Lust cheered up considerably, but still stayed within her stern librarian persona. “Excellent choice. I am glad that you understand the idiocy of taking those other pathetic offerings.” Maybe her librarian persona had a bit more scorn built into it than he had previously noted.

“Nah, Flashback was a definite option, but Return is, as you stated, perfect in its simplicity. Also, you presented it as a challenge, so I can crow to the heavens that I am the best when I figure out how to upgrade it. It might take a while, but I’ll figure it out eventually.”

The goddesses were all rather numb to Dix’s outrageousness by this point, so they just shrugged off his latest idiocy. Crossroads, just smirked. He didn’t think Dix could do it either, but he knew the man had more of a chance than most. Dix simply didn’t think like other people, and the god knew that figuring out Return would take a new perspective.

With the librarian fading away as Lust turned back into her Jessica Rabbit impersonation, she said, “Now that that is out of the way, we should talk about my gift for you. Rather than a skill, I am going to give you a title, Lusty. It makes you much more attractive to others in a rather sexual way. If nothing else, it should make it easier for you to get information out of certain people, as well as help keep you sated. I’ve noticed that you are almost as bad as I am in that regard.” Her laugh was a low, throaty purr that stroked down your spine like silk.

Shuddering a little from that rather intimate caress, Dix tried to understand his next gift. “When you say ‘others’, do you mean men and women?” At Lust’s nod and hungry smile he responded, “Yeah, that’s going to be a bit of an issue for me. I’ve got no problem with people liking the same sex, but it’s not for me. I’ll stick to just women, if there’s a way to modify that.”

She pouted for a bit, which was an interesting change from Beauty’s. Beauty’s pout made you want to give in and do what she wanted, or cuddle her in commiseration. Lust’s made you want to “make” her see things your way, either through a very vigorous pounding, or a little slap and tickle. He suspected that giving in to either of those women would end up with a man letting them have their way. Dix wouldn’t mind the first portions, but he was still stubborn enough to resist.

“Well, I can make it a different title instead, which only works on women. As a recompense for losing half of the population being affected, how about I teach you a few worthy skills, personally.” That last word somehow felt even better than her laugh. It was also the invitation he had known was coming. Originally he had been resistant to the idea of having sex with a goddess, but if any of them were prepared for doing so while keeping a mortal intact it would be Lust. And being personally tutored in a skill by a goddess would be a terrific experience. Not to mention he had a pretty good guess exactly what kind of skills he would be learning. At least this way he would be getting to Mantra without immediately having to find a way to get laid.

“That sounds perfect. In fact, if the other ladies want to help out, and can do so without hurting me, that would be fine by me.” This time his grin was a little more on the hungry side, but his wink was positively salacious. Lust’s returning smile could be more correctly interpreted as starving. Chance looked intrigued, but nervous, and Balance looked surprised to be invited. Beauty didn’t seem to have noticed at all. A quick readjustment of his position showed that she had fallen asleep on his chest. Somehow she was even more adorable like that.

Just as the excitement in the air started ramping up, it was abruptly crushed by a growl from Crossroads, “Children. Behave. Let’s at least get the first two gifts out of the way, so I can leave before you all start tearing each other's clothes off. Balance, you first.”

A little wave of a hand floated Beauty off to the side enough that Dix could stand up and meet up with Crossroads and Balance in the middle of the room. Crossroads put a hand on the shoulder of Balance, who rested her own on Dix’s chest. There was a visible wave of power that flowed through the two divines and into Dix, who shuddered at the feeling. It wasn’t bad or good, simply powerful pressure. It spread from his chest all throughout his body, something Dix was starting to almost get used to after everything that had happened to him since he died. This time it came in waves, crashing against his chest, then spreading out like ripples in a pond. Only, this time, Dix was the pond.

After a couple of minutes it was over, and Chance replaced Balance. This time she touched his head, and the power waves flowed right in. The lack of a headache was almost as surprising as the new knowledge. He was still trying to parse it, when Chance moved away and Crossroads stepped up to him. He looked up at the god just as he put a finger to Dix’s chest. “This is gonna hurt a bit, but you’ll need the boost if you’re about to do what I think you are.” And then there was pain. It wasn’t nearly as bad as any portion of having his race changed, feeling only like his entire body had burst into flames at once, while also being electrocuted. There was the added benefit of it locking his jaw shut, so that he didn’t wake up Beauty with his screaming. When it ended after only two seconds, Dix was panting, but still managed to croak out his thanks.

Crossroads just chuckled and turned to walk away. Stopping he looked back and said, “I’ll take Beauty with me, as our job here is done. I need to have a little talk with her about some things. Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. I will also help her out with keeping an eye on you, since I know she’ll be inconsolable otherwise.” He smirked as he said the last bit. It was obvious he was trying to play matchmaker, with a little bit of bribery on the side. Dix just nodded, he didn’t have the capability to do much more at the moment. With a last little wave, Crossroads and Beauty vanished along with his chair.

Dix managed to stumble over to the couch and collapse into it. The energy Crossroads had imparted to him was running wildly through his body. It felt great, but the acquisition of said energy had been difficult. He looked up when he heard the women approaching, seeing Balance and Chance. Anticipation started to build for a moment, before he realized they didn’t look like they were staying.

“Neither of us are quite ready for what you two have planned, but we’ll make you a deal,” Balance said. She wasn’t trying to entice him further, but she did look a little down about not being able to participate. “You can’t get your actual quests until you get the Trials done, so if you get them done in under a year and complete the quests, no timeline on those, in addition to the rewards we already agreed upon, we’ll also take you up on your earlier offer. Sound good?”

Dix was flabbergasted. He never expected Balance to agree to having sex with him. Chance had certainly shown interest, but he expected it wouldn’t come to anything. Beauty was her own issue, and Lust, well, she was Lust. The two of them hooking up was basically a given. With his mind awhirl with the offer she had just made, he almost missed the leash she had hidden. He would have to actually do his Trials, something he didn’t know anything about. His original plan had been to completely ignore them, thus skating out of the obligations they were forcing upon him. He hesitated for a moment, before deciding to man the hell up. So what if the whole thing was basically a giant death trap, he’d get to bang a couple more hot goddesses. Not to mention the Trials probably had some powerful gear, or skills to reward him with. Most likely he would have ended up doing them anyways, so getting an extra incentive just for hurrying was nice. Hopefully it wouldn’t end up with him dead again, but none of the three seemed to want him dead, just working.

Struggling to his feet, he held out his hand, “Deal.” With a shake that turned into a hug and added wiggling for his benefit, Balance stepped back. Chance stepped up and took it all a step further, wiggling turned to straight up grinding, and the hug to making out. When they finally broke apart, both were a little unsteady.

Chance quickly backed away and looked over her shoulder. She called out to Lust, “He’s all yours. Try not to break him, I want my turn later.” Blowing a kiss to Dix, her and Balance vanished.

Dix only had time to blink before Lust was on him, and then his mind went blank.

-----------------------

When Dix came to, he couldn’t see or move. He wasn’t even sure he was awake. For a little while he was certain it was just some sort of odd dream, or maybe it was how a coma felt. The voice that spoke some time later didn’t help things. For one, he had never heard that particular voice before. Secondly, as he couldn’t see, his hearing had actually seemingly improved itself. So, third, the screaming of the voice hurt his head. A lot. He actually felt like he was massively hung over, and had tried to scoop out his own eyes to stop the light stabbing him in the brain. The voice seemed to be screaming about visitors, messes, and interrupted laziness. With some consideration, Dix decided it had nothing to do with him, and was obviously a dream.

Shuffling back and forth a bit, he realized he was on a rather uncomfortable bed, that was also too short for him. He’d obviously gotten drunk as hell last night and hooked up with a girl living in the college dorms nearby again. He always enjoyed how eager college girls were, but dorm beds were definitely not made for a grown man. He suspected that they were made this small and uncomfortable specifically to force people out of them and off to class. Luckily for himself, if he was this hungover and had hooked up with a college girl, then it was either Saturday or Sunday, so he had no reason to get up. Grumbling to himself about jealous roommates screaming over not getting their own one night stand, he went back to sleep.

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Some time later he woke again. This time his eyes seemed to work somewhat. Everything was still quite blurry, but that was actually fairly normal for him, particularly after a rough night. Dix had never been a morning person, unless there was sex involved. Shifting around a bit he managed to get sitting up. Setting his feet to the ground, he planted his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands. Rubbing his face and head, he tried to remember where he was. He’d been through all of this a great number of times. Normally he didn’t get that drunk, but he was quite used to waking up in a bed and home he didn’t recognize. The usual reason for not recognizing anything was that he hadn’t been looking at any of the furniture for reasons other than bracing whatever girl owned it against so he could get a better grip or angle. Or just a convenient, and sturdy enough location to work through a round before eventually finding the bed.

Trying to sort his thoughts out to remember where he had been drinking, he was greatly confused. I thought I stopped drinking and going out after Elise disappeared. And wasn’t I going to hunt down Vincenzo? How did I end up…. His thoughts trailed off as he finally managed to get his eyes to focus, even if it was only the floor.

The floor, wherever he was, appeared to be made of solid stone, but not concrete. Or any other stone Dix actually recognized. It wasn’t perfectly flat, but very close, and also very smooth in places, as though it had been polished excessively by hand for a month, or by people walking on it intermittently for the last hundred years. Perhaps more importantly was that Dix could see the frame of the bed he was sitting on was also made of stone. Stone that had been carved into knots and geometric designs. At least he assumed it was carved, even without any obvious marks of chisels or hammers.

Painfully raising his head he looked around at the room he was in. The first thing he noticed was that there was no window, which he was thankful for at the moment, and what little light there was came from a small, softly glowing orb attached to the wall near the door. The door was the first thing that he noticed that wasn’t made of stone. It was formed with planks of some dark wood, not that he knew enough about wood to even make a guess about what type it was. The rest of the room was rather simple. In a way it reminded him of the room he had woken up in at the drunk tank, although it didn’t have a green vinyl bed bolted to the wall, nor was it made out of cinder blocks. Despite lacking those two features, the room was definitely a cell, although perhaps less for criminals and more for monks. The bare stone walls, and lack of anything other than the bed made the whole thing mildly confusing either way.

Still not feeling particularly human, Dix shut his eyes and let his head hang again, moving his hands to rub the back of his head. Feeling something odd, he opened his eyes once more, confused at the curtain of incredibly black hair that was obscuring his view. Moving his hand off his head to grab the hair, he stopped moving as soon as it came into view. Unlike his normal olive complexion, the skin of his hand was more gray with a mix of purple. As he stared at his hand like it was a snake about to attack him, thoughts began to trickle through his brain. Not really thoughts, more flashes of moments.

The stalk through the Vincenso estate. The blue light, followed by pain as he was shot over and over again. Strolling through the garden with Beauty. The flash of light off a goblin's teeth as it leapt at him. The hungry eyes of Lust. The pain of his body lighting up with more mana than it was meant to hold. Crossroads knocking back a drink. Laughing as hundreds of monsters burned, bled and died. A giant centaur made of lava. The agony of having his body torn apart on a cellular level. Balance and Chance offering to sleep with him. Kicking off a wall upside down while throwing a knife at a target.

Flash after flash of his life after death. The very thought of which brought back the idea that he really needed to ask Crossroads for the correct word for how to describe whatever it was he was doing now. A chance he knew he had missed for now, although he suspected that he wasn’t done dealing with Crossroads, or the goddesses he had met. Thinking of them brought back the memory of the deal he had made with Balance. One year to finish the Trials, not that he had any clue at all what the Trials were. He made a mental note to figure that out as soon as possible.

Having made some progress on moving forward, his mind calmed. Without the mass of memories bombarding him, he was able to sort things out and function again. Flicking through his memories of the last however long it had been since he died, he started putting a list together of the things he needed to do. Before he got any further than asking about Trials the door opened.

Standing in the doorway stood a surprised looking dwarf. At least Dix thought it was a surprised looking dwarf. He was basing a lot on the theoretically fictional writings of Earth to determine the short, stocky, bearded man’s race, but it seemed a fair bet. He was also relying on the theory of similar facial features and reactions to determine if the man or dwarf was surprised, again a fair bet. Surprised or not, the dwarf didn’t drop the tray it was carrying. After a brief moment, he recovered and walked the rest of the way into the room. Shifting his hands a little, some legs dropped out of the bottom of the tray and he set it down in front of Dix.

“Damn it, boy, ain’t you never seen a dwarf before? Stop yer starin and git to eatin. Daft fool.” Dix wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the fact that the dwarf really did appear to be using a Scottish accent, or that it spoke English at all.

As he reached for the spoon sticking out of the stew, Dix suddenly froze. Looking at the dwarf again, he asked the question that was most important to him. “Am I finally on Mantra?”

Chuckling, the dwarf responded with a decidedly different accent that Dix completely missed, “Well, Lust certainly did a number on you. You’re not the first, won’t be the last. To answer your question, yes, you are finally on Mantra.”