Warm sunlight fell upon a beach lined with soft, silver-white, sand. Clear blue water lazily lapped the shore in frothing white waves. Emily Yang lay topless on a massage table, while a muscular knight wearing the short-shorts and tied t-shirt of a cabana boy worked the mostly non-existent kinks out of her cybernetic musculature. The massage lasted for about three hours and when it was over, Emily sat up with a soft groan, and took a sip of the cold mai tai that sat waiting for her on a platter held by one of her pawn attendants.

For once in her life, Emily Yang was actually taking a vacation. She’d kind of had to, after botching the con she’d been running as “Victoria Norton”. That particular identity had blown up some emphatically that she couldn’t just switch to another false identity. Emily needed to go into hiding until the backlash faded, the world properly forgot about Victoria Norton, and the heat had cooled off.

Once upon a time, the only way Emily Yang could enjoy this kind of decadent luxury would have been in full-immersion VR. Even the wealthy in Lux-Aqua-Tempestas would need to be of the upper-crust, of the upper-crust if they wanted to relax in a non-artificial beach with non-polluted waters. Emily still couldn’t help using her synapse-registry to check that she wasn’t lying in a dive tank somewhere every few minutes. The whole situation was even more fantastical than some of the simulations she’d indulged in.

Other stores just knocked a small percentage off the purchasing prices and maybe sent out additional coupons and promos, when you joined their loyalty-programs. The Holst Store, on the other hand, gave you the option of purchasing your own miniature customizable world. They also granted you access to an expanded inventory, various additional services, and the ability to travel in between a set number of worlds that they’d deemed safe to offer travel services to and for.

Intergalactic travel had been a dream of her world’s people since before Lux-Aqua was called Lux-Aqua. The dream died off a fair bit when the stars changed, the bots nearly wiped out all organic life, and the blight appeared, but the presence of certain classic and contemporary sci-fi works, and the deplorable state of the world, meant most children and many adults still fantasized about going to other inhabitable worlds where things might be better.

For now, Emily Yang was content to lounge in the mansion that had been created for her, in her own private island, in her own little world. Later, though…Later, Emily felt she probably had some serious thinking to do. Even if Emily didn’t end up abandoning Lux-Aqua-Tempestas altogether, she could definitely see herself branching out a bit. Or maybe she’d just take more time for herself, more often, since it was no longer difficult to take a worthwhile vacation.

“Another drink, s'il vous plaît? This time a sex on a beach?” said Emily. Handing her empty glass to the servant-pawn.

The name of her drink-order reminded Emily that it had actually kind of been a while. She’d been too busy working to worry about that kind of thing, and it was hard to let someone in, when you were literally living a fake life. Emily quickly decided that this was another thing she’d try to rectify. The face of a certain logic-defyingly good-looking store-owner breezed in and out of her mind. Emily quickly denied the chances of “that” being a thing, because experience had taught her to be extra cautious of creating messy circumstances for herself, and her current setup was too good to risk.

That being said, she “would” consider dating again…eventually. Or at least, finding a hook-up whether paid, or the normal kind. Right now, however, right now, Emily Yang was content to just sit on the beach. Maybe she’d go for a swim in a little while. Despite being made out of metal, she could still do so thanks to certain special optimizations to her respiratory system that countered the weight over her chassis.

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“Um…I think I’d like the dark blue one with white polka-dots, please,” said 15-year-old Katelyn “Kate” Ingram. “

“Alrighty, one blue coat with white polka-dots coming up!” said the tall, blond, giantess. The sunny, dog-eared, woman slapped her forearm energetically as if she was about to go lift something heavy.

A few months ago, Katelyn barely survived an attempt on her life. Her parents had just died months before that. Then before she’d even reached the halfway mark to her parents’ memorial anniversary, the jackals were already out and looking to eat the teenager whole. With her petite build, round face, and large eyes, Katelyn might have come across like she was younger than she was, but the youngster was already somewhat wise to the way of the world, and her little heart had already been injured by so-called family friends urging her to put her family’s wealth into their care.

Just when she’d thought she properly understood who could be trusted, and who not to trust, a close-associate of her father tricked her into coming to inspect a construction site that her family’s company had been working for. Only for a killer-bot to be waiting there, to have a tragic “malfunction” that would have conveniently left Kate dead and her family’s assets up for grabs.

Fortunately, for Katelyn, life could be twice as surprising as it was disappointing. The dull executive from one of the company’s her family held shares in turned out to be this strange, kickass, mercenary-spy lady. Katelyn’s life was saved. Now the teenager stood inside a mysterious shop that she’d somehow never heard of. A store she could only barely find traces of online if she made a web-crawler AI work real hard to get “some” kind of results.

After visiting the Holst Convenience store a few times, Kate had learned that the shop was owned by a stupidly, good-looking, man, and a beautiful blond giantess. They had a clerk, soft-spoken, red-head who was often accompanied by one or two large stuffed animals for some reason. The shop sold tech that hadn’t been invented yet, and food that made the stuff that Katelyn’s own chefs' made look like freeze-dried microwaveable drek.

Also, apparently magic was totally real. That was pretty big news for Katelyn. She’d always heard rumors of semi-hidden mysticism that had been partially revealed after the disaster with the bots and the appearance of the blight, but the magical world was still pretty hard to get into even if you had money. Hard enough, that most of the world still had a portion of skepticism as to magic’s actual existence.

With her life still in peril, Katelyn had decided that something needed to change. Thus the girl frequently visited her new spy friend, who was apparently in hiding after blowing her cover by saving Katelyn’s life. Paying the woman to serve as a trainer and mentor. Also, Katelyn was using her troublesome wealth to try and become a witch. She’d never been very tech-savvy, but the girl “was” smart, and there was something about combating the technocratic corruption of her world with spells and magical artifacts that tickled her.

The beautiful blond giantess…Josephine…returned, holding a dark blue, white polka-dotted, raincoat. The coat was actually a magical artifact serving as a potent defensive item, and a witch’s robe. It all went well with Katelyn’s collapsible black, white polka-dotted, umbrella, which could serve as a spell-rifle, or high-tech sorcerous stave. The best thing was the fact that both items could transform into a pair of bracelets, or wrist straps, and the items would still be at least partially functional regardless of what form they were in.

“Here you go! That’ll be 180,000 credits!” said Josephine.

“Oh, okay, let me just shoot those credits to you…Oh, wait! Can I get that book I saw before? The one with the transformation spells?” said Katelyn. Ready and willing to pay, because her money needed to do more than just cause her headaches.

“Okie-doke! We actually set aside for you,” said Josephine. Whistling to have one of the pawns in the shop go fetch the mentioned book from the store’s back offices.