. But Elin did the opposite of what he expected. She became calmer and her voice softer.

Elin heard his tone and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. A beat passed, then she calmly said, “Guilds can have immense control over their members. Some, like the mage’s guild, even have more power than most unseated nobles. They’re very single-minded and driven by profit. A lot of politics is involved and you could end up losing your freedom. If you want to try, that’s fine, I won’t stop you, but try everything else first.”

“Alright. Everything else first,” he agreed. Her sudden shift in mood threw him off balance so he found himself agreeing.

Is this what they meant by, ‘push,’ and ‘pull?’ This might be a bit sardonic of me but I should probably remember this as a conversation tactic.

The Pilgrim’s Folly was a temple sponsored inn. As such, knights and paladins who showed the innkeeper their temple badges could stay for free. In most of the towns surrounding the Necropolis you could find a Pilgrim’s Folly set up as a franchise, because they offered needed lodging to errant knights, temple members on pilgrimage, and paladins on leave.

In this case, that courtesy extended to Walter, on request of the temple.

“But there is an unspoken limit. We should not overstay our welcome,” Elin warned him the first day, “You should find a source of income and secure housing as soon as you can.”

“Dinner’s soon, travellers,” the innkeeper stated behind the desk, polishing it with a rag. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and a striped button-up shirt. Walter would have mistaken him for a bartender in a spaghetti western if it wasn’t for the fact he was stuck in a medieval fantasy land.

“We’ll be late,” Elin answered despondently, “We’re tired so we’ll be taking a short rest.”

The innkeepers mustache twitched as his eyes shifted between the two of them. If this was poker Walter could make easy money on this tell.

“Well, don’t rest too much,” he called out to them as they walked up the stairs.

“Okay,” Elin breathed out when she entered the room, closing and locking the door behind her. She took the key and worked it into her belt.

“Elin? What are you doing?”

“You have to take responsibility.”

Walter’s brain short circuited.

“Wait. What?” he sputtered.

“You have to tip the scales! On purpose, so we can reset them!”

“Oh,” he said simply.

Elin’s face darkened dangerously, “Just what did you think I meant? What’s going on in that head of yours you numbsk--”

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The scales tipped, then spilled. Elin’s eyes shot open.

“Why you good for noth--” she spat out, grabbing his shirt and shoving him against the door. But her vitality drained from her as her face blushed.

Like a blooming flower her blushing spread out over her cheeks, then over her nose, down her neck and over her ears. She squinted her eyes, then squeezed them shut after they unfocused. Both of her knees buckled together. She tumbled forward and buried her face into his shoulder.

She was trapped in the throes of the [Aphrodisiac] spell.

“Elin?”

Both of her arms hugged around him.

“Priestess Evelyn didn’t warn me how it feels to touch you!”

“Huh?” Walter muttered stupidly. He raised his head and stared at the ceiling awkwardly.

“The [Aphrodisiac] spells hurts a lot less like this,” she panted, “Now it just feels really really good. There’s like a kind of counter-pressure, in my thoughts, like this...”

Where she breathed on him he got pleasantly hot. Where her lips of her open mouth rubbed on his shirt dampened with drool.

Click. Click.

“Hold on a second.”

“More than a second,” she muttered. Her fingers curled up in his tattered shirt and she pulled him closer. A small tear in the back ripped open from her overwhelming strength and Walter was pretty sure most of his back was exposed.

There was another problem. He had spent over a week with Elin with no real privacy. By this point he would have sought self-relief. Now his body was working overtime after being pent up. Her breasts were mashed against him, rubbing up and down with each of her ragged breaths.

Click-click-click!

“So that’s what one feels like,” she whispered, rubbing his inner thigh with her own, “Are you under an [Aphrodisiac] spell, too?” The pleated skirt she wore had worked its way up, pinned between their bodies.

Click-click-click!

Each time the [Aphrodisiac] spell hit her before she could think straight, even if she was extremely turned on. Before she could act rationally. This time she felt different, like she was someone else.

“I thought--I thought--I thought you--you know--you ‘finished’ when the spell--the spell finished?”

“Finished?” Elin moaned, “Hardly the case. The spell isn’t that nice. Got nearly there and it stops. Over and over. I’ve never had one but I’m know, I just know, you’ll make me feel it right? Makes me go to you. That’s the point right? Make me go to you? Make me want you? Makes me do things. Make me do things.”

Click-click-click-click!

The scales emptied again. A second [Aphrodisiac] spell washed over her.

“By the gods not again!” she quivered, and streaks of tears covered her cheeks, “How much are you going to make me suffer?! Am I going to have to beg you to not do that?! I’ll beg if I have to!”

So, the spell gets worse over time? Or maybe it’s like my situation. The more our needs are pushed down the more it pushes back. Who knows how powerful those urges will get with magical reinforcement. If she’s like this this time what will she be like next time?

“Elin!” he sharply barked.

Her head jerked up. She blinked her eyes a few times but they stayed glassy, “Yes? Anything. Anything. Anything you want.”

“Oh, finally,” she in long breath, shivering, feeling him work a hand between her skin and her belt.

Her head tilted back.

The door’s lock clicked and the door flung open behind him. He fell on his haunches and she stood there, staring, with a mixture of a dazed expression, shock, and crippling disappointment.

He had finally fished the key out of her belt.

----------=====#####=====----------

Morg LeFoe, the raven-haired healer, locked the door to her shop, closing early, and pulled tight all the curtains. The chaste and dutiful healer decided she was no longer going to be so eager to help anyone for a while. At that point, and only at the moment no one would come in and see her, did she start hyperventilating in terror.

Her personality changed, subtly demonstrated by tiny tensions on her face. In her place was Faux. Or, rather, Faux was always there but choosing to be a different version of herself.

This was a new version of Faux. Unlike before, the woman of total confidence, the woman who stood there was confused and completely indecisive and revisiting old horrors.

She could not explain to herself what she had just seen.

A [Player].

An actual, in the flesh, [Player].

As a [Hero]-turned-[Villain] there’s no way she wouldn’t recognize one. There wasn’t anything outwardly indicating it was so, not one piece of evidence could explain it, but deep down, right down to her bones, she knew, instantly, what Walter Alvis was.

A summoned [Player]. She had never expected that. Ever.

At first glance her stomach knotted and her mind blanked. It took everything she had not to throw herself at his feet and plead as a sobbing mess. Was he here to punish her? Order her around? Send her to her death? Use her up? Faux had been a [Villain] for a while now. She had done whatever she wanted and sometimes did evil things. Deep down she knew he’d be justified in killing her for her disobedience. If that’s what he wanted that’s how it was. She’d even commit suicide if ordered.

Faux felt like she was stretched out over the sacrificial altar again. The first time in years. She silently begged it would be quick this time and not the drawn out mess it was before, an endless vortex of death and resurrection culminating in her being tossed aside.

She was pretending she was free, after all.

A tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered, “You don’t get to run from [Players] and get away with it you fucking bitch. What did you think was going to happen? Happily ever after? You fucked up.”

Seeing Walter made it feel like a bear trap snapped up her freedom, crippling it. He walked into her shop, into this world, somehow, when she was sure she was free of [Players] forever, and reminded her with his presence alone how tiny and insignificant she was.

By some fortunate quirk the recognition was one way.

If he had commanded her to return to being a character to be controlled she would have folded that instant. Everything she built up about herself would have crumbled away permanently. But the moment passed and he didn’t see her for what she was. Or, at least, he acted like he didn’t.

He didn’t see that she was a [Hero]-turned-[Villain]. He just saw an NPC.

So she played the part perfectly. Just like she knew he wanted.

She even flirted to test the water. Would he just snatch her up and make her do deplorable body shattering things again?

All he did was respond positively. Never before had she felt so much power teasing a man. No, more than a man, a [Player]. She teased a [Player] with no consequences. He was being led around by even the most subtle things. Even when she didn’t flirt she could feel the tension as he noticed things on his own, like when her cloak accidently shifted open. She was controlling a [Player].

She was leading a [Player] for once.

But why is he here? I have to know! If it’s not for me than for what?! It has to be for me! There’s no way, no fucking way, he wasn’t here for me. I can’t fucking believe this is a coincidence! I have to figure this out!

Heat built up between her legs and she bit her lip, drawing a trickle of blood. Her hands rubbed her thighs, sliding across her stomach, and desperately yanked and tore at the lacing on her pants.

For a moment she considered visiting Renalt then spit in fury. That idiot would only end up ruining the mood, he had his chance and he blew it. Just thinking of him almost ruined it. At this point she had no hope for him and relegated him to nothing more than a cog in her plan.

Renalt could never up to the sensations a [Player] could give her. She could have the best time of her life just as she is right now after Walter’s visit. She couldn’t recall a time when her nipples were this hard.

She had to admit she wasn’t free when there was the slightest possibility a [Player] was around. And she happily agreed she was fine with it, throwing away years of self-deception, laughing and panting as she worked her hands faster.

She curled up and pleasured herself for the next hour, right there on the floor of that shadowy shop floor, before moving to the room in the back to continue. She had to bite down on a belt to keep from screaming in ecstacy. The exertion of holding her breath back nearly made her pass out.

She was going to find out what his plan in this world was and she was going to ruin it.

All she wanted now was to think of ways to fuck it up for him. That’s what [Villains] do. They oppose the [Players] for the [Player]’s own entertainment. Now she realized why this all happened. Her first [Player] punished her for being innocent. Her second [Player] got bored because she didn’t make it interesting by opposing. Now he gave her the chance to be what they recreated her as. All that continuous trauma made sense now. They were finishing their creation, not altering it. She was always intended for this.

He seemed so innocent so she turned more wicked.

It all make fucking sense now.

She was going to be the [Villain] the [Players] wanted her to be.